2022 second session, Week 5

 After another very difficult week in the "real world", we'd have to be strange creatures indeed to not be feeling a bit frazzled and concerned about the road ahead being difficult regardless of where we live.  I hope you're all keeping well, and not too personally affected by ::waves hands in lieu of even trying to start making a list:: everything?  We're a supportive, listening community here - as ever, you are very welcome to vent or share whatever is on your mind as part of the process of goal reviewing and goal setting this week.  

Our theme for this session, of taking some time to reflect and prepare for the work we have yet to do, certainly has wider application right now.  What I'd like to suggest as our topic today is what we might leave behind when we move on - whether you imagine that as just putting it down and not looking back, putting it into storage or handing it over to someone else to carry for a while, or actively cutting it off.  Is there a project which has lost momentum, or which needs more than you can currently give it?  Is there a role or responsibility where you need to either say no now, or start the process of moving on from?  Or is there some advice on writing, which others swear by, which is actually holding you back or encouraging the Bugges to swarm in the brain?  Or just a recurring thought or habit that needs a thorough dose of the Dame's Bugge Spray, and a decent burial under a nice heavy rock?

LAST WEEK'S GOALS:

Daisy

• Start house packing in earnest
• Arrange moving company
• DO literally anything on old paper
• Send off last batch of samples for analysis
• Grad student proposal edits
• Visit new place for planning

Dame Eleanor Hull

• - go to conference and have a good time
• - make travel preparations
• - recover from conference/travel

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over from last week)

• Finish up the loose ends of the training, moving into the revision phase of training.
• Get through a meeting-rich week.
• Finish the “listen to me sing my own praises” report.
• Read a few chapters on women translators.

heu mihi

• 1. Complete intro revisions (my share, for now)
• 2. Content edits for journal article
• 3. Buy and plant pachysandra if it's still available
• 4. Get new driver's license; take car in for oil change; order contacts; figure out prescription
• 5. Read and take a few notes on 3 articles for tenure review
• 6. Make progress on super long book that I've been reading for months
• 7. Exercise again
• 8. Read over resubmitted essay
• 9. Start planning short trips

Humming42 (carried over from last week)

• 1 stay current on writing classes
• 2 submit an overdue book review
• 3 sort out bookmarks for Tiny Project
• 4 continue working on media literacy class
• 5 a new one: drink more water

JaneB

• work no more than 20 hours 
• make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. 
• replenishment: back to basics - keep it up! Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily. The weakest area here was chores - surprise surprise - so this is a particular focus.
• pressure reduction: if I have room in the 20 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh. Add no more meetings
•  fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D AND write another job board game/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen

• -Finish syllabi, get materials/tech requests in, make progress on first module VILE content
• -Write on my own research each day (read for my own research each day)
• - (if permitted by gatekeepers), get draft grant complete
• - conference paper proposal in
• - 2 x yoga (livestream classes from home)

2022 second session, Week 4

Time is rushing past; how are we starting week 4? That's both a rhetorical question and a real one: how are you, this week, at this point in the session and the season? 

I'll save my personal response for the comments, but you can guess some of it from what I'm using for the prompt this week: Julia Cameron on the "creative U-turn." 

"Recovering from artist's block, like recovering from any major illness or injury, requires a commitment to health. At some point, we must make an active choice to relinquish the joys and privileges accorded to the emotional invalid. A productive artist is quite often a happy person. This can be very threatening as a self-concept to those who are used to getting their needs met by being unhappy. . . . We get more sympathy as crippled artists than as functional ones. . . . We are now on the road, and the road is scary. We begin to be distracted by roadside attractions or detoured by the bumps. . . . 

"In dealing with our creative U-turns, we must first of all extend ourselves some sympathy. . . . Typically, when we take a creative U-turn, we are doubly shamed: first by our fear and second by our reaction to it. Again, let me say it helps to remember that all careers have them."

Some of her exercises for recovery: name one of the U-turns you have taken. Then another. Then the worst one. Forgive yourself. Notice your resistance. Choose one, and list the steps you might take to mend it. Admit that you need help. Choose a totem, "something you immediately feel a protective fondness toward. Give your totem a place of honor and then honor it by not beating up on your artist child."

Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way, pp. 154-61.

Some of us are working on creative projects, and others on scholarly ones, but there have been threads in comments about blocks, resentments, and getting in our own way. I hope these ideas may help to work through whatever bumps in the road you're noticing. If these things don't seem relevant right now, maybe consider a period in the past when you dealt with something like this; think about how you got through it, and appreciate your recovery.

