Session 2, week 3

Greetings all!  This is an odd time of year when different universities are markedly out of sync; it was fun reading about how some TLQ-ers are starting their summer, but makes me very aware of how long there still is to go for my context (and how much teaching/administrative work stuff needs to happen in the summer in the UK, sigh).  It's also very odd to be seeing some of the students who were new during the most remote-heavy parts of COVID getting ready to leave us - it feels impossibly far back in time, but also as if they just arrived a few weeks ago.  On top of that, summer weather is suddenly here in my part of the UK, and it's a Bank Holiday Monday so a long weekend, both of which make me very reluctant to work even though I need to!  We're all also dealing with other transitions, processing the loss of EAM and other loved ones (it's been a hard year so far), living in 'interesting times'...

These sorts of unsettled, transitional times are something I know writing helps me process - writing as thinking, writing as a means of emptying out my head and seeing what is actually in it, writing as a way of working out what I actually feel and what echoes of past experience and mental furnishings are flavouring my reactions to the moment.  This is writing with no intentional public future - it mostly happens in a scratch notebook or journal, and sometimes it distills into a poem, but often ends up in the recycling pile or on the fire before the day is out   However, when things are unsettled, I can be particularly forgetful about writing, or struggle to get myself to do it - I know it works, but actually DOING it doesn't always follow on from knowing I should and will benefit!

For this week's prompt, lets think about the tools we use to keep ourselves writing or to bring us back to writing when we've drifted away - whether that's a habit like a particular time of day or week when you always write, an environmental factor like a particular drink or cup, or a choice of sound, or a place where you work, or a refresh of some sort, like switching mode from screen to paper, clearing off your writing space, a literal or figurative thinking cap, new supplies (my inner child is convinced that what I really need right now is new supplies...).  

LAST WEEK'S GOALS

Daisy

1. Two conference talks (write and give - hahahaha)
2. Write and submit small grant application
3. Write and give a bunch of reports for association stuff
4. Talk to lots of people at conference and have fun

Dame Eleanor Hull

No goals set

Heu mihi

1. Read over proofs of article for collection
2. Make more progress on ch. 2--trying to get the draft in reasonably good working order by 5/31
3. Enjoy the outdoors--irises, lupine, and day lilies are blooming; the May apples are peeking out from under their umbrella-leaves; my late-blooming lilac is about to; and the sweet William should be in full glorious color in a week or so
4. Allow myself some flexibility on routines. Treat them as menu options rather than requirements.
5. Get ready for parental visit this weekend
6. Make 5-10 pages

Humming42

1. Get to ¾ completed for Boredom
2. Wrap up Spring!
3. Outline conference presentation for Squares
4. Finish reading current review book

JaneB

1. self care. baselines again - recording what I actually do, making some brainstorming lists, and sort through the Pile On The Chair and the Pile In The Hall.
2. Researcher. Focus is Wish-we-never-started project - at least 5 hours of work. Also at least three "small jobs" (there are 5 or 6 on my rolling list).
3. Teaching: If I do quit the MAB then I have marking to occupy my time! On top of that, contact my summer-only MSc project students, make a summer list.
4. fun. hopefully play D&D this coming weekend (this one was a no-go because of the dread exam season for most of the players), and work on the 'Lithrops' blanket.

Julie

1. Maximise time in different set of archives Monday and Tuesday (I'm now in Burgos, and thinking of Susan especially, as it's full of people doing the Camino).
2. Claim expenses for trip.
3. Upload photos and write up notes before I forget what everything is.
4. Get ready for holiday next week.

Susan

1. Finish almost complete task that was officially due on Friday.
2. Sort out reading assignments for the book prize
3. Be kind to myself and to my brother and sister.

Session 2, week 2

 Session 2,Week 2

Ok, first time posting and a little nervous in case this doesn't work!

The photo is inspired by JaneB's post last week reminding us that writing should be fun. I took some time in the afternoon last Thursday, when none of the archives were open, to go for a walk round Toledo, found a little garden with a cafe, and sat and wrote. It's been a while since I did any writing in different settings and enjoyed it, so thank you Jane for the prompt.

