A Counterclaim on the Myth of Time

Before I begin on the Cameron reading (which I have so much to talk about, so sit tight) I think I should delve into the Hawley-Turner and Hicks and the NCTE assignments as well just to touch on those assignments as well. The purpose of updating the NCTE Beliefs About the Teaching of Writing, (which is explained by using the charming euphemism "sunsetted" instead of saying it was scrapped) is to update the 21st century definition of what it means to write and be a writing instructor. In a thriving digital age, writing has expanded to an even wider variety of forms than was previously imaginable and that requires some rethinking about what it means to be an expert on the written word. In an effort to diversify contextual understanding, it's important that students know the fundamental differences between a text message, a tweet, a vlog, and the typical five-paragraph essay that are used to measure proficiency in the Common Core standards.

 These new purposes include but are not limited to, "developing social networks, reasoning with others to improve society, supporting personal and spiritual growth, reflecting on experience, communicating professionally and academically, building relationships with others, including friends, family, and like-minded individuals, and engaging in aesthetic experiences." To teachers this means being able to broaden the focus from alphabetic traditional text composition and including visual representations and multi-referential links that support a claim but don't interfere with the writer's through-line as much as traditional citations do.

This is a wonderful thing since it means that English learners have more opportunities to understand opportunity to demonstrate understanding and those of us who are aesthetically inclined have additional stimulation that breaks up the singular flow of text. I think the biggest takeaway from this page is what is said regarding in and out of class opportunities. "Though critically important for college and career, the teaching of writing should be geared toward making sense in a life outside of school so that writing has ample room to grow in an individual's lives." It is these self-sponsored activities that become what the student will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

     

I think that it is valid to say that writing requires and takes on a certain richness and unique quality that comes from experience. Writing is a really profound task because it is in essence a gigantic research project. Instead of studying a specific topic though, you're studying the entirety of life and that is a big job. There needs to be a balance between the mechanics of writing which are essential to clarity and the substance of the writing itself. One thing that is critically important with young people is to take them out of what they know, which is mainly their phones. Teachers often find that students are so entrenched with mobile devices that they don't feel comfortable using a laptop or writing with their own hands.  They cling to what feels real to them and teachers need to show them there's more to the world than just what's in their palms. 

In chapter three of Argument in the Real World, I thought that it was great to have a format for what constitutes evidence in a blog post because that looks very different from any other form of writing. Without some kind of a structure, a blog can just become a series of dubious personal opinions disguised as facts strung together with some GIFS and hyperlinks. 

When there's a three-point bulletin it provides a simple way of verifying that the blogger is keeping on task. It's like packing luggage for a vacation: "Here's your claim, let me present some evidence, and I'll print out your warrant for you asap." While hyperlinks and charts can often be a bit of a crutch online, when done right a subtle and creative use of a source can add something special to a piece. As stated on page 54, "It is not just about how a writer inserts a link, but how she chooses to insert a link on a particular word or phrase that helps the reader to understand the argument being made."

Here's a video that discusses the differences between procedural and declarative knowledge, which was brought up in that subsection that I just referenced. It talks about the Turing test, which was developed to assess artificial intelligence. 

Keeping this whole humanity in a box theme in mind, I want to talk about the Cameron reading that we did. She had a lovely picturesque intro and that was very pleasant. She had me strolling along with her until my eyes wandered onto, "Writing goes much better when we don't work at it so much. When we give ourselves permission to just hang out on the page," (Cameron, 3) That's when I came to the conclusion that this reading was going to make me angry. Like really angry. So I took a deep breath and steeled myself for a lot of feelings. 

I HATE it when people say stuff like this. It just boils my blood. Now I love to write. I write recreationally, but even when you enjoy it, writing is hard. Reading is something that I can, "make time for," because it doesn't require the massive cognitive workload that writing does. When I picture my mind getting ready to write, it's getting on a hard hat, overalls, and a good set of steel-toed boots because it's going to be a slog to stay 100% focused for more than an hour. I'm a person that needs to bounce back and forth between tasks to not lose steam. By not having constant attention on a single task, my mind can wander during the rest period and generate new solutions effortlessly. When you're talking writing a book, this can lead to some issues. 

Working on a sustained project is not something I can just devote little snippets of time to. If I am unable to block out a significant amount of time, I know I will not be as successful as I would have been if I could go at my own pace. The key is momentum. If I'm just going at it piecemeal then my train of thought is shot and I have to get myself back into the head space of where I was when I began the undertaking. There's a lot of anxieties that people have about writing and I don't agree that they should just be swept under the rug for the sake of getting something accomplished. 

Right now I work most days from 5 pm to 11 pm. That's six hours (six and a half if you count closing and cleanup). I also don't have a car so I have to rely on public transportation most of the time, so that's an additional three hours added to my time that is not free for my own use.  That leaves me with 14 hours in my day to devote to anything that is not work. Let's say I would like to sleep as well after  I've arrived home at 1 am with my feet aching and in need of a shower. On a really lucky night that means I'll be sleeping from 2 or 3 am for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours depending on whether or not my diurnal household has decided to be extra noisy. When I do in fact have free time, I have chores to do, social relationships to attend to, events that I would like to attend. I am not going to cloister myself just to have some finished product. To me it's not worth it if I'm just going to be depressed at the end of it. 

The "mythology that writing is a torturous activity," (Cameron, 6) like all myths, is reaching out to explain a phenomenon that is observable. What I want to know from someone who believes this works is how is shaming someone into doing work constructive? This type of pull yourself up by the bootstraps thinking is going to alienate writers that are comparing themselves to other people. Just because Julia has, "out-of-town guests coming in, a meal to cook, horses to feed," etc, and she puts writing before anything else does not mean that's realistic for everyone. People have jobs. the unexpected happens. Just because someone else is a superhero and can write while juggling a full-time job and three kids does not give them license to say that someone else is just a lazy bellyacher because they struggle. Not everyone is a Stephen King or a J.K. Rowling. Rowling even had writing fatigue during Order of the Phoenix when there was a three-year gap in publication dates. 

To tell a writer that they must not love writing if they don't do it on a timetable is a gross over-simplification of a complex matter. However, the most problematic part of the reading was trailing right at the end when Cameron touts Laura's declaration, "Frankly I think I was depressed and writing got rid of my depression." That is rich. I can't imagine a more naive and ridiculous thing to say. Depression is not something you can wave away using simple activities. Sure there are management techniques, but tell that to someone who has a chemical imbalance or seasonal depression. Unless the world stops turning on its axis, I'm always going to have seasonal depression when I don't have enough sun exposure. This is an immutable fact. Not to mention my Lyme disease symptoms which are heightened in the winter months, which causes depression depression because my body feels like it's falling apart. 

So don't tell me that you know what's best for me because only I can make that determination. I just spent this whole morning working on this post just to get it right and that's all I'm probably going to get done today. That's okay. I'm content with it. I don't have boundless amounts of energy. As Chunk Wendig so eloquently puts it, the writing life can be, "passing pumpkin seeds through your urethra hard." 

Acknowledging the fear and the difficulty is important because it's the only way you'll get past it and achieve greatness. There's all this fear of missing out that people seem to have when it comes to writing, like something really terrible will happen if you don't do that screenplay or start that novel right now. Time is a myth in the sense that it's a human construct, but on the other hand, it's also a real standard that people are held to. I don't write as much as I'd like to because I'm not Emily Dickinson. I have a life and I am not a workhorse.