As I was agonising and struggling with voice and conceptual string, I began to read Catherine Deveny’s Use Your Words: A Myth-Busting, No-Fear Approach to Writing. You know the saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, or this case, when the writer is floundering, Deveny will appear.

The key thing that hit me that that this thinking of structure, conceptual strings, and the such was really just a distraction from the writing. Do the writing and let it work out those problems.

It reminded me of a book I read on procrastination which said one of the most common ways to procrastinate was to read books on procrastination. I often think of that that when I embark on any projects. Its very tempting to spend time on setting up all the various files, folders, and such so that I can be efficient with my work. It was something I used to do all the time. Now, I just do and build the system as I work. Not only is this more productive, its also a better system, as its built to the needs of the project rather than becoming an imposition on the project when it is running. Essentially, approach the productivity system with a prototyping mindset, rather than trying to retrofit it because you are suffering from structural fixedness.

Deveny writes about something similar about writers who put off writing until they can go away for a writing retreat so that they will have unbroken time to focus. Weeks go by arranging things in anticipation of the writing – instead of writing. Stephen King in On Writing writes how he wrote his first books in the laundry room of his house while teaching at a high school. I know people who have spent a lot of time and money setting up their creative space even before they have created anything. Deveny says if you have ten minutes, you can write – anywhere, anytime. I like how she thinks.

Another one of my productivity ‘insights’, which is essentially an excuse, is time of day. I have read many books such as Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, where the habits of various writers are examined. Tim Ferriss always asks his podcast guest what their morning habits are. There is a fetishisation of writing in the morning. While true that its best to write then, I have also used it as an excuse to not write as I have missed the ‘golden’ writing time. ‘Oh well – tomorrow I will wake up even earlier.’ Never works.

Deveny also writes about this. She reckons its best to write when one has the time. I found this out a few months ago, when after a futile morning of not writing, I gave up and headed to the local cafe. While waiting for my bacon and eggs, I thought – ‘ten minutes of writing while waiting, why not’. I left almost two hours later after having written more than a 1000 words. I was reminded of this again recently, when after coming to the co-working space at lunchtime and then struggling to write, when my new Czech writing buddy – Matin – said he had written 2000 words. Damn. So I sat and wrote – few hours later, I had 1300+ words done. A lousy day ended up being very productive. And I was writing in the afternoon. Fuck the morning.

So I am taking what Deveny is suggesting to heart and just writing. I will let the writing sort out the structural and conceptual issues. I will trust the writing and the writing process. It will be much easier to edit a large something, than have nothing to edit.

Having worked with the design colleagues to teach first year design theory and history, my visual literacy has improved significantly. Also, having extensive sessions on whiteboards trying to find the best way to visually capture information, processes and ideas and then in turn to represent a simple but effective visuals, has taught me the power of visual communication.

So I present to you my attempts to try to reconcile the three foci into a single conceptual string. The basic idea is that education has to encompass self-identity, an understanding of community, and the responsibility of citizenship when thinking of the development of a student beyond being a worker.

The first is a linear diagram. The idea is that the development has to work in that order; one has to be achieved before the other can be.

But things are rarely that neat. Leap-frogging or overlapping is far more likely. So I thought of another diagram to visualise that.

So, I think I might a conceptual string which is about the development of those three as the higher purpose of education might work for me.

Although, I have been reading Catherine Deveny’s Use Your Words: A Myth-Busting, No-Fear Approach to Writing. And she has very different ideas to the hand wringing.

A conceptual string is the idea or framework that spans the entire work, and upon it are hung all the chapters. I had some ideas before I started the work, but since I started, it seems that they are not strong enough to hold the book together, or perhaps the book spans too wide a chasm for the those ideas.

This is fundamental problem then becomes a problem of structure. How does one write something when there is no unifying theme to hold it together. The cheat or, if I were being generous, the hack is to think of the book as a series of essays. That would mean that they need to have that conceptual string only running through each essay/chapter. However, that is not quite what I want to achieve.

When I started, the book was going to be about how my teachers influenced me how that I am a teacher. Even before I started writing, I realised that it was too limiting a focus, and, to be honest, also quite boring. As I thought further of the role and influence of teachers, I arrived at three foci — the development of the student’s self-identity, an understanding of community, and the responsibility of citizenship.

This is influenced partly by some of the thinking from a couple of projects that I have worked on as well as the teaching that I have done in the last 3-4 years. Those three are areas where education is moving away from to focus on employability as the key measurement of academic success – which is unfortunate and to the detriment of the future. But how do I reconcile the three foci into a conceptual string. That is the challenge.

Any thoughts?

Voice is a real struggle for me when I am writing. I feel like I move from the lyrical trying to write like an Indian writer to the more formal prosaic non-fiction writer. It leaves me confused about what I am doing, and neither is done well.

Having recently read Obama’s first memoir, I was inspired and found myself wanting to write in a voice and style similar to his. To put it simply, he writes by first describing what was happening, and then follows it with an analysis of what he was feeling or thinking then. Then he weaves those pieces through the framework of race and legacy.

I also find myself influenced by the voice of Hitchens and Steinbeck, to write to say what I have to say without flourish. But I my writing has neither the wit of Hitchens nor the craft of Steinbeck. True that those are ambitious footsteps to try to walk in, but one had to aim high to get somewhere useful.

Finding voice has been a struggle for me when I used to write when I was younger. I began writing by aping the styles of those who most influenced me then. Attempts to write like Lawrence, Hardy, Orwell, Welsh, and Kerouac were all just bad facsimiles of them. I did not even attempt Rushdie or Mistry – feeling that their styles were too far from my voice.

I stopped write non-academic work when I was 25 — 15 years ago. When I started my academic voice was as expected – pompous and affected. Over the years, its got better as I have got more confidence in what I have to say. Writing to explain complex ideas to students, especially for those non-native English speakers, has been a good exercise in focused and clear writing. I still have a tendency to over-write, but that is usually motivated to be as explicitly clear as possible.

I do think that I am a better editor than a writer, having helped many friends with their writing. My editing strengths are structure, flow and clear writing. So thats the approach I think I might have to take with this project. Get bunches of text down, and then try to structure them into a narrative.

But there is still the issue of the conceptual string for the entire work that I have not sorted.

(More on that next post)