This week's prompt is partly inspired by Dame Eleanor's tribute to Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, which mentioned among other things her blogs on writing. I'd like to hear what kinds of writing, or writers on writing, you find inspiring. This prompt also comes out of self-interest, as I haven't actually read many writers on writing and think I should. The closest is probably Virginia Woolf's diaries, which have some great passages on writer's block, on how it feels when prose is flowing and how different kinds of writing - keeping a diary, writing reviews - helped her as a novelist. I'm actually reading Stephen King's On Writing at the moment, and am not that impressed yet, but maybe there's better to come. And I was introduced a year ago to a podcast, In Writing, where writers talk about writing - where they write, routines, what works for them etc. But I'd love more, if people have favourites.

I sometimes find styles of writing inspiring, which is harder to explain. I love Sarah Moss's books and find there's something about her prose and the way she can describe quite everyday stuff like routines energising, if that doesn't sound weird.

Last week's goals:

JaneB

1) self care. this week's goals are about setting baselines - recording what I actually do, and making some brainstorming lists of different things that might be useful to try, or worth doing, or just need to be on a list I can access when I'm stressed and can't think of anything to make for dinner... oh, and I will aim to sort through the small green bucket of random post from Spring which I never opened. Sigh. There is... more of that than I like to admit (did I mention I recently found out I have ADHD? Let's just say that _everything_ I read about ADHD seems to be an "so it's not just me being pathetic?" moment right now. It's not an excuse - I still need to improve a lot of things, especially after all the stresses of the last three years - but it's an explanation of WHY I get into these stupid Jane-ish messes and why some things other people seem to do easily are just unbearably difficult some days, and somehow feeling less inadequate helps. I'm an academic, explanations HELP).
2) Researcher. reschedule meetings for poor abandoned multi-author paper and other paper with FormerPDF. Focus is Wish-we-never-started project - at least 5 hours of work on my part of that needs to happen, on top of meetings.
3) Teaching: read/comment on a lump of text for Senior Grad Student. Hopefully find out about the summer-only MSc projects. Do the end of year paperwork following on from the Happy Sheets. Deal with whatever comes up (we're still at the "loads of emails" stage of the year & will be until marks are out).
4) fun. hopefully play D&D this coming weekend (this one was a no-go because of the dread exam season for most of the players), and work on the 'Lithrops' blanket - I made a solid amount of progress during the virtual conference yesterday and the body is done, I now get to start the border! So that's exciting... oh, and finish the current non-fiction book I'm reading, it's interesting enough to finish but the writing style is like one of those ultra-annoying documentries which keeps switching to dramatic re-enactment (with a lot of repetition throughout the episode and series) with loud cinematic music then back to interesting information so it is a bit chore-like. But I'm past the half way point!

heumihi

1. Return to ch. 2 (I was at a conference for the last few days) and see where I am
2. Add Peter, Goscelin, and maybe MP sections
3. Read AF to see if she's relevant
4. Make a modest 5 pages
5. Submit receipts, mow, catch up on the ordinary stuff of life

Dame Eleanor

1000 words or more on article expansion
- read Relevant Medieval Romance
- do some financial research
- e-mail 3 friends
- write to great-niece
- make a pair of earrings

humming42

Make the list of session goals!
Wrap up everything from the Spring semester
Revisit Boredom and create a 2-week plan to finish the draft

Susan

Set session goals, keeping things flexible. We're thinking of you.

In Memoriam: Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, 1955-2022

It is with great sadness that the TLQ group announces, belatedly, the death last winter of longtime participant Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, on 15 December 2022.

Present and past TLQ contributors and followers will remember that Elizabeth Anne was an academic librarian with a background in medieval studies, a deep love of medieval manuscripts and their archives, and a special interest in medieval women writers. She had a series of blogs for creative writing and other projects. She loved words and their history, explored photography and various forms of fiction, and enjoyed handcrafts. In September 2022, she expressed enthusiasm about the idea of a mini-NaNoWriMo for TLQ members who wanted to do something creative but didn’t feel able to commit to the fullscale NaNoWriMo goals.

