By Claire Aitchison
Doctoral scholars, their supervisors and academics in general, all have intimate relations with writing. It’s our everyday world. Like any intimate relationship, this liaison has its ups and downs: there are times of love and hate, joy and bitterness, times when we resent writing and other times when it brings us comfort and delight. Who hasn’t known what it’s like to fight and wrangle with writing late at night, exhausted, and wishing to cut the ties and run away forever?!
In this post – at the end of Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo) – I use metaphors to explore some of my relationships with writing.
Writing as tranceWriting can put me into a trance-like state so that I am totally unaware of the rest of the world. When I am deep in writing I am in an altered frame of mind, detached from time and space. My physical presence is irrelevant – I don’t feel hunger, I don’t realise that I haven’t moved for hours on end. Whole days can go by unnoticed as I am completely absorbed, as if under a hypnotic spell. In these times, writing is the master and my attachment is singular, complete and involuntary. While I love Writing as trance I am not sure it is wholly healthy, certainly not for extended periods.
Writing as meditation
When writing is meditative, it is mindfulness in the extreme. Unlike Writing as trance this relationship is more intentional and controlled. I am managing this relationship. It feels healthy. Like Writing as trance, I get into the zone, and am all-consumed. I give writing my full attention, but it is my friend rather than my master; I can enter and leave at any time. After spending time in this writing space I feel calm and positive. Like mindfulness meditation, this relationship benefits from regular practice, and the more I do it, the better it gets.
Writing as escape
Sometimes writing is my ticket of leave from the drudgery and disappointments of work and life. Much of our daily writing is perfunctory: administrative, managerial and functional. Academic life should, but rarely does, allow much time for the kind of self-directed writing that characterises doctoral study. But even there, sometimes, one is tempted to avoid the real (often more challenging) writing that beckons. When writing is an escape, it is intentionally short-lived, perhaps even a tad illicit in the pleasure it brings. Like a small holiday in the country, a nap on the couch, or a day at the beach – or the wickedness of taking a ‘sickie’ on the spur of the moment – this relationship with writing is exciting and revitalizing.
Writing as therapy
Writing as therapy is healing; it is a special time for me. It is private and unhurried, a close, often transformational relationship through which I learn about myself as much as my subject. While Writing as therapy can be writing that gets published, in its origins, it is not for an audience; it is for self and for meaning-making. This relationship is cathartic – free and unfettered, unpredictable. Sometimes this relationship can go to dark places, but when it is truly therapeutic it returns to wellness, even after despondency.
This is an energising relationship, full of spark and invention. It is perhaps my favourite relationship with writing. It is one of the most important (if not elusive) writing relationships for doctoral researchers, and yet it isn’t encouraged often enough for fear that it may wreak havoc, threaten supervisors and scare off examiners. Writing as creativity needs to be handled with care – when this relationship is working well, it is extremely powerful and rewarding, but unfettered, it can lead one astray. However, Writing as creativity isn’t always readily available; sometimes it hides away, stubbornly refusing to come and play, instead leaving me alone with a blank page fearful that the relationship is over for good. The prolonged absence of Writing as creativity can be a scary place.
Writing as solace
This relationship is easy-going, wholesome and soothing. It is my friend and restorative comforter. Like putting on an old pair of shoes or warm coat, one can go a long way with Writing as solace. This relationship is built on familiarity, old habits drive it: the cup of tea, the trusted tools of the craft; the computer, desk, pen and paper that work together in perfect and practised harmony.
Metaphors about writing proliferate because writers enjoy the pleasure of testing out ideas in abstract ways in order to understand complex ideas and connections. We’d be pleased to hear of metaphors that describe your relationships with writing.
But before ending, I recommend Ted Hughes’ beautiful poem The Thought Fox about the struggle with writing and the intensity of experience.
(Images: ‘Whirling dervishes’ Turkishheritagetravel.co; and from Pixabay CC licence: ‘Painter’ and ‘Tigerie’)
Reblogged this on Digital learning PD Dr Ann Lawless and commented:
Writing as trance, meditation, escape, therapy, creativity, solace
Writing as reconciliation, recompense, redress, restoration, revenge, rebooting, remedy, rebuttal, refusal, release
Lovely bit of alliteration! 🙂
and also….reimagining, restoring….
Thanks for posting this, really enjoyable. Yes, I can see so many of us finding resonance with your metaphors. Keep them coming 🙂 David
Reblogged this on Becoming An Educationalist and commented:
#Becomingeducational We’ve been thinking about writing…
Over the last few weeks we have been thinking about writing quite a lot: how best to scaffold student writing? How to help university staff help their students love writing? Tom’s also started a series of workshops: Creative Writing for Academic Success (well – you always have to pitch these things that way – you can’t just say: Hey – let’s try this – it’ll be fun and you never know, our writing might improve as well!)
So – in this heady writing atmosphere – it was great to spot this post from: Doctoral Writing – and what wonderful metaphors for writing…
Thanks David!
And when you have a pathological hate for writing? You cannot overcome it, well very hard. I love reading, but writing is very unconfortable for me. I tried a lot to trick myself into writing by trying to make it more fun, no way, it is always unconfortable and frustrating. As now, it took me quite a lot of time(more than an hour) to come up with these few lines, with a not so good expression of the ideas i wanted to communicate.
Thank you for sharing the other side of writing. Not everyone will enjoy it – but you are to be admired for persisting with something that clearly challenges you so. It’s entirely likely that the more you do face the challenge of writing, surely, hopefully, your skills and confidence will grow and the discomfort will be reduced. One thing’s for sure – you will progress your thesis, and that’s got to be good! As for feeling joy … I hope that comes too! Best wishes, Claire