Portrait of the Scholar as a Young Man
So I have to write. Lots. About anything. And I have to rewrite. Lots. The thought frightens me.
My head's too full to really write [NOTE: no passive construction. Conversational style.] The thoughts just don't seem to come. My trusty aides de camp--EndNote--just isn't doing it today. Perhaps I'll sit here and wait for it to conjure up some ghosts of readings past for inspiraction�
No luck.
Instead, I'll take the example of Steven King and just write. Lots... About something; Anything... Really, anything at all will do...
No luck.
Another tack: I'll just write constantly until the small hand reaches the nine: twenty minutes of continuous writing. I wont even worry about punctuation or capitalization or even any sort of form ill just pull a kerouac or a cummings and just write until that minute hand reaches the nine and I wont even have to use punctuation or correct speling or nothing ill just write�
No luck.
The small hand's on the six. Five minutes down and I'm no closer to my required weekly exegesis.
There's always the pull quote option. Yeah, I'll choose something relatively obscure from the highlighted [highlit?] pages in front of me and spin something out. What will it be: "Greek-fed polysyllabic bullshit" [suppress snicker] or that one about author and discourse [as he switches screens to EndNote]:
"The first question, call it that of signature, is a matter of the construction of a writerly identity. The second, call it that of discourse, is a matter of developing a way of putting things--a vocabulary, a rhetoric, a pattern of argument--that is connected to that identity in such a way that it seems to come from it as a remark from a mind." (Geertz, 1988)
Now there's something to write about! The frustrated author working to create his masterpiece and struggling to write his own self into it. Maybe that's what I need to do: flee these cold Irish shores to Trieste where I can write and drink and reflect upon the world that I've left behind... or not. Perhaps I just need to flee this particular piece of trite writing for my bed.
The small hand's on the nine.
And I can rewrite it tomorrow.
References (courtesy of EndNote)
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives : the anthropologist as author. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
So I have to write. Lots. About anything. And I have to rewrite. Lots. The thought frightens me.
My head's too full to really write [NOTE: no passive construction. Conversational style.] The thoughts just don't seem to come. My trusty aides de camp--EndNote--just isn't doing it today. Perhaps I'll sit here and wait for it to conjure up some ghosts of readings past for inspiraction�
No luck.
Instead, I'll take the example of Steven King and just write. Lots... About something; Anything... Really, anything at all will do...
No luck.
Another tack: I'll just write constantly until the small hand reaches the nine: twenty minutes of continuous writing. I wont even worry about punctuation or capitalization or even any sort of form ill just pull a kerouac or a cummings and just write until that minute hand reaches the nine and I wont even have to use punctuation or correct speling or nothing ill just write�
No luck.
The small hand's on the six. Five minutes down and I'm no closer to my required weekly exegesis.
There's always the pull quote option. Yeah, I'll choose something relatively obscure from the highlighted [highlit?] pages in front of me and spin something out. What will it be: "Greek-fed polysyllabic bullshit" [suppress snicker] or that one about author and discourse [as he switches screens to EndNote]:
"The first question, call it that of signature, is a matter of the construction of a writerly identity. The second, call it that of discourse, is a matter of developing a way of putting things--a vocabulary, a rhetoric, a pattern of argument--that is connected to that identity in such a way that it seems to come from it as a remark from a mind." (Geertz, 1988)
Now there's something to write about! The frustrated author working to create his masterpiece and struggling to write his own self into it. Maybe that's what I need to do: flee these cold Irish shores to Trieste where I can write and drink and reflect upon the world that I've left behind... or not. Perhaps I just need to flee this particular piece of trite writing for my bed.
The small hand's on the nine.
And I can rewrite it tomorrow.
References (courtesy of EndNote)
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives : the anthropologist as author. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
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