She joined the TLQ group as soon as it formed. In 2018, she listed her accomplishments since the group began, an impressive list by any standard, and the more so because most of these achievements took place while she dealt with challenges such as ill health, moving house, and a family member’s surgery. She took part in every session, until she dropped out in fall 2022 after receiving an unsettling diagnosis. 

Elizabeth Anne was unfailingly kind, gracious, and encouraging to other group members even when she herself was frustrated with her day job and with bureaucratic obstacles to finishing her dissertation. Illness and surgeries rarely held her back for long, though physical therapy and medical appointments regularly turned up in her list of weekly goals. She persevered with finding time for the important and non-urgent even when awash in the urgent (important or not). Her goals always testified to the effort to find work-life balance, including tasks like “take puppy to vet” as well as “write better transitions.” She often had useful advice based on her own coping-with-ADHD strategies, which proved helpful for neuro-typical and neuro-atypical readers alike. She also offered excellent suggestions for library research and student assignments, based on her extensive experience.

At TLQ, Elizabeth Anne is probably best known for her coinage of the motto “float like mist,” dating back to February 2016, when she was one of the group’s hosts. With her encouragement, many of us adopted the phrase as our mantra in times of stress, and it is often repeated in weekly posts here.

She will be greatly missed in this space, as she surely is by real-life family (of whom she wrote here) and friends, to whom the group extends our condolences. 

She will continue to float in our hearts.

Session 2 week 1 2023

Welcome to the new session!  Julie and JaneB will be co-hosting this session, which will run from 14th May to 13th August - 13 weeks.  Our half-way check-in will be June 23rd (if we remember) and how is it possible that summer (Northern Hemisphere) is already feeling short when it hasn't begun for me yet??  But that is all the more reason to make the most of it - both for self care AND for the kind of reading, thinking, writing and writing-as-thinking which falls into the Top Left Quadrant.

Usual opening text, borrowed from earlier iterations!

The format will be the same as ever. We will start setting goals for the session this week. Goals can be in any aspect of life although the key focus is often writing tasks that are personally and professionally important but that never quite tip over into important AND urgent. Urgent things sometimes find their way in here too, that is completely ok too, and process goals are also most welcome.  Each week there will be a discussion topic or prompt to write about if you feel so inclined, no pressure or expectations.  We’ll remind everyone of their big session goals about midway through the session (last weekend of June).

Anyone, whether new to the group or an old friend, is welcome to join. I would love for people to consider inviting a friend or acquaintance or colleague to join in, we would be thrilled to welcome new guests and expand our circle. And finally, don't worry if you miss a few check-ins. Life happens. This is a supportive, generous space with no intimidation factor so enjoy it! If you are not up to regular check-ins we would still love to hear from you occasionally.

Discussion theme - the "writing toolkit"

This session we thought we'd get back to our roots as a group a bit and explore aspects of stocking a "writing toolbox".  We're planning to explore the topic broadly, so prompts might be literal (e.g. favourite pens), figurative (inspirational quotes) or whimsical (if you could acquire a magical writing elf, which one writing task would it specialise in?).

For this week:

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. What's your main focus at the moment? You are welcome to be vague and mysterious in the interest of maintaining anonymity while still introducing yourself to the group.

2.  Post your goals for this session (or if you want to do them next week put in a note so I remember to go and find them later!).

3. Post goals for this coming week, ideally they will kick-start the process of working towards the session goals. Or they might just clear the deck for a nice clean start.

4. Or just come say hello and tell us how you’ve been over the break and then come back next week for session goals and discussion. 

5. And to start off discussion, let's remind ourselves that writing isn't just a chore or necessary duty - what part of writing is most fun for you, or do you have a particular memory or writing experience when your writing was going particularly well?    

