Planning Writing

I was asked to plan ahead, now that we are heading into a thanksgiving break. So, I figured I would make a quick list of the things I have left to write in the weeks following the break.

Utopia and Dystopia in Film and Literature

-Second Long Essay (8 pages)

- Final Response paper

Civil War Literature

-Final Research Essay on George Moses Horton (analyzing his poetry in context to Slave Literacy)

-Final Exam (takehome exam centered around writing)

Devised Theatre

-Multimedia scripts over break

-Multimedia shooting

Film Theory

-Response paper 2, 5, 12 and final

-Final essay

-film clip and questions

Mindful Writing

For this course I have some things to catch up with. I have a lot of reading to get done with responses.

-Boice Readings

-Boice Responses

-Final Portfolio

-Final Project scripting

-Final Project shooting

BDS

I started my research paper today for my civil war literature course and have a clear idea about how I will approach integrating the ideas of slave literacy and education with the poems I have selected by George Moses Horton. The next few days are going to be supremely stressful because of papers and assignments, so I will need to practice mindfulness at all times in order to maintain my sanity.

BDS

This morning I finished up my film theory paper about a film called "My Beautiful Laundrette" which featured a very young Daniel Day-Lewis. I was happy that this weeks readings were a little shorter but I decided I should probably take a little more into account than the plot. As I read and reread our essays this week, I couldn't help but wonder if the reason these writers were so ambiguous and vague was because they needed to be in order to get across the abstract ideas they were exploring. It reminds me a lot of the readings I have had on meditation, which is hard because I have to read those very mindfully to completely understand the concepts put out there. Then I realized that I have been reading my film theory book the same way. Fancy that!

BDS

Today, I finished my response paper on the film the Planet of the Apes for my Utopia in Film class. It wasn't very hard to find something to write about, but it was a bit hard to figure out how to relate it to the fourth part of gulliver's travels. The extra free time I have this week is helpful as I now am working a different job. I was able to think about the idea for my paper before writing it. It helped to have time to do some prep work and I think it showed in the questions I posed.

bds

 Tonight, at work i was in a meeting and decided to take meeting notes mindfully. I was trying to completely follow what everyone was talking about, but the problem is that they were using so many technical terms that i wasn't sure what they were talking about. Instead of sitting in the dark i wrote down what they were saying then went and looked up what programs they brought up. It was a slight moment of brilliance on my part that I wouldn't have come to without mindfulness.

Tonight, i started to do research and reading for my 10 page research paper in Civil Lit. I don't think the paper is due until the 18th, but i needed to be doing research a long time ago. Anyway, i  usually distract myself when it comes to research, so i made notes of every little break i took during my scheduled homework hours. I didn't necessarily try to stop myself, but i was able to keep track of my productiveness (or non-productiveness as the case may be).

BDS

I needed to find a scene from a film that exemplifies the ideas that we are delving into with this weeks reading/film viewing for my Film Theory course. This week seemed to focus on the status and analysis of third world cinema including its contributions towards the developments of an alternative movie industry as well as a cultural medium of communication. My response paper centered around my assertion that in third world cinema there are many ideas about the perspectives of the audience that go unnoticed. So I should probably pick a film from another culture and point out different perspectives that are missed. I think I can show examples from the film to show that any cultural barrier contributes to misunderstandings about the ideas being conveyed. The relationship between audience and creator (in this case filmmakers) is and always will be essential.

3 minute breathing space

Today we did an awesome mindful meditation and compassion exercise in class. It got me going, so that when I went home I continued in this same spirit. I did a three minute breathing exercise through the MBSR website. It helped me gain some focus and peace. I was pretty surprised at how well it connected, as breathing exercises sometimes throw me off. I usually get a bit too forceful with my breath and it normally has a "negative" effect on my mood and behaviors. I was happy to report that this exercise helped me to get myself ready for homework (which I will reference in my BDS).

