Please read the previous post about Page Count before reading this.)
Here is what I pulled together this week. I am sure it will change. For the mean time, it gives me something to continue to work towards.
In Voyage in the Dark, Rhys stylistically responds to the mechanism that captures performance, that of the camera. In Quartet, Rhys focuses her attention to the subjects in front of the camera. I argue that the photographic presence is implicitly embedded in the narrative of Quartet and that its influence can be perceived in the characters persistent, albeit unspoken, attention to it. In this novel, Rhys relinquishes her role of being behind the camera in favor of demonstrating that mechanical reproduction is enmeshed in day-to-day experience.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Page Count, Revisited
For all my struggles with that bastard, the Page Count, and his cruel mockery of my attempts at productivity, I have come to a few realizations about my writing habits.
In order to motivate myself to write, I am willing to write just about anything, in any order. I don't control or attempt to meaningfully participate in the outlet. My focus in merely to get words on the page. Words on the page just feel good, no matter what the words are, what order they come in or what they say.
However, I reached a point this week were I was beyond words on the page. I had many words on quite a few pages. And it was time to look at what was out there and have them actually say something rather than just appear in a random yet picturesque fashion.
I wound up doing a LOT of re-writing, cutting and pasting, and thinking, thinking, THINKING: What do I mean by this? How does this paragraph connect to the previous one?
Ultimately, I came across the crux of the problem: The section I was working on did not have a cohesive argument or direction. Without that, writing becomes a little like walking place. There were endless steps and no destination.
I am happy to write that, after my week of seemingly non-productivity, I have finally hashed together an argument for this latter portion of the chapter. This process has been difficult, humbling, frustrating and a little feverish (due to a problematic heating system, I shift between extreme feelings of hot and cold).
I will probably end the week where I started up, somewhere around pesky 34 (coincidentally, perhaps, also my age). But I have no regrets and I don't expect to change my process. In the future, I will try to be more patient with myself, however, and try to anticipate that writing is more about RE-writing (I think I might have read that somewhere actually).
I like writing. I like getting my ideas out - I learn a lot from it. I think this week I also learned that rewriting can even be more pleasurable.
Here's a metaphor: I like to cook. But I LOVE to eat what I made.
I hope any struggling writers out there use this to embrace their own process.
HERE'S AN IDEA FOR SOME BLOGGERSPHERE INTERACATION: Any writers, non-writers or simply anyone whose put a word to a page, what is your process? What have you learned about it that might help others? Post a comment and maybe we can start our own little writing community!
In the end, Page Count IS Dick Cheney, heartless, cruel and self-serving. But he is wheel-chair bound (locked in my computer, of course), forced to sit and stew in his ultimate failures and ineffectiveness. I am too humble to consider myself Obama in this scenario, so let's just say I represent the hoards of people, more powerful in their numbers than in what a bald man with a bad heart can yield.
In order to motivate myself to write, I am willing to write just about anything, in any order. I don't control or attempt to meaningfully participate in the outlet. My focus in merely to get words on the page. Words on the page just feel good, no matter what the words are, what order they come in or what they say.
However, I reached a point this week were I was beyond words on the page. I had many words on quite a few pages. And it was time to look at what was out there and have them actually say something rather than just appear in a random yet picturesque fashion.
I wound up doing a LOT of re-writing, cutting and pasting, and thinking, thinking, THINKING: What do I mean by this? How does this paragraph connect to the previous one?
Ultimately, I came across the crux of the problem: The section I was working on did not have a cohesive argument or direction. Without that, writing becomes a little like walking place. There were endless steps and no destination.
I am happy to write that, after my week of seemingly non-productivity, I have finally hashed together an argument for this latter portion of the chapter. This process has been difficult, humbling, frustrating and a little feverish (due to a problematic heating system, I shift between extreme feelings of hot and cold).
I will probably end the week where I started up, somewhere around pesky 34 (coincidentally, perhaps, also my age). But I have no regrets and I don't expect to change my process. In the future, I will try to be more patient with myself, however, and try to anticipate that writing is more about RE-writing (I think I might have read that somewhere actually).
