July 25, 2005
Random Musings on Writing
by Jeff Langstraat
I'm feeling guilty. I've written almost nothing this summer. Part of the guilt flows from a feeling that I've let Liza, and Lorraine, down by posting so little here; I feel like I haven't been carrying my weight for this site.
I've basically been working two full-time jobs this summer. The first was temping, but that has morphed into a teaching job (the agency I was temping at hired me to teach a class...more on that within the next week). The second has been preparation for my final comprehensive exam. I've been (re)reading Foucault, Butler, Lacquer, Herdt, Sedgewick....Some of it has been thrilling, some of it maddening (I truly have almost no use for psychoanalytic theory, so analyses of Freud and Lacan leave me thinking, "So, what?"). This combination has made sitting at the keyboard to write a luxury...one that I don't necessarily want.
Writing at CultureKitchen has been a fabulous experience for me. It's also been a little intimidating. Working, even at a distance, with folks who are professional writers, who have left the academy to pursue writing as a career, leaves me feeling (sometimes) out of my league. Even though I'm working my ass off for a job in the academy, and even though I have ideas for three or four books running through my head, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't know if I'll ever write those books. I'm a teacher before I'm anything else. Writing feels like a necessary evil. The fact that I'm sitting down to write this rather than finish reading Bodies that Matter says something about how painful reading Butler has been.
Writing for me is an act of sacrifice, not denial....I deliberately sacrifice myself in writing. I leave no part of myself out, for that is how much I want readers to connect with me. I want them to wonder about the things I wonder about, and to think about some of the things that trouble me.--Patricial Willams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, p. 92.
For me, writing is less about sacrifice than exposure. There is always the potential to expose something about myself that I don't want people to know, something that may potentially give them power over me. Thus, I'm almost always holding something back. Everything is selected for not only what it says, but what it doesn't say. Sometimes, I don't manage to pull it off. (I presented a paper in a media and movements seminar last spring that actually contained some information about my sex life--not something one usually put in academic sociological writing; I'd forgotten to edit it out when I cut-and-pasted that section from some personal writing I had no intention of showing anyone.) I worry about some of these things because of their potential impact--certain disclosures could give others information to be used against me. In this political climate, and being an academic who works in queer studies, that's a real concern, particularly as I prepare to go on the job market.
Another potential exposure is even more frightening. I'm constantly worried that I'll be exposed as a fraud. It's not that I'm engaging in any kind of plaigiarism or academic dishonesty, but I'm constantly worried that I have nothing to say, at least nothing original. My intellect seems to be on the line every time I write something for other people. I feel like everything I want to say has been said, or will be said, better. I'm constantly thinking, "Someone has surely said this already." That might be just my own insecurities showing, but it's undeniably there.
Obviously, these concerns don't bode well for an aspiring academic. In the publish-or-perish world of academia, someone whose primary identity is that of a teacher is less "marketable" than someone churning out article after article. I need to get off my ass and write more (that will become much easier once I'm back to my regular academic schedule). But, it also calls for a way to get over my hesitation and fears, or at least to write through them.
It also calls, though, for an identity shift toward seeing myself as a writer. That's the tough part. I'd rather just teach.
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Say it loud, say it proud!
Just keep in mind that academic writing is far less "revealing," usually, than what you do online. So keep your salacious stuff for your readers here and at dKos and BooMan, and save the dry academic stuff for the journals ;-9 And please, don't remind me about comps. I need to start reading up for mine, which will happen sometime this semester.
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Comment by: Jeff at July 27, 2005 05:52 PM
Enjoy the comps Michael.
Actually, I don't mind them so much. My first two were a breeze. Indeed, for my general theory/methods, the first thing I did was pick up the test; the second was to pick up a bag. I spent the weekend reading and smoking and had a pretty good time. (I did learn that proofreading and editing should be done without Mary Jane's assistance, though.) My experience is that the build-up is worse than the actual exam.
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Comment by: Michael at July 27, 2005 06:33 PM
I totally did not enjoy them for my first master's degree. (Eight hours of writing at a stretch is not something I recommend, but that was back in the days before computers were widely used.)
I haven't checked to see what the format is here yet. But I know I'm supposed to submit a bibliography to my two examiners, and they can tell me to read more if they think I haven't read enough. That's a task I'll start this weekend.
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Comment by: Jeff at July 27, 2005 08:11 PM
That's the format we basically use...negotiate a reading list (my list for this exam had close to 85 books and articles) and then the questions...we have Friday through Monday to answer the questions. My committee for this exam has worked it out so that I submit two questions to them, and they'll give me five back, allowing me to choose two to answer.
I can't imagine that sitting in a room all day writing would be that much fun. I'll be honest, though. With the full weekend to write I was still able to go out dancing a couple nights while still finishing the exams (and doing a pretty good job--other than proofreading).
My MA advisor had one of those sit-in-a-room-and-write exams. But, where he did his PhD, they had a ritual: the previous year's cohort would wait outside the room with a joint and a bottle of red wine for each of the people taking the exam. That's a ritual I could get into.
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Comment by: Michael at July 28, 2005 10:59 AM
I don't think I get quite that much latitude. It's a sit-in-the-room-and-write (or type) thing, and I believe I only have a few hours to complete it. Have to check that out--I'd much rather have it over a weekend. And I don't think I get any input on the questions, though I can look at previous ones that have been asked for some sense of what to prepare for.
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Comment by: Michael at July 27, 2005 03:28 PM