BDS

This morning I worked, which meant a lot of learning. I am still in training and they consider this job to be perpetual training as it is a technical job. They are teaching me about designing and building websites using a program called adobe dreamweaver. I am learning a lot of code language and I actually built my first page today. It was a lot of fun. The main issue I ran into when writing code was note getting ahead of myself as it is very easy to jump over a line of closed code and onto the next line. This screws up your entire page. So, you must be very mindful of everything you type.

Tonight, we had another meeting for my devised theatre course, in which we created scenes from ethnographic interviews. I had to downsize an interview and cut out so from what my source said. We were trying to get to the heart of their conversation so when cutting, we had to be very conscious of what they were really trying to say. The point they were trying to get across. It was fun and took a long time as we analyzed every line.

BDS

I wrote two short papers this morning for my Utopia and Dystopia class and my civil war lit class. The civil war lit class was interesting because it was just an update on the 8-10 page research paper due in a couple of weeks. She wants to recieve updates about how our research is going and how our topic may be evolving. I personally just changed my topic to a brilliant poet who just happened to be a slave who escaped to become a Freedman. His name was Joseph Moses Horton and I think I could do enough resarech on him and other freedmen to write a paper that would be suitable for this course.

My other short paper for Utopia was to respond to this weeks film "Metropolis". Frickin' amazing film because it was Fritz Lang's masterpiece and one hell of an undertaking from a production standpoint.

BDS

This afternoon I was feeling a little tense, so I did a little breathing exercise called the 3 minute breathing space. It helped me get into a state of awareness about my physical self and the tension I was feeling. I did some writing for MU Film Production Club immediately following this. I started to write our weekly newsletter and saved a format for doing this. Before I knew it I was starting my homework for tomorrow. My homework was writing a personal narrative that we can turn into a scene for our play in my devised theatre course. The idea had to do with self-image, so I wrote about a situation I had been in while taking family portraits before. I actually think it turned out great.

Bds

Today I worked on devising theatrical scenes with a group of students who also don't have much experience at doing this kind of activity. I contributed a few ideas but I thought that the situation I was in was perfectly leading to a BDS. I was very very aware of the conversation we were having as a group of creators all trying to get our ideas out there and expressed. It was interesting that I sometimes felt the urge to interrupt some of my fellow contributors. I felt as if what I had to say was much more important than what they had to say. I took notice of the is urge and focused on being a solid listener and analyzer of their ideas without imposing my own until a time more proper.
Interestingly enough that led to my becoming the transcriber/writer of the group. In the end my understanding and willingness to allow people their moments to speak and share ideas helped me to become the individual who has the most power over the end product of our proposal. When I went home I looked over the groups ideas and tried to organize it a bit more. During this time I was sure to keep in mind that some people may feel differently about how to organize this scene, so not get attached to my interpretation. Mindfulness helped me understand interactions on a professional creative level.

Bds

This afternoon i finished writing my paper for film theory about the film "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul". I decided that I really liked the film s lot. In fact it has become my favorite film that we have watched in that class thus far. It evoked a very strong discomfort and tendency to hate some of the characters. when I became a bit more aware of all the emotions it was pushing me to, I started to ask myself why and how it was doing this. The director of the film tried very hard to recreate an uncomfortable environment that played with the audiences sense of realism. While at times things seemed to wander from a daily verisimilitude, the film gave me a strong sense of how the characters must have felt in that situation. Good movies always do that.

Bds

Today I am reading an essay  by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam for my film theory course so that I can write a response paper for the film we watched this week. They focused on realism and ethnocentric ideals in the film production industry. Their writing is very self indulgent and hard to get through, because their focus is less on communication as it is on coming off as an academic. This seems to be the bane of all film theory writers as their profession is not respected as a true field of study worthy of attention in the academic community. That being said, I am very tired of seeing essays which should take 5-10 pages of writing being written in double and sometimes triple that amount. And these essays are abridged! Anyway, it took s good deal of effort to take the time to get through these readings.

BDS

Today I am getting back on top of these BDS assignments. After our class I w net to set up my new office in the center for student involvement. MU FPC has their be office in the cubicles upstairs of the student center. After getting the office, I sat down at my new desk and did some homework. I planned out my paper by creating an outline. This outline took a lot of thought and I had to take my time because my civil war lit teacher is pretty specific about what she wants.