2023 Session 1 Week 17: and now we reach the end…

 

Well here we are… The end of another session! I think we’ve done some pretty great things in the last few months. We’ve definitely had lots of rough bits, but I hope the weekly check-ins and chatting has helped with those a bit! Logistics for the next session can be decided with new hosts, Julie is considering, thanks!

Below are our goals from last week along with our session ones for reflecting and celebrating.

One last positive prompt: tell us one or two things for which you are proud of yourself this session! Because you are all lovely and awesome and sometimes everyone needs a reminder of that…

Thank you to HeuMihi for excellent co-hosting, and thank you to everyone who keeps showing up (for all kinds of things!) week after week after week! It means a lot!

Last week’s goals:

Dame Eleanor Hull

- dead language group prep
- finish prepping the last two grad lectures
- more work on expanding article
- review copy-edited Other Article
- do some gardening

Daisy

FINISH revisions on accepted paper
Confirm summer field accommodations and timing (so much work in one sentence!)
Work on two conference talks
Use conference talks to outline paper
Read and edit many student thesis chapters
Finish all marking and grade submissions

Heu mihi

This week--must get back into chapter 2, which is a bit of a hairy mess and nearly entirely unwritten:
1. Draft G section of ch. 2--this includes a quick lit review and rereading the primary text, so this is my Major Goal
2. Read over any of the remaining 3 essays' proofs that come in (proofs are due 5/1)
3. Go to TWO MEETINGS, one of which is actually a 2.5-hour session of interviews for a new Town Clerk
4. Revise short, low-pressure talk
5. Resume normal routines

JaneB

* do the everyday baseline chores when they need doing, not when I've run out of stuff (we keep trying)
* eat more mindfully
* do paperwork for intake to try out ADHD medication (I am so scared about this - but in the usual "meds are best" way, I have to try meds in order to keep my referral for assessment for psychosocial coaching...)
* do some D&D prep, play D&D (because it's fun)
* read another book, do a little crochet
* prepare for staff-student committee, prepare for last week of teaching next week, complete report on commercial project, peer review an article for a journal, don't obsess about the whole union thing/marking boycott.

Julie

1. Finish reading thesis and write report.
2. Two final exam preparation sessions for the modules I taught last term.
3. Meetings with 2 PhD students.
4. Plan this term's research, chase one archivist about visiting in May.
5. Do some minor house jobs.
6. Book dentist and hairdresser.

Susan – on the Camino!

Session goals:

Daisy:

Get my new lab completely functional and organized
Submit 2 papers that have been languishing for far too long
Get my library/music/games/craft space functional and beautiful
Try two 100-day projects (one with yoga, one with drawing)
Get back on the exercise wagon
Do one fun thing every week, bonus points if it is new

Dame Eleanor Hull:

- grade efficiently and return comments in a timely manner
- make progress on book
- do some Responsible Adult tasks (such as get a new driver's license that satisfies Real I.D. requirements, find a new doctor)
- make progress on unpacking and other House Tasks

heu mihi:

1. Encyclopedia entry due 1/31
2. Conference paper due 3/7
3. Book review due 3/25
4. Draft three (ha ha! Look at me being ambitious!) chapters
5. Do fun things, like seeing a friend, at least three times a month
6. Sit regularly, run regularly, get back into a steady yoga practice (at least one lesson a week on average); keep track of alcohol consumption, out of curiosity

JaneB:

