Writing is momentum (12/28/24)

Newton's cradle with an arrow for the impulse of "writing"

Why write a blog? In all the busy times, with all the other things to do, why blog at all? In the few months since I’ve started there are a few things that have been motivators.

Ideas: it gives me a place to work out ideas – to take the bits and bobs of reading and remembrance and tie them up into small packages that I can come back to when the need arises.

Accountability: Writing is a kind of progress, even if it isn’t directly adding to word count that “matters” for the CV. Thinking through things on the additive basis is making progress. And to make progress on MY work while also chairing the department, handling hospice at a distance, householding, teaching, and spending time with Tom – that’s a good thing.

Writing Practice: Setting up a writing practice has been helpful modeling for setting up appropriate timeframes. Specifically, I think it’s helped me better plan the idea-generation stages of writing.The sitting and listing things IS an important part of writing, and I give myself more time for gazing absently into space now than I did before I started blogging. I'm thinking less transactionally and more effectively these days. Win!

Momentum: I just have a better sense of ongoing engagement with my own work when I’m putting my ten fingers and some coffee time into the project. I can feel the shifting shapes of the book outline moving in the background even if I’m not actively “writing chapters” yet. The ideas about sound experiences in installations in Chicago, for instance, have shifted the way I’m thinking about civic experiences of sound in the 15^th century since I’m considering how shared sounds provide points of reference – a kind of acoustical person-to-person bonding. Moving forward; that’s a plus.

Perspective: Blogging gets me to the proverbial Forty-Thousand Foot view, and I’ve enjoyed my forays into medieval deafness, earlids (or here or here), and poetry (with its follow-along on poetry and silences). I work more broadly in the blog than I do when I think, “oh, I should work on the book.” The details of medieval documents are one kind of practice; this has been a helpful space for developing a different kind of thinking.

Fun: Okay, who doesn’t enjoy putting words together to make a thing? I love making things. And these short things, these posts, they’ve been interesting to me. I share them in hopes that they’re also of interest to some of you.

So, yep, blogging is something that stays into the New Year. I am going to try to cut back on the book binges and to plus-up the Tom time. But I think I’ll keep blogging. As long as it stays fun!