My Writing: Off-Focus

Good grief. I’m an idiot. Okay, I know what’s wrong with the old text. I was trying to write down the process of creating lesson plans and calling it something else. Most of the text that I have has to go in the trash. I’m starting over with the right topic, but I can’t figure out HOW to start. I’m so lost. I’ve spent the entire day trying to figure out how to frame this thing and get going.

My list of ten steps or guidelines or whatever the devil they were is gone. Now I have 3 things, and I’m not sure if they’re components, characteristics, steps, or what. I’m so confuddled that now I’m making up words. I’ve nearly rubbed my eye raw (damn you dermatitis) I’m so stressed over this stupid chapter. I just can’t figure out what to write or how to write it.

So now we’re back to freewriting, though it really doesn’t feel all that freeing I have to say. If I were a writing teacher looking at me, I’d tell me to stop screwing about and just write the damn thing. The challenge is that I need to figure out the structure. Hell, I’m not even sure what these three things are. How can I just write? I don’t know what I’m calling or how they fit together until I figure out what they really are.

Okay, let’s try an analogy. I can’t really talk about the topic of the book because, well, never mind that, because I can’t. So an analogy. Let’s say that I was writing about preparing a meal and these three things aren’t really courses or recipes or even the steps in getting the meal ready. Hmm. Maybe the meal is more like a buffet. People coming to it have to choose their own food and the three things would be something like (1) deciding on the event basics, (2) exploring the necessary preparations and work, and (3) putting everything out there so hungry fools can gather foodstuffs to their plates. That’s not really quite right either though. Those things really are steps and they have to happen in that 1-2-3 order. I’m not dealing with things which have an absolute order. Certainly some orders are more sensible than others, but the process would be fluid and shifting.

Hmm. Maybe they’re roles. Forget about that buffet. You’re a restaurant owner. You crazy, eccentric, epicurean entrepreneur-type thing, you. You have a crew of various chefs (sous, pastry, head, and otherwise) and various other required peoples (bartenders, snotty maitre d, actors/waitstaff, etc.). You have to accomplish three general things to help all these people do their jobs: (1) define what they are supposed to do, (2) clarify your expectations (no damned tofu in this restaurant), and (3) provide all the stuff that they need to get their jobs done.

But those aren’t really roles, are they? They’re objectives or goals or something. Your roles would be something like (1) visionary, (2) whatever-t-f this would be, and (3) provider/supplier. Hell, now it sounds like a drug dealer is involved. Well, a drug dealer or god. “The provider” is surely something out of Star Trek. They have to be objectives, purposes, goals, something of that sort. I can’t even name them sensibly as roles.

Okay, do goals work? Well, if they’re three goals for the overall end product, they’re better than steps or something since goals do not HAVE to be accomplished in any order. That gets rid of the 1-2-3-step process problem. Objectives can be interdependent. That’s good, because some of what I have really lumps similar things under more than one of these items.

Objectives seems like the right idea, but it didn’t seem right earlier today when I tried it. What changed? Maybe part of the roadblock is whose goals they are? Maybe that’s why goals didn’t seem right before. They’re the owner’s goals, not the restaurant’s. Does that work though? Has THAT been the problem? Is it that I’ve been trying to explain how to serve dinner, but my structure is based on the owner’s goals? That would certainly help confuse things anyway, though it doesn’t quite explain it properly.

Okay, let’s try more. I have to make this damned thing fit or I fail and then I don’t even know what will happen to me.

• The chapter is about the owner’s role in running a restaurant, and it explains the 3 main tasks that the owner must complete to fulfill the role as owner?
• The chapter is about the owner’s goals for running a restaurant, and it explains the 3 main tasks that she must complete? Is that the same thing?
• The chapter is about the way that a restaurant is run and focuses on what the owner does to make it happen.
• gah. I’m going to be sent away to live in a cardboard box under the overpass.
• The chapter is about the job of the restaurant owner, or maybe it’s the restaurant manager, that might work better. The chapter is about the job of the restaurant manager and outlines a 3-part job description, the three things that the manager is responsible for doing to ensure the success of the restaurant.

That last one feels closest, but if it’s right, are they objectives? Are the tasks that someone has to accomplish in some position that person’s goals in that position? Are these damned things steps? tasks? to-do’s? The restaurant manager’s to-do’s: a bestseller by tengrrl. Flock to Amazon for your copy now. Autographs available upon request. I’m going to lose my mind.

