Revising or Reviving the Muse

Has anyone set their paper on fire yet?

At this point in the term, the romance of the paper is likely gone. This is okay. It is just another step in the writing process.

Pat yourself on the back you have been working hard.

Take time this week to take a break and feed your muse. Do those things that inspire you; take a hike; go shopping; sit under a tree and drink lemonade, but do something that rekindles your creative spirit. Then, come back to your paper renewed and refreshed for the final round next week.


Happy writing friends.

Believing Game

In an unpublished essay by Peter Elbow, he discusses his believing game as an approach to life as well as an approach to writing. He challenges readers to try to believe in things, even for a moment, in which they currently do not believe. This is especially true when encountering new ideas.

He challenges his readers to use believing as a tool to test ideas. We often use doubting or skeptical thinking when encountering new ideas. Instead of looking for the "hidden flaws," look for the "hidden virtues" in new ideas and in your papers this week.

As we read our own paper during revision and as we read the work of our peers, take a moment to try to be positive and believe something good about your paper or your writing process. Have confidence in your idea before you being to revise, reword, and rethink your paper.

I believe everyone can learn to write. I believe we all have the potential to do a great job with this paper. Not matter the final grade on your paper, Believe that you are taking great steps in your learning and writing process by working so hard on this paper.

Happy Writing.

Another Successful Letter

In case you every wonder just how your current argument paper fits into your life, here is one example.

Just this week, I wrote an email (letter style) in an attempt to rectify very strange billing and scheduling being done by my son's gymnastics summer camp.

In this letter, I respectfully and firmly asked that the situation be rectified. Within minutes, the owner of the company, who I later found out was on vacation, answered my email, apologized, and offered me a free class (which I did not even suggest). This is the power of well done writing that is aware of audience, style, tone, and purpose.

Here is a copy of most of the email with names changed or blocked out. See if you can see the tone, audience and style I used.

Hi - LEFT BLANK FOR PRIVACY

I have been very pleased with Jump Gymnastics program. However, it seems we have serious payment and scheduling issues that need to be resolved.
To my knowledge I paid in full for the summer gymnastics session. However, this payment was not processed for 3 or four weeks. I am still not sure if the entire summer gymnastic class session is paid for.

Additionally, *my son* attended two days for the Healthy Body Camp, and it appears we were charged for three days. It also appears that he is signed up for a class we are not supposed to be signed up for. Perhaps I am misreading the payment schedules, but I need to know that we can take care of this matter. Also, we need to figure out a way to make payments at certain times. Payments cannot simply be taken out of the account at anytime. I prefer to pay upfront and all at one time.

I have attempted to schedule summer sessions online, in-person, and on the phone, and nothing seems to fully get the job done accurately. I am not sure how to rectify things at this point.

. . . . [Details about our attendance and issues here]

I am currently out of town. We are stuck for a few days unable to return home from vacations due to an illness. We will be back next week.

I can be reached via email or by phone at LEFT BLANK FOR PRIVACY

Thanks so much for your help. I am sure we can figure this out.

Melody

What is the last letter or serious email you wrote?

Notice that it is written like a formal letter even though it was an email.

Arguing to Save Your Life

Think about how you would argue if you had to save your life in a logical non begging fashion.

Okay, most of us don't have to argue for our lives in terms of breathing, but we do have to set boundaries everyday for how people can treat us.

Sometimes, for me, these boundaries take the form of letters. More than once in my life, I have written a letter to help get things done. I actually got one poor fellow fired, but he had been harassing me for a long time. I presented my argument in a very logical fashion backed with facts and evidence. Come to find out they had been wanting to fire him for a long time, but no one had every bothered to write a letter.

I wrote another letter this week, arguing to have the company responsible fix my air conditioner.

Sometimes these letters in life are necessary, to set boundaries, to get thing done, to protect the innocent.


Have you every written one of these letters?


Is there one you need to write?

Facing the Page

Annie Dillard (1989) says, "The page will teach you to write."

The trouble is - you have to face the page, or the screen as it were, if you want to write, if you want the page to teach you. It's blankness can be overwhelming. I find that sometimes I just have to dive in and get started. This is usually after sitting down, drinking tea, getting more tea, checking email, looking at the blank page, drinking more tea. . .

You get the idea.

It does not matter what comes out so long as you are getting ideas out of your head and into word form. This, my friends, is writing. It is facing the page. Sometimes, it gets easier once you get started.

Just keep at it, even if it is bad. . .really bad.

The longer you put it off, the scarier the task gets. (This is true of most things.)

Dive in my friends! Get something on the page.

Dillard, A. (1989). The writing life. New York: Harper and Row.

More Confessions

My own writing has been buried again. Don't get me wrong, I write miles of comments on student papers and assignments (which I enjoy). But, my own writing has slipped past me.

I use myself as an example of how being overly busy can be just another form of procrastination. Certainly, procrastination is not the only reason I am teaching. I like teaching, and I like making money (more than I currently make publishing anything). Teaching makes me feel helpful and money makes me feel like I matter (We won't go into the psychology here now. We don't have that kind of time.) Writing can be hard - even when we like to do it. Some day I like writing. Some (most) days I ignore my muse.

My muse is getting impatient and rolling her eyes at me. We all have a muse you know. Things that inspire us. Your muse may not push you to write, but all of us have a muse; we may just choose not to listen to him or her.

Happy Writing!

June One - The End and The Beginning.

Turning in a finished project is hard. For me it is hard because I know there is always something that I missed or fear I could have done better. The good news is every time we write, every time we revise, and every time we put our writing "out there" for people to see, we grow as a writer. Not everyone may like what we have done, but we know that we have been stepping down the path of our writing process. It is also good to note that writing for others and writing for ourselves often requires a different kind of writing or even a different kind of process. Forge on dear writers and take what you have learned from this writing task and know that next time you write there are more skills in your writer's tool box. (even if what you just wrote feels like dirt).