A Transparent Process
January 3, 2012
I’ve decided that my new year’s resolution is to be more reflective about my writing/thinking/researching process. I’m starting the comps process, like, next week, and I’m freaking out about it but I’m also really, really excited about it. I’m also doing some cool things and I’d like to talk about them.
First reflection: I say “also” too much.
One of the things I really liked about HASTAC was how a lot of people were excited when Siva Vaidhyanathan was spending time talking about his writing process and his failures before he published a really successful book. What if more of us did this? Would academe change a little bit? What if we talked about all the things that we do that aren’t related to our projects? I ride a bike and I spend a lot of time doing that. It keeps me sane and I like it because I don’t have to think about my project when I do it. When I come back to my project, I still like it.
So, I’m going to start using this blog to do that. I’m going to make it (semi) habitual, and I’m going to talk about what I fail at as well as what I succeed at. I’m starting to feel more comfortable about this whole academic world I’m in (although there are still parts of it that I find so, well, weird).
So first, I need to stop making this blog about anonymity. My name is Erin Beard, and I’m a Ph.D. student at MSU.