Hell. Maybe I do know what the disconnect is. I’m looking at one of my sheets of notes and trying to fill in the analogy and figure out what’s wrong:

The restaurant manager’s role in creating xxx, what the manager sets as objectives for each xxx in order to help employees do their best work.

Maybe the problem is the “xxx”—I’m not defining the point of these things clearly. Or I’m misdefining it. Is my problem that I have two different definitions working. At times, “xxx” is, let’s say meals. So the manager’s role in creating meals. But at other times I think I’m trying to make the steps fit the goals of the meals themselves. That is the goals of the meals not the goals of creating the meals. In ways, for the real topic, there is overlap, but the goals of the two things are not identical. Is this the problem? If you’re still reading at this point, go find some liquor for both of us. Maybe that would help.

Okay. The chapter is about the restaurant manager’s job to create “dining experiences” (the manager has gotten snooty at this point). It outlines the three objectives that the manager must fulfill for the employees to do their best work in
creating those dining experience. No. that’s not right either. The manager isn’t creating the experiences, but setting up what’s needed for the employees to create the experiences. The manager creates the environment in which employees do their best work. This restaurant is getting on my nerves. Rereading things……

Um. Perhaps I’ve been banging my head against the wall for all this time, and the problem is that I’m not applying what I know as a teacher to a discussion of how to teach. I realize that may not make sense. Then again, has anything in this entry really made sense? It’s just occurred to me that these three steps may simply be part of figuring out your rhetorical situation as a writer. If that’s the case, I’m a dolt.

I’ve spent all this time trying to figure out what the teacher is trying to do when she writes, arrived as these three things, and it never ever occurred to me to step back and look at all that as a writing activity for the teacher. Moronic. I am beating myself with my copy of Kinneavy. Good grief. Is that it? It’s taken me an hour and a half of freewriting and DAYS of squirming to figure out the blatantly obvious? It’s so screamingly obvious that I’m not sure that I trust it.

But everything I’m reading fits. All my scribbles, bulleted lists, chunky headers. It seems like that is the answer. Even the original focus problem makes some sense. I went off down the road of “how to write a lesson plan” when I should have been on the shorter path of “determining your rhetorical situation when writing a lesson plan.” It’s no wonder nothing fit.

hmm. Okay, I’m going to put this away while it seems to fit, go to the grocery store and the Hallmark Store (ornament debut weekend!). If it still makes sense tonight when I’m watching the football game, then (1) I’m a blind idiot, and (2) it’s right.

My Writing: Chapter 4 Meltdown

After a bit of a meltdown around noon, I’ve been sitting here at the computer trying to figure out chapter 4. Meltdown? Well, it’s just that I haven’t had a moment to write this week, even though I MUST finish this book this month and I have at least 3 chapters to go. When one more thing appeared that it seemed like I was going to have to work on today before I could get to the book, I lost it. I cried in three different offices, the bathroom, and on my way to those locations. I feel like I’m under so much pressure to get this thing done, and yet I don’t have any time to actually get it done. So my dear boss proclaimed that other things could wait, and that I could indeed write this afternoon.

That brings us to my current situation. First I read what I had written last weekend to figure out where I was and pick up the explanation. I wrote a bit, connecting gaps that I left in the text and trying to continue through the outline. At a certain point, I decided that maybe I needed to stop the entire process and write the lesson plan that will ultimately accompany this chapter. Then, I thought, I can go back and write this prose description of the process of putting it together. Yet it seemed problematic to stop what I’m doing this close to deadline to write something else altogether that absolutely will not be text I can just drop into the chapter.

Sigh. So I kept trying to write the chapter. Maybe an hour ago, I decided that what I was doing was just all wrong. There’s too much bloody detail. It would NEVER make it into the final book. Here’s an example:

As they work, I ask questions to help them consider everything they are authorities in: Do you play any sports? What about work? What about your hobbies? Do you play video games? Are there places that you’re an expert on? What about animals and plants? Any you know a lot about? Are you an expert on any television shows or movies? Are there any musicians or kinds of music you know well? I also remind students that they’re just brainstorming. They will have the chance to go back later and remove anything that doesn’t seem to fit. For now, they’re just writing down everything they feel they know a great deal about.