I like writing. I like getting my ideas out - I learn a lot from it. I think this week I also learned that rewriting can even be more pleasurable.
Here's a metaphor: I like to cook. But I LOVE to eat what I made.
I hope any struggling writers out there use this to embrace their own process.
HERE'S AN IDEA FOR SOME BLOGGERSPHERE INTERACATION: Any writers, non-writers or simply anyone whose put a word to a page, what is your process? What have you learned about it that might help others? Post a comment and maybe we can start our own little writing community!
In the end, Page Count IS Dick Cheney, heartless, cruel and self-serving. But he is wheel-chair bound (locked in my computer, of course), forced to sit and stew in his ultimate failures and ineffectiveness. I am too humble to consider myself Obama in this scenario, so let's just say I represent the hoards of people, more powerful in their numbers than in what a bald man with a bad heart can yield.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A few thoughts on "Page Count"
Apologies for those on Facebook - some of this might be repetitive. But I am currently and endlessly stuck on 34 and it's driving me crazy.
The page count is cruel and heartless.
Page Count is not a "Count" in the royal title sense. Nor is it a "Page" in the job title sense.
Page Count might have been created by Dick Cheney. Or Rumsfield. And no doubt it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment by the rules of the Geneva Convention.
I would like to be released from page count jail with the other prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.
My four year old nephew can count better than the page count.
I should have been writing rather than coming up with page count witticisms.
Anybody else have any?
The page count is cruel and heartless.
Page Count is not a "Count" in the royal title sense. Nor is it a "Page" in the job title sense.
Page Count might have been created by Dick Cheney. Or Rumsfield. And no doubt it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment by the rules of the Geneva Convention.
I would like to be released from page count jail with the other prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.
My four year old nephew can count better than the page count.
I should have been writing rather than coming up with page count witticisms.
Anybody else have any?
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Living Mannequin
Between the years 1920 and 1940, designers used living mannequins to sell their clothes, somewhat like the models in runway fashion shows we see today, but in the stores and on the floor, changing their clothes and altering their appearance to best sell the fashions. The practice of living mannequins came between when designers stopped using wax forms (not very stable in a hot studio) and before mass production could create reliable (and cheap) plastic forms, the ones we see in retails shops today.
Jean Rhys worked for a brief time as a living mannequin and wrote about it in a short story aptly named "Mannequin." In Quartet, Marya considers finding a job as one as well. I am interested in this idea of mannequins for a few reasons. First, it brings up the question of authenticity. The plastic mannequin "wore" makeup - to appear more "real" and the "real" woman was reduced to a type, an idealized slim and white woman who had endless purchasing power. It is arguable as to which succeeds at being more real - at the very least, plastic mannequins have been more successful at their craft (when was the last time a salesperson at the Gap offered to bring out a model to show off that new long sleeve tee?) Second, both the living and plastic mannequin came about as the result of mechanized production - the ability to produce a large number of items that are exactly the same (like photographs, of course). As clothes began to be made by machines and ready-to-wear products the norm, shop owners needed more ways to show off the many options they could now offer. Did women feel that they too needed to perform as if they were mass produced, to act as reproductions in function and form?
Can we ever be individuals again considering how we are inundated with examples of what it means to be woman before we can perceive ourselves distinctly in the mirror?
Jean Rhys worked for a brief time as a living mannequin and wrote about it in a short story aptly named "Mannequin." In Quartet, Marya considers finding a job as one as well. I am interested in this idea of mannequins for a few reasons. First, it brings up the question of authenticity. The plastic mannequin "wore" makeup - to appear more "real" and the "real" woman was reduced to a type, an idealized slim and white woman who had endless purchasing power. It is arguable as to which succeeds at being more real - at the very least, plastic mannequins have been more successful at their craft (when was the last time a salesperson at the Gap offered to bring out a model to show off that new long sleeve tee?) Second, both the living and plastic mannequin came about as the result of mechanized production - the ability to produce a large number of items that are exactly the same (like photographs, of course). As clothes began to be made by machines and ready-to-wear products the norm, shop owners needed more ways to show off the many options they could now offer. Did women feel that they too needed to perform as if they were mass produced, to act as reproductions in function and form?