1) Self-care - this comes first, and is about making sure that when I don't have very many 'spoons', I don't automatically throw them all into work. It's about maintaining the little habits and slowly adding to them, finding the motivation to make a pan of soup on the weekend, practicing saying "later" and "no" and "not today."
1a) reclaim my immediate physical environment. October, I decided to take some steps, and reached out to a professional declutterer plus researched and signed a contract to get the house doors and windows replaced (original wooden ones are close to 40 years old and have not been well maintained, plus drafty). In November, my roof sprung a leak which ended up requiring a complete re-roof of the house which emptied my accessible savings and beyond - but I do now have a water-tight house. And I'm committed to the windows and doors, so they should get done this month (all these expenses makes industrial action and pay deductions scary... but the medium term will be OK, just got to get through the next few months). After which, I want to work with the decluttering lady every few weeks, until I get to a point where I can possibly feel OK having a cleaner in once a month, and start saving again towards getting some redecorating done by persons not me! (unlike the Dame, I am terrible at painting walls).
2) research stuff. This is mostly just "ticking over" - I have two grad students at the moment, and several early career folks who I work with/mentor in various informal ways at other places, plus am part of various collaborative projects. Things which need to happen during this session:
2a) poor abandoned multi-author paper - needs to be revised using all the comments I got 14 months ago and be resubmitted
2b) review paper - a collective effort, the journal wants it in March (already about a 6 month extension).
2c) paper with senior grad student - their first manuscript, a little side project of theirs which we worked on together - would like to get a full draft by the end of the session
2d) consultancy - SGS and I have about a week's worth of computer modelling to do which is applied work on an interesting problem, will provide SGS with a nice bit of extra pay, and form the final section of a paper the scientist from the commercial organisation is already writing, so low effort for a solid reward
2e) wish-we-never-started project - has been and still is a nightmare but I HAVE to start producing outputs, even through I still don't know how to pay for stuff from the project (it's only been 18months of internal confusion...)
2f) what-do-you-mean-we-got-the-money project (I'm a minor partner on a very off-the-wall sort of project idea which was thrown together in about ten days for a cross-funding-body new horizons funding call, and, well, we were all rather shocked and now something has to happen. Thank the good LORD the hiring has worked smoothly and we have a great technical hire locally to actually do the making things happen...).
3) teaching. I have three modules to coordinate (all team taught, all non-standard in some way), a small herd of final year project students to support, and a newish administrative role to navigate on top of the two I already have. This is actually not only my light semester, but I have some extra-for-this-year-only help with some of the in person teaching (for two units, I do the writing/slides/ViLE setup/marking, and teach the virtual repeat, but the in person classes are taught by other people which saves me some commuting)... my main goal here is just survival, but to set something a bit more measurable, I'm aiming to be at least 7 days ahead in terms of prep/paperwork, and more once we reach March, the bulk of the content delivery is over, and the focus is on workshops and projects and the like.
4) fun: this includes writing fiction or poetry, reading fiction or non-work-related non-fiction, making things, and playing Dungeons & Dragons with my nibling and their friends. I want to spend at least a couple of hours a week doing FUN THINGS.

Julie:
Research:
  Finish and submit the journal article I was working on last term (I came so close before Christmas!)
  Plan how to use research leave next term.
Teaching:
  Keep teaching under control - do only essential prep/revisions, resist the temptation to go the extra mile.   Remind myself no one will notice whether I do or not.
Home:
  Try to tackle some of the projects on the list, but not beat myself up about them.
Life:
  Book holidays.
  Regular exercise
  Try to make some time for myself and use it mindfully.

Karen:

Research - have KL article ready for submission; be on track with body project
Teaching - stay at least a week ahead on VILE; all marking done within 2 weeks
Self and home - keep up monthly and weekly planning in bujo, maintain an intentional exercise schedule each week

Susan:

Research:
  1. Actually finish Famous Author (with whom I am very bored) so I feel free. Send to publisher. Get it done.
  2. Get draft of Intro to Big Collaboration drafted. I'm not teaching this term (lots of admin instead) so this should be possible)
Home:
  1. This is the busy season for the garden: prune roses, pull up grass while the ground is (VERY) wet. Put down weedblock and mulch.
  2. Plant some low growing drought tolerant plants along the new irrigation piping so the yard looks better.
  3. Sort books that I don't want to keep and take them to various places where they might find homes. (This is in preparation for moving/downsizing when I retire, probably formally 3 years from now.
Life:
  1. Make sure I do something social for fun every week.
  2. Regular exercise. At the very end of this session I've signed up for a 10 day walk along the Portuguese Camino de Santiago. So I need to be able to walk 10 miles a day. Walking, riding my expensive bike, yoga etc. Something every day.

 

May the spring and summer be a good change of pace and a beautiful season :)