Bds

This morning i was in my theatre class on the day that we decided to start our immersion in the devising process. Basically we are starting to a write a play that we will perform later this semester. This is based on interviews we conducted with individuals who spoke about their ideas of self image. Interesting that I didn't se this before now, but our entire approach in this died theatre class has been following the processes set out by voice. We did a lot of individual and group research and now we are starting to formulate a plan. We have waited a good while and learned a good deal more then we necessarily needed to. Anyways, today we made progress.

BDS

I know I have been falling down on my duties lately, but these past two weeks have been hell. Anyway, a quick BDS report: I have been writing like crazy today. I had been thinking for a while about an idea for another screenplay. This one has a very deep connection within me, so i wanted to get it right. I took the approach that I took last time (lots of prep work and then starting before I was ready). It helped a tremendous amount. I fleshed out the entire story in outline format then started writing tonight. I haven't been able to stop. It feels amazing.

Body scan

I just did the body scan in the mizzou mindfulness website. Good stuff. Feel much more in tune with my body.
Website

Bds #13

Today I focused on my energies of stopping. I did my own writing exercise that mimicked the one we did in class. I told myself that I would start to write but stop myself after 10 minutes of action. It took a little bit to get on a roll, but once I did I was really upset that I had to stop. For some reason my body didn't want to stop writing. I was, mindful of this momentum and stopped typing. After the session was over I had a bunch of mixed ideas because I made myself focus on different ideas each time I resumed writing. It was interesting to see how each little blip-it was tied together and also the will power I had to stop from continuing with each story.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Whoever brought Jon Kabat-Zinn  in  to speak to the employees running google is a genius. Mindfulness meditation means more balanced individuals working at your company. The more balanced your company is, the more stable and balanced your performance is and isn't that what business is all about: performance. Mr. Kabat-Zinn's discussion was great because he just went up in front of that room ready to spew his philosophy to them. He didn't need a speech prepared or a prompt, he just started talking about the people in the room and his talking somehow led to another experience then another then finally all he was talking about was existential mindfulness theory. It was great to see him discuss his profound beliefs, but it was even better when he tried to share with the audience. He wanted to make sure that they came away with something more than, "wow, that guy sounds like he's got it going on." He wanted to make sure that they question themselves a bit more in life and evaluate their success. It's a great company that will invest in it's employees to that degree and I wish I could work for them.

Bds #12

During my bds today I decided to start on some of my own work; so I grabbed one of the ideas I had come up with this week. I had been thinkig about what I was going to do with that story for a while now and by just starting it helped spur me inti a writing session. As I was writing though I started to think about why mindfulness works.
I think that mindfulness is essentially being uber aware. And the exercises are just repetitive practice of self awareness so that you retrain your behavioral patterns. These altered behavioral patterns mean altered reactions too. In daily life, correctly altered reactions could mean better reactions or at the very least more control over your behavior. In actuality it's effects are much more complicated, but this is because mindfulness is a simple idea. Its simplicity makes it easy to understand and just as easy to practice. It simply makes sense that being aware of yourself and your actions would help u become better at coming yourself through connection, but can that help writing? I don't see why not.

BDS

Today I wrote a response paper for my film theory course about the film Winchester `73. As I was writing the paper I realized that I had really really enjoyed the close reading portion of this course because it is actually about something I have a passion for. Film.
I also decided to do my first blog post via my new Acer tablet. I love technology.

BDS #11

I needed to catch up this weekend with some mindfulness exercises and as I still had the links to my old mindfulness websites I was able to sit down with the guided body scan. This was one led by my old mindfulness professor at my. I was happy to note that in the comfort of my own room I was able to completely relax and gain some clarity from this exercise. I had to write a paper for my film theory course immediately following the exercise and I actually believed that it may have helped me think through the process a little more clearly.