Um, no. It’s surely what I would do if I were teaching this writing activity that I’m talking about in Chapter 4; but it’s just too much. Too basic. Too stupid to include. So I pulled my current touchstone Both Art and Craft off the shelf AGAIN to check my thinking. Diana Mitchell doesn’t even begin to use that kind of silly detail. It’s all wrong.

So then there was another bit of a meltdown, though it was contained to my cubicle. What the hell am I doing? I no longer know what this damned chapter is about. It’s never felt right, and now I’m realizing that the text that I do have is all wrong. So the rereading started. I reread the text for Chapter 4, which begins with an list of items that forecasts what the chapter will cover. I tried to fill in jot notes under each of the ten (who woulda guessed?) steps/guidelines, and dragged text around to move some of it into different steps. The more I’ve looked at it, the more redundant and overcomplicated it looks. So I tried to narrow it down, rearrange the items, or SOMETHING. That’s when I noticed that four of the ten items were some assessment related thing—and it’s NOT a book about assessment.

I began rereading the whole manuscript, because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what is right. I do know that what I have is very wrong. It’s focused, but it’s not really right. I think it starts on the right track, but then it derails into overwhelming detail. So back to reading, and trying to figure this mess out. If I don’t get it soon, the breakdown will be very problematic. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

My Writing: Chapter 4 Unstuck?

I may (I hope, I think, I dream) be unstuck. I rewrote an ending for Chapter 3 and started trying to figure out the structure for Chapter 4. In total, I probably wrote only 3 or 4 pages over the weekend; but I do think there’s enough there to know what I’m trying to do. Unfortunately there are just starts of things. I didn’t finish any of the blocks of text.

My Writing: Stuck on Endings and Beginnings

Well, it appears that I am stuck. Chapter 3 is 45 pages long, but the ending just doesn’t feel right. Nor can I manage to figure out how to start Chapter 4. The two chapters need to connect to each other, but I just can’t find the right way to do it.

Three goes through a series of pedagogical beliefs, one-by-one, and discusses how each one relates to the topic/goal of the overall text. Four is supposed to work through an example in complete detail.

Part of me thinks that Three could just end after the last belief is dealt with. They’re numbered, and that’s all that the chapter does. Does it really need a conclusion? Can I just start the next chapter? I looked at the ends of chapters in Both Art and Craft, and a good number of the chapters just end after the last teaching idea is dealt with. Can I do that? It feels like cheating, but anything else feels redundant.

Gah . . . Maybe this is the point in my life when writing a dissertation would have been helpful. I’d know whether and how to transition in such things. That part of me that thinks maybe it would be okay to just end after the twelfth belief is being seduced by another part of me that says, “This will go out for review. Just move on and wait till someone tells you it’s wrong.” Okay, yes, I know that’s very lame. But it would help me move on to the next chapter (which was due Sept 6, so it’s seriously late).

Poopies. I’m supposed to have this chapter seriously underway and have a new schedule written by tomorrow afternoon. :( And I have to get the all of the book written by the end of October. Maybe I should hire a ghost writer.

My Writing: California English Submission on Pop Culture

So because I was supposed to be figuring out how to start the chapter that is nearly a month behind, I wrote an article to submit to California English instead. The Winter issue is on pop culture, so I tossed together an article on bridging television and literature. It’s very list of ten-ish, so it may well be rejected immediately. The last article I sent out with a list in it was dinged, so I’m not ready to invest emotion in this new piece yet.

My Writing: (Or Not My Writing)

Suddenly this afternoon, as I was trying to clean up the deep piles of work in the office, I realized that I haven’t posted in a month. I’m not sure what happened. What a sinking sad feeling to realize that I haven’t done anything though. I feel so tired and sad and lost. How did I let so much time pass by?

Daily Work: Ordering the Bifocals

My sister Kerri and I set out on an odyssey to get glasses this afternoon. Who knew it would be such a pain in the butt? I will NEVER go back to that store. I would have walked out early on, but I had found what I thought looked okay, so we didn’t leave (when maybe we should have).

