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.