BDS #10

For my Utopia and Dystopia Class we have to write a response paper every week. It is always due on friday and should discuss the film we watch on that monday and the readings for the week. This week we are finishing Book 2 of Gulliver's travels and we were supposed to watch Ridicule (1996) a french film that details the lives of french royalty. I watched the film today because i missed monday's viewing. I was sure to pay close attention to the parallels between Ridicule and "Gulliver's Travels". I guess this is my way of slowly "entering the conversation".

Boice 23-30 Response

I think that this portion of the text was very helpful for my BDS this week. It kind of reasserted that I am doing the right thing according to Boice and that these BDS's are what he has in mind. I have basically been reporting my results of all the papers I have had due and the times that I have spent doing the research mindfully; being aware of my own writing methods.
I was also intrigued by Boice's attitude toward stopping exercises. I think that he may have been overstepping his bounds a bit by saying that you shouldn't even finish your last sentence. I think that if someone has an idea mid-sentence that they should finish the thought. I also understand that Boice was trying to point out that by stopping right where you are, you are exerting your power over the process of writing and by doing this controlling your behaviors as a writer. While this may be his end goal (to give us complete control), I also feel that their  is some sort of flow to things. Yes I CAN wait to finish that idea later. But why would I want to? I will definitely try this exercise, but i don't think I will be implementing this as an absolute for normal writing sessions.

Boice Pg 20-23 Response

These four pages were, again, just a little more movement towards our end goal of becoming better writers. I had hoped to gain a bit more from this section of the reading than I did. Essentially Boice just reinforced the tenants he had already written in the previous pages. He did, however, bring in another source which seemed much more my style. He started talking about the sessions he had with other writers and he said that when they read the work of Donald Murray that they all agreed the way he wrote about writing was pretty damn good.
I particularly like the slice of Murray's writing that Boice decided to pick out and show us. Of course it reinforced the ideas Boice had been talking about already, but (to be completely honest) I like them better when Murray said them. I'm not saying that I don't like what Boice is doing, but I do think that he should become a little more concise and a lot less repetitive. He can write the same thing a billion different ways and that can be a little annoying.

BDS #9

Last night I read 4 chapters of my film theory textbook with the idea that I would sleep on the information and in the morning would be able to write a paper on those chapters by class at 2pm. So when I sat down to write the paper I was supremely surprised to not be suddenly struck with motivation. Thankfully I had taken good notes the night before and was able to go back and read the notes to stay abreast of the topics. I then was able to construct an outline for my paper and then work from there. I actually think it turned out pretty well.

Boice P12-19 Response

The beginnings of this chapter in Boice's book How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency, were definitely nowhere near as helpful as these last few pages. I think that he provides some really sound advice. It's one of those situations where after I read it, I kind of just sat back and contemplated things for a while. I realized that I did a lot of the things he was talking about and I avoid committing myself to something because I want my genius to be a "natural occurence"; one sparked by magic or some kind of unrealistic talent.
What Boice says in his opening chapter is that he is going to explain, in a bit more detail, exactly how to take a different angle at writing. He goes through a set of steps that may help reframe the problem of motivation and involvement in the writing process. I will give a brief overview of the ones I found useful.

1. Once you make the act of writing a habit (something you have yourself do everyday), the act of writing itself will be enough to carry you into a motivated spirit.
2. Some writers claim to have sucess with procrastination and binge writing, but most are not nearly as successful.
3. Those that are successfull are usually a lot more susceptible to bad health and depression caused by exhaustion.
4. Writing instructors can help a lot. Normally just the act of helping you talk to yourself about your own individual problems is enough to autocorrect many bad habits.
This final piece is kind of crucial so I will quote it
I will definitely try to take this mindset into my next creative writing session in order to improve as a writer on the whole.

BDS #8

Today I had to write a paper update to my Civil War literature teacher about the state of our end of semester paper. It's going to be a long research paper that doesn't necesarrily have to pertain to anything we really discussed in course as long as it pertains to course material somehow. So we had a lot of free reign when deciding what our topics would be, but I think I may have gone a little overboard. I did take a hint from Boice and tried to become a part of the conversation first: I read a lot of the non-mandatory readings to try to find an idea to write about. I couldn't find anything that sparked my interest so I wrote her a three page paper ripping up the idea that historians perspective is too self-indulgent. I won't really get into it, but at least I was passionate about what I was writing and I think that may have something to do with the fact that I did a good bit of listening before I wrote.