Our trial today began when the worker bees were totally flustered that I would want to get glasses at a place when their doctor hadn’t done my eye exam. I went to a doctor who is part of my regular health insurance (benefit of keeping all my health records together) and who was recommended as better than the other options. But that location isn’t approved for glasses. I would only get $75 back, which wouldn’t begin to cover the cost. So I went to a different office/store to get the prescription filled.

After much sighing on their part, I asked if I could just look around and figure out if I wanted anything before they completed all their recordkeeping. As Kerri and I began the process of looking at the glasses that all looked the same, another woman came in and had a fit because she felt she was being charged for something that she shouldn’t be charged for. The complaining woman was inappropriately obnoxious, but so were the worker bees.

I finally figured out the frames (pictures one and two) that seemed right. We took some pictures with the cell phone, so that I could look at them from that perspective. The clincher was having Kerri put them on. I’m used to seeing her with glasses, so I could better tell if they were okay on her.

Unfortunately the arguing woman and the arguing worker bees were still all fully involved in arguing. Kerri and I stood around and tried to pretend that we weren’t really annoyed with the unprofessional stuff that was going on. I sent one of the pics of me in the glasses to Lisa. Kerri and I sighed. Eventually I decided I couldn’t take anymore, so we went outside for a bit while the arguing continued. Lisa called me to say that she liked the glasses while Kerri pretended that we were doing something important in the car.

When more customers showed up, Kerri and I went back in (we lost our place in line by going outside, and I didn’t want to be any further behind). Eventually, arguing people came to a ceasefire, and woman left. It only took about 20 minutes for all that.

When the clerical worker bee flustered about with the difficulty of entering me in their system, the head worker bee in charge of fittings and nonsense decided to help me. We were less than amused by this woman’s method. If I hadn’t done research to know essentially what I wanted, I would have been walking out of there with the most useless, basic glasses in the world.

It was as if she couldn’t be bothered to talk to me about anti-reflection or anti-scratch. But when pushed she provided an unnecessary sales pitch. She was most engaged in the process of adding up that the glasses would cost me and what I would have paid if I didn’t have insurance. Frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to pay for them and be done with her; but she was very, very determined to make sure I knew that I saved money.

Throughout this process, Kerri and I kept rolling our eyes at each other. You would have thought that it was unusual to want anti-scratch coating and such things. When we finally walked out, we both agreed never to return to that place for a purchase. Actually, what I said to her was, “All in all, I would rather go through a pelvic exam than do that again.” What a horrible place.

So I ordered progressive lenses (no line bifocals), transition lenses (they get darker in sunlight because bright lights really bother me), and anti-scratch and anti-reflection coatings.

They said it would take 2 weeks (which is also far too long according to everyone. Normally these things take a week.) At least it’s taken care of for now. Who knows if I’ll really get glasses in two weeks?

Backdated. Written 9/26/06

Daily Work: Seeing the Eye Doctor

I had my eye doctor’s appointment today. The verdict was that one of my eyes is nearsighted and one is farsighted. Together, they balance, and I can see just fine.

I went to the doctor knowing about the nearsightedness, but the farsightedness was a surprise. I thought that the nearsighted eye had gotten a bit blurrier, and I had noticed odd trouble with little print on things, like microscopic print on a medicine box. Turns out that was the farsightedness.

So the doctor said that I can:

1. do nothing, after all I can see just fine as it is and I’m only bothered if I cover one of my eyes (um, the eye patch look is so me) or on occasions like the microscopic print.
2. get glasses for distance/driving, etc. The doctor suggested they might be nice at night or if I was tired.
3. get bifocals to correct both problems. The doctor said that eventually I would be wearing bifocals, according to his “crystal ball” (yes, he really said that)

I figured that since NCTE graciously provides vision insurance, I’d get something generic to keep on hand when needed. Then he dropped the bifocal lenses in the little glasses thing he put on me, and I was totally sold. Everything was suddenly clearer and crisper.

So this weekend when my sister is here for the annual birthday visit, we’ll go find glasses. I just hope to find something that doesn’t make me look stupid.

Backdated. Written 9/26/06

Depression: When We Talk, Or More Accurately, Now That We Don’t

Apparently I shouldn’t listen to my iPod either…

If I had my way I’d be in your town I might not stay but at least I would’ve been around Cause there’s something about what happens when we talk Something about what happens when we talk —Lucinda Williams

Maybe I’m just destined to cry, no matter what.