Can we ever be individuals again considering how we are inundated with examples of what it means to be woman before we can perceive ourselves distinctly in the mirror?
Friday, January 9, 2009
Random Post: The DSM
If there can be a book that defines mental disorders, shouldn't there be a book the acts as a guide to normal behavior? Otherwise, it occurs to me that all human behavior might eventually wind up in the DSM.
So, how is the dissertation going?
I am still at work on Chapter 1, Jean Rhys. The first part of the chapter on Voyage in the Dark is essentially done, until I get some feedback. I am now working the second half of the chapter on Quartet. I think this novel is a favorite and might be the one I recommend to readers who have never encountered Rhys's work before. For Voyage, I argue that Rhys uses the photographic form as a way to implicitly criticizes the ability of a photograph to capture a subject. For example, Rhys points that the characters are oppressed by what I call a tyranny of sameness - all the places and all the people seem exactly the same, like photographic reproductions where there is no original, only copies of copies.
In the part of the chapter about Quartet, I refer to a concept called "appearing" that I read about in a fascinating book, The Spectacular Modern Woman by Liz Conor. This concept is influenced by photography but not reliant on the mechanized reproduction of an image. Conor explains that “‘appearing’ describes how the changed conditions of feminine visibility in modernity invited a practice of the self which was centered on one’s visual status.” Conor additionally argues that modern experience in the 1920s was based on an “alteration in human perception through visual technologies…the visual realm…became a primary site for contesting…identity” and that, as a result, “for women…the performance of their gendered identity had to take place within the modern spectacularization of everyday life.” In other words, for Rhys and her modern female counterparts, everyday life is a performance where a woman must be aware that she is being seen, even if the medium that records such a performance is absent.
I will also be discussing the mannequin in relation to this concept of appearing but you will have to wait until next time to learn more about that.
In the part of the chapter about Quartet, I refer to a concept called "appearing" that I read about in a fascinating book, The Spectacular Modern Woman by Liz Conor. This concept is influenced by photography but not reliant on the mechanized reproduction of an image. Conor explains that “‘appearing’ describes how the changed conditions of feminine visibility in modernity invited a practice of the self which was centered on one’s visual status.” Conor additionally argues that modern experience in the 1920s was based on an “alteration in human perception through visual technologies…the visual realm…became a primary site for contesting…identity” and that, as a result, “for women…the performance of their gendered identity had to take place within the modern spectacularization of everyday life.” In other words, for Rhys and her modern female counterparts, everyday life is a performance where a woman must be aware that she is being seen, even if the medium that records such a performance is absent.
I will also be discussing the mannequin in relation to this concept of appearing but you will have to wait until next time to learn more about that.
Adages of the Day
Hello all! Is there anyone out there? Apologies for the extended break. The holidays and other stuff going on was a little distracting. But I am back and so is the diss.
I few adages I learned this week that are helping me motivate:
"Most people would prefer to clean bathrooms than write."
and
"There are two types of dissertations, Done and Not Done."
The first I like because it reminds me that the ickiness I feel when I sit down to write does NOT mean that I don't like my project or that I am not a "real" writer, but rather that writing is hard and everybody struggles. The second is helpful with the inner critic, that bitch, who likes to undermine me by questioning the quality of my work. The point is that I need to birth this baby; not birth it, raise it AND send it to college.
I few adages I learned this week that are helping me motivate:
"Most people would prefer to clean bathrooms than write."
and
"There are two types of dissertations, Done and Not Done."
The first I like because it reminds me that the ickiness I feel when I sit down to write does NOT mean that I don't like my project or that I am not a "real" writer, but rather that writing is hard and everybody struggles. The second is helpful with the inner critic, that bitch, who likes to undermine me by questioning the quality of my work. The point is that I need to birth this baby; not birth it, raise it AND send it to college.
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