Proof of Productivity
Posted 7 May 2009 in Writing by Catriona
I can see why uploading a series of photographs of a mysterious fungus that I found in the garden doesn’t quite look like I’ve had a productive day, but I have.
This morning, I mapped out the basic structure for a projected journal article on advertising and Victorian periodicals.
See?
(I realise the fact that the outline is pinned to my bookcase with a cocktail umbrella doesn’t really make it look professional, but I’ve yet to find a decent cork-board. For that matter, I don’t really have room for a cork-board. The cocktail umbrellas allow me to pin things against the bookcase without damaging the books themselves.)
(And they look festive.)
It may not look like much, this outline. But it’s the culmination of a fruitful morning’s thinking, shaping, and re-shaping—and a sign of good things to come.
When I started my Ph.D., I found that my writing process had leaped up a step while I wasn’t looking, so that some of my old writing habits were no longer apparent: I was producing fewer drafts, writing much better first drafts, composing more smoothly at the sentence level.
Of course, this just revealed more flaws in my writing, which had been hidden under the more obvious problems, but that’s the nature of writing.
One thing I did notice with the Ph.D., though, was that I’d developed a much better sense of when I was ready to write. I was no longer pushing myself to write early and become frustrated by and disgusted with the results. Instead, I’d read around my sources, write extensive notes, and obsessively cross-reference everything on index cards until a switch flipped somewhere in my head, and I sat down to write a chapter.
This unexpected shifting of my writing process—a legacy of, among other things, an earlier, much less pleasant degree—was one of the things that made my Ph.D. such a dream from beginning to end.
And I’m pleased to see that it’s hanging on. I’ve been letting the idea for an article on advertising and Victorian periodicals simmer in the back of my brain for some months now, while finishing another article (on mid-Victorian suburban theatre) and (slowly and painfully) writing a conference paper. And now it feels as though this paper is ready to be taken seriously.
It’s not yet ready to be written. I still need to complete a great deal of research, not least among the advertisements themselves. But I can see the shape of the article in my head, now. And that gives me a focus for my reading.
Random photography of fungus aside, it’s been a productive day indeed.
Share your thoughts [4]
1
Kirsty wrote at May 7, 10:15 am
Aah, I was only teasing : ) I did like the insight into your writing process here. I tend to have a really long gestation period too, perhaps too long. I’m certainly not as systematic as you seem to be.
2
Catriona wrote at May 7, 01:20 pm
Oh, I know! But it made me think about the process. And that was interesting in itself: I don’t write about my writing here as often as I’d like to.
I used to take much longer with writing—mostly in an absurdly intensive drafting process. So I deliberately worked out an entirely new way of working for this last thesis: I’d never been so systematic in my life! But it seemed to work.
I think the worrying thing is that it took me until I was 28 and on my third degree to come up with an effective note-taking and writing schedule.
3
heretic wrote at May 8, 03:43 am
The cocktail umbrellas thing is actually kinda cool. Kind of a lifehacker thing.
Interesting to hear about your writing process. I’m obviously not much of a researcher, so for me the cogitation process is less obvious. But when the idea is ready to be written, it’ll bubble up. Trying to force it makes it into hard work. It can still be done either way, but when you have the luxury of time it’s so much easier to wait for the right moment.
4
Catriona wrote at May 8, 04:11 am
While I don’t think my writing process is unique to academic writing, it is very much geared towards that type of output. So I’ve used “writing” a little loosely in this piece, because “writing” and “research” aren’t really separate concepts (as I keep trying to tell students). It’s not a question of first research, then write, and never the twain shall meet.
But as far as “writing” means “putting words on the page,” that’s how I’m using it.
The luxury of time point is a good one, Heretic. Once you move too far away from your timetable for completion—or you realise there’s a gap in your argument, and you’re going to have a research a whole new programme/book/author/era—that’s when the panic sets in.
But the reverse is also true of the Ph.D., though less so of other forms of academic writing: the luxury of time can work against you. A Ph.D. takes a minimum of three years. It has to, if you’re to make the genuine and original “contribution to knowledge in the field” that is a requirement of the degree.
It’s easy, especially in the early stages, to seduce yourself into thinking that you have eons of time to hand—too easy, when the work is also self directed. But that’s not all I mean by the luxury of time working against you. It’s also incredibly difficult to control the course of a single document over that long a period of time, to be sure that you’re not missing things, or shifting things, or forgetting things.
Since my students are often facing for the first time the unrelenting pressure of university assessment, I find it almost impossible to convince them that I get as real and genuine, as physical and exhilarating a sense of euphoria out of my writing as any novelist or poet gets out of theirs. It’s true—but that’ll only take you so far.
For me, I navigated the rest of the way on index cards and Post-it notes.