Goals for the coming week:

Daisy
Pack office, arrange trucking
Write reference/award letters for three people
Finish figures for old paper
Try again with new paper
Pack up rest of office
Copy edits for almost published paper
Help with edits for accepted with minor revisions paper
Meetings and emails about research money transfers

Dame Eleanor Hull
- 4 days work on conference paper
- 4 days work on fall grad class
- get new phone, new driver's license, new transponder
- 4 days weeding or other garden tasks
- finish Great Closet Cleaning

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Finish up the loose ends of the training, moving into the revision phase of training.
Get through a meeting-rich week.
Finish the “listen to me sing my own praises” report.
Read a few chapters on women translators.

heu mihi
1. Finish my part of the proofs of next journal issue
2. Finish reading academic book & book for pleasure
3. Content edits of revised article (for journal)
4. Work on revisions of intro to edited collection       
5. Work through ch. 1 and sketch out where it's going/second part of chapter

Humming42
1 stay current on writing classes
2 submit an overdue book review
3 sort out bookmarks for Tiny Project
4 continue working on media literacy class
5 a new one: drink more water

JaneB
1) work no more than 10 hours
2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff.
3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up! Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily
4) pressure reduction: if I have room in the 10 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh. STICK to one online meeting a day... social stuff is meant to be good for a person, but I find it extra exhausting at the moment, plus talking to people face to face makes it extra hard to say no!
5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D or write another job board game/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen
-Final set of marking completed
-Get sem 2 unit overview populated, generate syllabi and contact tutors
-Intentionally write on own stuff each day
-Contact internal and external people on grant application, get on site and start populating form
-Do the winter festival things on weekend

2022 Second Session, Week 3

So far we've thought about what kinds of writing we have ahead of us, both required and desired, and about what makes for a good writing experience.  Now let's take some time to reflect on the journey that got us to this point in our writing lives - this week, we can talk about how we were taught about writing - did you have a wonderful elementary teacher at school who made you believe you could write?  Did learning to pass exams and the pressure to achieve As cramp your natural writing style in high school, or did it help you develop the discipline you rely on today?  Did you take a transformative college class at some point?  or was it the refining fire of the PhD which forged your writerly tool kit? (in later weeks, we can explore what that tool kit is in a bit more detail - for now, we're still sitting on our rock or comfy bench or lounging in our hammock reflecting and remembering...)

As ever, do feel free to drop in the conversation whether you're setting goals this session or not - we'd love to hear from you!

GOALS FROM LAST WEEK (and hopefully all birthday-celebrators had or are planning a lot of treats):

Daisy

1. Do analytical stuff for last samples and send away
2. Do figures for old paper
3. Think about new paper and write any one section, short is ok
4. Pack up office or parts of office
5. Finish editorial for association journal
6. Dinner with another departing colleague

Dame Eleanor Hull 

1. 4 days work on conference paper
2. 4 days work on spring undergrad class
3. get new phone
4. 4 days weeding or other garden tasks
5. move stuff back into guest room OR tidy my study

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

1. Finish two end of the year reports–one on what a productive faculty member I am (which I hate writing), and update on statistics, which is more Excel than me, thankfully;
2. Mail the darn thank-you notes;
3. Take the to-be-shredded files to the local shredding day event.

heu mihi

1. Return to chapter 1: What was I doing again?
2. House stuff: Deal with plumbing issue (i.e. wait for the plumber), Goodwill trip, technology recycling
3. Read at least 1/2 of research book
4. Write letter of recommendation for former student
5. Have a nice time outside now and again

JaneB

1. work no more than 10 hours
2. make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff.
3. replenishment: back to basics. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day)
4. pressure reduction: writing out my rough week-by-week for next year (I have to do this to put the workload data for my modules in to the teaching tsar, since we team teach everything so loads are messy and complex...). Send two emails for the Teaching Project which are preying on my mind. And I think that's plenty!
5. fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D or write another job board game.

2022 Second Session, Week 2

I'll follow JaneB's prompt from last week with another one about your relationship to writing: what encourages you to write, or helps you to find pleasure in it? This might be physical (the right pen, a large monitor, a comfortable chair or sunny room), relational (an audience, company in the room, or solitude), or psychological/emotional (a recent acceptance, an intriguing problem or character). Or something else I haven't thought of, or a combination! Perhaps you'd like to think about a time when you wrote happily and fluidly, and what circumstances allowed that.

So far, we're a small group this time. We might still have some readers or former participants who would like to join us: please do! Or just stop by once in awhile to let us know how you are, even if the organization of weekly check-ins doesn't fit your needs at this time.

Last week's goals:

Daisy
Finish association reports
Open old paper to see what is needed, pick something and do it
Research accounting
Set up awkward meeting with current admin about moving my research money
Pack up something substantial in house

Dame Eleanor Hull
- 3 days work on conference paper
- 3 days work on spring grad class
- find out what documents I need for new driver's license
- finish weeding veg patch and plant veg/herbs
- move stuff back into guest room

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Create 20,000-foot plan for the session;
Write and mail long-overdue thank you notes;
Plan conference and remaining medical trips for the next month;
Outline my nascent blog post ideas.

heu mihi
1) Plan WH intro revisions.
2) Touch up paint in basement bedroom.
3) Finish two books that I'm almost finished with.
4) Finish stacking wood.
5) Clean upstairs windows.

JaneB
1) work no more than 10 hours
2) do something fun each day of the long Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend
3) make some lists for smaller things that fit under goals 1, 2 and 4 to pick from in future weeks.

Let us know how you did, set your new goals, and respond to the prompt if/as you feel inspired. I look forward to our conversation in the comments.