At our last book club meeting we read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. It was an absolutely beautiful, unexpected story. In researching Ann Patchett, the author, I came across another book she wrote called Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face, a memoir about Lucy's life in the aftermath of cancer surgery that removed a part of her jaw. Since I was so mesmerized by Bel Canto I decided to read these two books, starting with Lucy Grealy's memoir and then reading Ann Patchett's non-fiction book about their friendship. I finished them both in a few days.
There is much to say about these two books, about love & friendship between two women (how I miss my close friends!), about the emotional, intellectual play of two writers, and simply about the work of being a writer. The everyday nature of writing for Ann Patchett, the divine inspiration and frenzied struggle of writing for Lucy Grealy. The role they played for each other, mentoring, inspiring, and pushing each other.
In my work, I look for divine inspiration where I am swept up in the ectasy of writing and creating. That rarely happens. But that is what I keep wanting (reminsicent of my post on passion in one's work.) I am torn between just getting this master's done, and creating a work of inspired art. This desire to create art, I know, is false in so many ways. First of all, it is form of procrastination, but most clearly it is just wrong -- a masters in educational technology is not art. It is, as hickcity reminded me in his comment, a career move. This is what I have to remember -- and I just need to get it done. Ann Patchett I learned is the writer "ant", day by day she plugs away, and creates beauty in her words.
Whether or not I create truth and beauty in my work, what matters at this point, is just finishing. I cannot turn this into a Nicole Brossard essay. The one paper I never finished writing in my undergraduate career was a 20 page paper on Mauve Desert, a book by Nicole Brossard, a Quebecois, feminist, lesbian writer -- in translation from French -- of course. I tried to write that paper, make it insightful and amazing, only to realize that I had nothing left to say. With angst and time I wrote myself into silence; I can't let that happen here and now.
There was a part in Ann's description of Lucy where, in order to finish her memoir, Lucy had to have deadlines imposed upon her, and have noise and chaos in her life creating pressure to write. I think I have a little of that in me. Work, school and New York created the perfect context for me to work -- albeit unbalanced and unhealthy. Palo Alto is just the opposite -- very little pressure, no real deadlines. I need to create a pressures and deadlines for myself, which I've tried to do in the past by creating reading timelines. Those only partially worked as I didn't focus on the core of the work -- the content of the design.
Applying for for graduation in the spring will create the desired deadline-induced anxiety and stress. I think, also, I need to just write the thesis about my project, and then find a way to create my project. It's a little ass-backwards but it may get me out of this rut by writing the ending first. I also need to get rid of one last nagging requirement and get certified in Java -- another deadline and stress.
Also it helps to get back to the routine of writing in the mornings --before the brain has not been numbed by the minutiae of life. So I begin again. Wish me luck.
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2 comments:
Good luck!
I've heard of the ABD folks here at UNC who see their dissertation as their magnum opus, which it isn't. Maybe 1.5 people will read their dissertation. It's just another product in what will be a long line of products, just bigger and nastier than most.
The key, I think, is remembering that *you* are the product of your education, not your thesis. The thesis is just the visible evidence of whatever changes you've gone through.
I remember lots of fiction-writing tricks we can talk about: write what interests you first and put it in order later (you're not writing a mystery novel after all), set a ridiculously low daily word-count (say, 10 words) and increase it incrementally (so you are playing a game you can win), write it in longhand first, etc. Creating a morning ritual and maybe talking to the thesis before you start would help; if your thesis knows it has power over you, it will use it :) Time to befriend it.
The tough-love approach would be to say that it's ok to want to feel inspiration and passion, but you also still have to do what needs to be done to finish your thesis. And not every task you do will be worth expending lots of passion on.
My gawd, I could blather on all night. Once you find your way in, you'll make it the rest of the way, I'm sure.
And I was sad to read how you miss your close friends.
I think it is a good reminder that I am the product of my education, not my thesis. This I must remember. thanks, rani
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