coldhearted scientist وداد

If you had followed me on Twitter today – and I do not “Tweet,” although I do “Facebook” – you would have seen that I: prepared class, gave class, prepared class, gave class, met with students, met with faculty, and did paperwork. All of this took 11 straight hours during which I ate 1/2 of a tuna sandwich on pita bread with mixed sprouts, drank 1 glass of water and drank 1 cup of coffee. Now I am home and have eaten dinner and made 1 brief phone call. I would like to go to bed and I should really grade papers, but I am going to go on a walk and then do my daily stint for InaDWriMo.

This post is for Kiita and anyone else who has read the book Professors as Writers and does not like it. I have just received this book but I notice that I do not need its advice. I am bone tired but I am about to start my writing day anyway, on a piece I am having real trouble with and do not have a clear of idea of who will publish, but that is on my plate. I know how to to make a schedule and stick to it, and I have this knowledge so well ingrained that the prospect of starting to write for the day does not cause me anxiety, it causes me to feel calm. There’s nothing to lose with writing – it has no fat, no alcohol, no nicotine and no carbohydrates (relaxation through imbibing), it does not destroy your knees (relaxation through running), and it focuses the mind, unlike relaxation through media.

Here is what I think about the Boice book. It is for people who do not like to write (I am not the first to notice this), but more than that it is for people who have never had a writing program. Therefore it may be really useful to people in disciplines other than my own. I notice that I disagree in practical terms with very little of what Boice says. However I find that he does not address the kind of problem I and several of my students have had with academic writing. The difference between me and people like me, and people in some other fields, is that I have had a writing program since the sixth grade, when I wrote my first research paper. (It was on the Revolution of 1917, it was 60 handwritten pages, and I consulted over one dozen books from the library of the local university, although my parent would not let me read Ten Days That Shook the World because it was too tendentious.)

I wrote much of this paper in 15 minute sessions during recess. My friends thought it was very nerdy to do this but I said it was my project, and I would return to playing volleyball at recess when it was finished. I wanted to keep my train of thought going. 15 minutes at morning recess, 15 minutes at lunch, 15 minutes at afternoon recess, and a bit of revision and reading in the after school … presto, I had a paper pretty soon!

The next semester it was the Panama Canal. In the seventh grade it was Witchcraft, and then Black Literature. Soul on Ice was not in libraries yet, so I had to ask for it for Christmas. I got it. I said in my paper that Eldridge Cleaver had gender issues and would probably turn Republican rather soon … I was right on the money. I should have published that prescient paper back then.

So my research and writing identity and methodology were established early. I can tell you Boice is right, you have to keep starting and keep on going, hold your train of thought, dare to say things, and move on through. I am even getting an adrenaline rush thinking about what I get to do after my walk. Like the police on television when they start an action, “This is it, now. It could be dangerous, so stay calm and keep your wits about you. Is everybody ready? All right. We’re going on in.” Like my students as they put boats in the water to go pull Katrina victims out of drowning houses.

Boice will tell you how to establish a writing program if you have never done it, or if you don’t like writing. The real problems, however, lie elsewhere. Hattie indicated to me a paper on problems of freshman writers which in fact addresses the issues professors have writing in a much more profound way than Boice. Boice is not speaking to actual writing, he is speaking to production, and these two matters, while interrelated, are not the same.

It took me 15 minutes to write this post and there has been no revision. I could be wrong, but these are my thoughts for now. You have to start writing in order to begin refining your ideas, and that is what I have done here, Robert Boice, you mothafucka!

Axé.