The monumentality of it all

I’m in the process of overcoming major writers block (hah – I originally had “major” in italics, there, but decided that italics just aren’t enough to describe just how far entrenched in the world of writers block that I really was!), and I’ve just realised something.

I thought I knew nothing about this. I thought I hadn’t done enough reading (and let’s face it – I haven’t), and I thought that I couldn’t write because I just haven’t put enough effort into research. But that’s not the case. I couldn’t write because I was approaching it from all the wrong angles. I was trying to write about blogging from an objective perspective, which is really difficult because I am a blogger, and I’ve been a blogger for such a long time that I really can’t divorce myself from this and look at it through impartial eyes. I am a blogger who is writing a PhD on blogging because it’s what she knows and relates to and lives through every day. I live through the things that I write about, and I write about the situations I live through.

Another thing I have discovered in the past few hours is that I have actually gained an immense amount of knowledge over the past few months, and yet I’m still just a tiny little person all rugged up in thermals, holding an icepick, on the tip of the biggest mofo-ing iceberg you’ve ever seen. And there’s a sharp drop down to the icy waters below. And there’s no harness. And there are man eating polar bears on top of the iceberg. And Megatron is buried, frozen, deep within the depths of the iceberg, and he wants me for dinner (once he thaws).

And that, my friends, is why it’s so challenging to sit down and write.

Distraction for the loss…

All I have to say is this:

Writing is really hard. Too much information in my head, can’t get it out coherently, and I have no real structure (ah hah – maybe that’s my first problem! Write out a plan…).

Procrastinating is really easy. How is this fair?

Update: Have Foucault, will travel.

Foucault has been got; the reading begins. I quite like Foucault, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps I will be able to enlighten you (and more to the point, myself) some time this afternoon after having buried my nose in The hermeneutic of the subject or Technologies of the self or Self writing. Or maybe I will be none the wiser.

On a side note, I’ve managed to write something today that I am actually quite happy with for the first time in five months, and which actually sounded somewhat like a coherent piece of pseudo-academic writing. I say pseudo because there were no references, and the threads tying it together were sketchy, and well, quite frankly, it was written by me.

On a further side note (perhaps the upside? Or the downside? Or the inside?), I had a strange experience this morning in which I felt very much like I was in a fishbowl – but more on that another time.

Inspiration does come, sometimes!

I’m feeling really good about my research today. I’m settled into my new workstation (in the room next door to my old workstation – already a much more social atmosphere, though my desk is covered in dust! Great spot, though – I can’t see the door from here so I don’t look up every time someone comes in!), I’ve got my parking permit, and I’m actually doing some thinking/writing. I’m confident that I’ll manage to churn out a few pages to send off to Supervisor M by Friday – which will be the first time I’ve managed to email her something when I’ve promised it. Normally promises of written work result in me suffering from immense writer’s block and doubting my abilities as a researcher.

Why, I ask, why can I not possess the same ability to write in an academic sense as I do to write in a blogging sense? Perhaps this is something I need to explore in my research? I rarely suffer from writer’s block (hah – I just wrote “writer’s blog”. Shit. GET ME OUT OF HERE!) when I’m blogging. Or rather, if I do, I’m not so aware of it. I just go on blogging hiatus for a few days until it passes – and then I generally overcompensate by posting three or four times a day. Maybe that’s my problem – I use up all my good ideas for the week in one day.

Anyway. Back to research. I’ve found a handful of new blogs this morning that I <3 – some of which will be read for the purposes of research exclusively (such as this Walter Ong blog), and others that I will read half for research, half for fun. I definitely need to bulk up my Google Reader-charged blogroll; I get so frustrated when my favourite bloggers don’t have ten thousand new posts for me to read each day (har har – maybe I should post more myself? Maybe I should expect less of my bloggy peers?). More blogs will mean more reading… which will undoubtedly mean more online time wastage… but it will make for a happier Erin.

I’m going bowling tonight (hah! My Wii bowling record is 204… I will not be replicating that in real life, I can tell you now!), but if I wasn’t I would definitely read some Ong, I think. I’ll have to put it on the list for tomorrow night. I need to invest in a bedside table so I can read in bed – because goodness knows that Walter J Ong makes for wonderful bedtime reading.

But now: more writing.

Chapter outline: Writing as technology

The idea behind “writing as technology” lies in the fact that writing is a tool, something that is not instinctive but rather that has been developed over time to serve a purpose. People have not always written; indeed, Walter J. Ong in his text Orality and Literacy laments the fact that oral tradition is suffering at the hands of the written word, because people no longer tell stories; instead, they write them down. Plato viewed writing as an abomination; unfortunately his greatest flaw was that he wrote this down.

Viewing writing as a tool sets it up as something to which we should devote considerable thought. If writing is not instinctive but rather learned, then it is something that a person must choose to employ. I can’t help but think of writing as an outlet, a way to empty some room in the over-crowded brain – as though there’s only so much that we can internalise, and whilst the spoken word is forgotten, the written word is persistent and remembered.

Why is this important to my research? Well, as a long-time blogger, I’m particularly interested in the ways in which I have come to know elements of my personality and identity through the words I have written and the topics I have explored during my years of blogging. Through writing, I discover passions of which I was not even aware. As I will discuss further in the Voice chapter, writing has enabled me to understand the way in which I think, and the tone of voice in which I “speak” (and yes – speaking can and does include writing). Writing, and the comprehension of the written word, has for me been vital for the unraveling of self that has contributed to the person I am today. Without writing, I’m not sure who I would be. The added thrill of blogging is that, generally speaking, one’s written words are available for anyone to read – and to criticise. Writing causes me to stay true to my own beliefs, but yet a crafty employment of words and tone can enable me to not so much censor myself, but to bury the truth of a situation under many layers, so as not to expose too much of who I really am. However, this in itself is quite revealing.

Keeping a blog is monumentally different to writing a book or an article or even keeping a diary on paper. The words we use, the topics we explore, the way in which we represent ourselves comes out in a blog because despite its public nature, a blog is intensely personal, and there is a connection direct from the soul to the fingertips and to the eyes of our readers. I can type almost quicker than I can think, it sometimes seems; could it be argued that to keep a blog is to hack into one’s own subconscious and allow a steady stream of self to flow onto the computer screen? And then to allow that stream of subconscious to be absorbed and indeed picked apart by one’s readers? Is the fact that a blog is public, the very thing that keeps the writer honest and open?

Further exploratory reading: literacy, writing as technology, communication, self-reflexivity, written word