I've been writing a lot today. The chapter I'm writing for a book which is due to the editors on 1 October didn't exist this time last week, and now it is around 4000 words long. It's called 'Approaching the ancestral house" and draws its title from an amazing poem by Katerina Te Hei Koko Mataira called "Restoring the ancestral house." I'm looking at some poems by Maori writers where a person goes home to their own marae, and I'm interested in what happens when you read these in a 'Maori' way (and ask what a Maori way of reading might be). I think these poems are about the collective, and about sustainability and connection, whereas most discussions of them suggest that the poems are about individual disconnection and cultural loss. And I'm like, yeah but you only think it's about cultural loss because that narrative of Maori disconnection and dysfunction makes you feel comfortable and so you'll find it wherever you look for it, but there is so much happening in the poems that you can't even see... so, ahem, I've got more to say and I'll have some editing to do, but I think I'm on target for the dealine.
It has been so lovely to write, but I admit that I've written less than I thought I would... when I dreamed of sabbatical I thought I'd write continuously, constantly, feverishly, obsessively. I dreamed of having the time and space to write. To tip my hat to Virginia Woolf, Toronto was going to be the room of my own.
It is, and has been, great to write as much as I have... but it's not as much as I thought it would be. I'm not being too harsh on myself for what I've done (or haven't done) so far, because I arrived in a state of fatigue and needed to get healthy and strong again before I could start cranking out the pages. Plus, I've had a lot of 'service writing' to do and that hasn't helped. Referee's reports, feedback, letters of support... these things all take time. Writing time. And yet I can't blame it all on them.
While I've been working on this chapter I have been astounded by the low standard of some of the scholarship out there. I know this sounds like a pretty stink thing to say, and certainly there is some amazing fabulous incredible scholarship which I adore (Chad Allen, Lisa Brooks and Sarah Ahmed - I intellectually swoon around these three whenever I'm in proximity to their work. And of course many more too, but these three I've been reading this week.)... but really, a lot of stuff out there is either nonexistent or pretty awful. Which, I must say, rather than making me feel grumpy (like it sometimes does) has made me feel a bit more inspired. It has lowered the bar enough, and clarified the state of things enough, that I am now revving up to write a lot - a LOT - A LOT! There is so much to say! There are so many things to write! Some of the basics still need to be written, as well as the complex stuff! Very exciting!
So, to segue for a minute, the other thing I did this week was that I filled in the info for signing up for e-Harmony, which is one of the dating sites here in Canada. I haven't actually paid any money yet, so at the moment I get an email each morning which announces that there is a bunch of men they've found who are well suited for me and I get some information about each of them. Not being a member of the site yet, I can't see their photos or communicate with them, but I'm not sure I want to actually sign up anyway. I was just curious to see what the process was like... and I must say, e-Harmony is known (I know this because I've been asking the single ppl in my life here) for having long in-depth questionnaires and then using some spunky algorithm (hmm, it how that is spelled?) that miraculously matches you with people you are totally made for ;) The questions took ages to go thru - they were multi choice, so I multitasked and did it while I was watching TV and am now hoping I read them all carefully and they're not setting me up with axe murderers because of something I accidentally said haha -
Anyway one of them kind of had me stumped. "Do you set personal goals and meets them?" Well, yes I am.. right? I mean, I decided to do a PhD at an Ivy League university and I did it. I decided to visit NY last weekend and I did it. I decided I wanted am omelette for dinner tonite and that's what I had. All goals, all accomplished... But then I realised that if I heard a guy had said 'yes' to that (actually, the categories were a continuum from never through sometimes to always) I might wonder if he'd be kind of controlling, self-absorbed, uptight... and then I had the awful realisation that maybe this is how I would come across!
And of course, being a girl, and so having lived through 35 years of messages from a world (I mean generally, not my family etc - just to be clear) which tells me how girls ought to behave I did what I was supposed to do: I started to doubt myself, and thought that probably I wasn't actually someone who meets my own goals after all. Perhaps if I was a boy I would have thought 'no it's possible for me to be a man who meets my own goals' - but I'm a girl. Of course, the next step (because in my conscious life I'm a feminist girl) was that I told myself off and decided that I can in fact be someone who meets my own goals and a nice person... and then the next step (because I am a nice girl as well, really) was that I reminded myself that a man who sets goals and meets them might be a nice guy too! Actually, he might be a nice guy with his s**t together, which I have to say sounds like a good combination!
And what does this diversion into my insecurities and bizarre e-Harmony moment have to do with writing? Well, being Little Miss Meets-her-goals, I have decided this evening that I am going to make a bit more of a schedule. Between now and the end of November I am going to finish *something* and either send it off for publication or present it at a conference (I've got a few conferences in October)... yes, it sounds like a lot, but it's something to aim for.
So, look fwd to weekly updates about my specific goal setting and achieving my writing goals :)
Oh, and e-Harmony? Still haven't decided whether to finish the signing up process by entering my credit card details. Will keep you updated on that too.
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