What comes in my way to writing every day? Can I change it?
Hmmmm, I think the first thing that comes in my way is being simply lazy. I can talk for hours together and describe vividly simplest of a thing but ask me to write and I am sure half of my thoughts will never see the day light. They just disappear at the back of my mind.
It gets even worse when I have to write academically. I hate it, that is the word. The reason I hate it is probably to do with the fact that I have almost convinced myself that I do not have ability to write academically. Those scholarly articles and long convoluted sentences studded with words that I have never heard. I have this trouble for many years now, most of my teachers have given up on me and even my bosses highly disapproved that quality in me. Here, in Leuven we were told the mantra of surviving academic world, 'publish or perish'. By that account I am already perished, I have never published anything of serious nature in my life. Will this blog be considered a serious writing effort? I do not know.
My second limitation in writing is that it is more like a story telling, describing great details which may be completely irrelevant. Recently I discussed my narrative style rather than the argument based or critical writing with my ghost. I aspire to be a teacher someday and we both worry that this way I will never make it there. May be I should change my profession in time rather than feeling disappointed having failed to realize my dream of being in academia.
Writing I think needs to be developed like a skill. One needs to be patient and persistent. One has to work hard on getting it right. I lack that patience. None of my assignments get read once more the moment I feel I am done enough to pass the exam. Just yesterday we worked on my messy references and i made a point that I should pay attention to it. In a way it is interesting that yesterday we were discussing about writing and the theme on Reverb 10 for yesterday was the same.
Last I think is that I get distracted with so many things that are going on simultaneously in my head. I am writing a paper and then suddenly I remember I wanted to read something else or had to run some errands. Because writing is not the best of my comfort zone, sometimes it feels as if I am looking for an excuse to run away from it. I probably need to take out strict time slot for writing and not allow myself to get away from it.
I can hardly do anything about the 7 years of my academic and professional life that are almost perished for lack of publications but the point now is what I can do to change the situation. I think I am in the right place, I have necessary assistance just across the border and i have enough reasons to feel inspired. I will soon be writing my thesis on ethical reasoning on 'Dying out of free will'. I have my another thesis just sitting there idle about women's experiences in long term marriages in India and I hope to turn it into a little book. That is my first little goal. I have all the assistance needed to realize this goal, all I need is taking the first step forward. I am determined to have a career in Academia (in spite of my innate fears of failing miserably at it) but i would try and fail better at it. I am going to read more inorder to understand how others write and even while reading I am going to make conscious effort to understand the central argument and how was it supported or refuted? I read things like stories again giving attention to descriptions which are probably just to support the argument and in the process i completely miss the argument. Thus I need to learn how to read correctly and systematically to get better at writing.
What else I could do to write better? I dont know. May be I will get more ideas for the same through the blogs of others. I am looking forward to it.
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