Sunday, August 05, 2012

Random links of writing productivity


  • Via Nicoleandmaggie, "The Chaos of Writing." "A sample: When I first started to write, I got into the habit of playing music as a background. If my bedsit was too quiet then the hyper-critical interior of my head would simply yell so loudly that I couldn't focus."
  • At Get a Life, PhD, getting your goals out of your head and onto paper. I've actually done this; it's all in a sweet Excel spreadsheet, which has a little column for "sent" items. But simply writing down that Chapter 15 will be done, as GaL,PhD suggests--ah, there's the rub. I have "finish chapter" on my calendar for the Laocoon chapter for July 7 and think I may, just may, have come up with a solution now, a month later. See how that works (or doesn't work)?
  • What Now has a good long post about writing-to-learn exercises that she participated in at a recent Bard College seminar. 
  • I just submitted a proposal for a conference, and--don't laugh--I've started drafting the paper already, since the materials are already at hand and in my head because of writing the proposal.  Efficient use of time or stellar procrastination technique? You decide. 

5 comments:

What Now? said...

Efficient use of time or stellar procrastination technique?

I am a HUGE believer in productive procrastination, avoiding the stuff one should be doing now by doing the things that don't need to be done until later. It's all work, and if one does this regularly enough, then the things that have to be done now have usually gotten off to a good start some time earlier when they were the thing that had to be done later. If you see what I mean.

undine said...

What Now, thanks for the vote of confidence, and I do see what you mean.

Dame Eleanor Hull said...

Jonathan Mayhew recommended that approach to conference papers, some time back, at Stupid Motivational Tricks. I did it with the conference paper that is now (woot!) an article just three months after I gave it. 'Course, I was planning it as an article all along. The advance work really helped.

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undine said...

Dame Eleanor--thanks! I knew I had read that somewhere but couldn't recall where. Thanks for giving credit where credit is due.