BDS #7

I am turning this weekend into a catch up weekend. While I don't know if it will affect my grade in a positive way but it will definitely make me feel better to be back in the swing of things. Today I finished two papers which were due at 9 and 11 am. The first was an analysis of book 1 of Gulliver's travels. The second was a paper update about my research for Civil War Literature. I decided to focus heavily on my reiteration of certain phrases and this seemed to help me clean up my writing a bit.

BDWS #6

I was sick yesterday and because of the three day weekend, I have not posted on this for a while now. I can assure you that I had/have 3 papers due this week and thus had a lot of homework over the weekend. I tried writing mindfully in some spots and reading mindfully is always a hard task. Today however, I edited mindfully. Before I made a mark I asked why I was making it. Why I was changing a word. Which lead to questions about the structure of sentences and then to the foundation of languages. As you can see i got distracted.
I returned my focus to the subject at hand. Editing mindfully. Interestingly enough I discovered that once I stopped asking "why" all the time I became more focused on the act of editing and it was easier to concentrate.

BDWS #5

So, I just got off work again. Anyway, I did some research for a paper in my Utopia class. When I did it, I was mindfully taking notes on post its. It's hard to really gather a lot of information on a page that I find in multiple places throughout a book, so I instead take notes on post its, leave them in the book on the page that I find the info, then later compile the stuff i need. Oh, and i color code the post its depending on the information. I am pretty organized this year. Once I get going with the "post it nonsense" I get very focused because I'm in a way enjoying the experience. It's kind of fun to sit down and get a lot of work done. I feel good about myself for writing or reading or getting an assignment done. Good night.

BDWS #4

I just got home from work a little bit ago, so sorry for the late post. Anyway, I did some mindful revisions of a response paper due tomorrow morning. Its for my Utopia and Dystopia in Film and literature class. GOing to bed now.

BDWS #3

Tonight, I wrote a response paper for my Utopia and Dystopia in Literature and Film class. It was only around 400 words, so not long at all. I spent a good majority of the time focusing on isolating myself from the rest of the world. It worked well the last time: not allowing myself the opportunities to become distracted. This time it worked flawlessly. I was able to sit down, gather my notes and write. I had already done enough prewriting for this, so I needed to relax and let things flow. It went well. 45 minutes.

BDWS #2 Aug. 30

Read civil war text while taking notes with post its in book. For fifteen minutes focused heavily on reading slowly and choosing notes carefully looking for topic for end of semester final paper. 9AM Aug. 30, 2011.

Reading Resopnse #1

After reading the first 12 pages of Boice's book "How Writer's Journey to Comfort and Fluency", I have realized that many of the same issues that plague my writing process also consume others. At first this realization gave little comfort as while I'm sure that if a key to motivation for writing was as easy as using mindfulness exercises and taking a closer look objectively at your actions from a behavioral point of view, well then... I hadn't thought of instilling mindfulness into my work motivations.

I have had a little experience with mindfulness as a concept. In fact my roommate, a behavior analyst, lives by much of the tennants of mindfulness and the relational frame theory. I just hadn't taken a serious look at my professioinal life in this way. I am going to seriously establish a time each week to really give this a go with my personal projects as a supplement to my BDWS and reading response.

BDWS #1 Aug. 29

This is my first Brief Daily Writing Session. I wrote a response paper for my Film Theory class last night, but I had to do some tweaking and ended up writing an extra page this morning. When I did this, I decided to get the mindfulness portion out of the way. I tried very hard to isolate myself and leave my thoughts to themselves (if that makes any sense). I didn't have any music on, or a television. No destractions. I was simply writing about an essay on the tenants of Apparatus Theory as conceived by Walter Benjamin and a guy named Baudry. This whole process probably took a total of 30 minutes and I actually feel I retained more and was able to participate in class discussion a little more easily.