šŸ”–šŸ“š Sara Fredman’s How Motherhood Helped Me Reject the ā€˜Father Tongueā€™ of Academia is both about writing the kind of thing I want to write and is itself the kind of thing I want to write.

I just signed up for 1-Day Online Nonfiction Seminar: The Scholar’s Guide to Writing & Publishing Creative Nonfiction, which I would not have done without the encouragement of Dr. Katie Rose Guest Pryal’s book (I will get a commission if you purchase using that link), Dr. Lisa Munro’s request for CNF class recs, and Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton’s reccing the course.

Welcome to Camp NaNoWriMo with me!

I may receive commissions for purchases made through links on this page.

It’s July 1 which means it’s the start of Camp NaNoWriMo! I’ve created a new blog at write.as using my romance writing pseudonym which isn’t a secret; it’s just separate so that if I ever publish anything, my academic writing and fiction writing don’t cross-pollinate. (I know some people use the same name for everything and that’s cool but I want to try this.)

The plan is to write a 12,000 word novella in July, edit and polish it, and self-publish it at a $2.99 price point. But the draft versions will always be available for free on that blog, and the final version will probably be there in a split-up format, too. And there’s a non-zero chance it’ll end up on Wattpad as well.

I’m using Gwen Hayes’s book Romancing the Beat to inspire my structure. I’m 99% pantsing. I have an idea about the main characters and the premise and that’s about it. So here’s where we’re at, which is slightly different from where the idea started already…

My original idea was that a “working actor” (we’ll call her H1) in NYC would come home to NC to help her mom recover from surgery and learn that the director of the children’s theater where she “got her start” was retiring and if they couldn’t find a proper replacement, they’d have to shut the theater down. She would run into her high school sweetheart (we’ll call him H2) who she met at the theater but with whom she hadn’t been able to maintain a relationship with him because they both were super career-focused and for reasons I hadn’t figured out yet, he wasn’t geographically mobile.

But in the middle of the night last night, I decided to bring it so it’s closer to home. So now H1 has a DFA in dramaturgy from Yale but has been a freeway flier for years because she can’t secure an adjuncting job, and the rest of the external circumstances are pretty much the same.

The thing that inspired me to write this publicly was Kristopher Jansma’s article for Electric Literature, What We Canā€”and Canā€™tā€”Learn About Louisa May Alcott from Her Teenage Fiction. I’m a sucker for juvenilia. I bought Alcott’s first novel, The Inheritance, when it was published in 1997 and it has a place of pride on my bookcase mostly because the cover is very pretty. I was playing Beth in a production of Little Women at the time. I have multiple boxes of my own creative output in my house that I’ve labeled “juvenilia.” You know, for when I end up donating my papers. I guess to Wilson Library? Anyway. Let’s all laugh about the idea of someone wanting my papers donated.

I’m also a sucker for author commentary. Piers Anthony writes these sprawling author’s notes and every time I read one of his books, I read the author’s note with great eagerness. The same for Leigh Bardugo, who blessedly actually names the titles of the works she used for her research.

I also love seeing works in early stages, works in progress, and hearing what people think of their own early work. So when Jansma mentioned Thomas Pynchon’s book, Slow Learner, , in which Pynchon offers and introduction to and commentary on some of his early stories, I decided to do something similar in real-time. The writing process, especially revision, feels so opague to me. I’m excited to open it up and make it public.

I know that I won’t be able to write every day this month, so I’m shooting for 20 writing days with a word count goal of 600 words each day. Buffer days will be for getting set up, writing commentary, or just taking a day off.

Today I’m writing this post and setting up Scrivener. Look out for those first 600 words in the next couple of days!

What Kimberly Wrote, May 17, 2018

Today I have reviewed and written a synthetic note forĀ one journal article.

I also wrote my earlier blog post.

(I did some other stuff, too. But it isn’t tied so directly with my writing.)

What Kimberly Wrote, August 2015 - May 16, 2018

As promised yesterday, I’m going to start tracking my daily work productivity, mostly to help me realize that yes, I’ve actually done stuff. First we’ll get a macro picture of everything I’ve written as part of my doctoral program, and then I’ll get into the work I’ve been doing for my comprehensive exams, where I will detail more than just words written.

I have written the following items as part of my doctoral coursework:

  • The Maker Movement and Learning in School Libraries. Literature review. 8,000 words.
  • The Role of Archives and Special Collections in K-12 Instruction. Literature review. 7,000 words.
  • Organizing and Describing Information for Children. Literature review. 5,000 words.
  • School Librarians as Leaders. Literature review. 5,000 words.
  • Special Education Training for Preservice School Librarians. Original research. 4,000 words.
  • "A Real Fun Scene": Learning Improvisational Comedy in Community. Original research.Ā 7,000 words.
  • Everyday Life Information Needs of Adolescents. Literature review.Ā 4,000 words.
  • Designing Information Retrieval Interfaces for Children's Use. Literature review.Ā 5,000 words.
  • Libraries, Tabletop Roleplaying Games, and Teen Identity Development. Literature review.Ā 6,000 words.
  • Cultivating a Community of School Librarian Scholars. Literature review.Ā 6,000 words.
  • Unlocking the Door to Adventure: Cultivating a Community of Practice in Improvisational Comedy (and related assignments). Original research. 10,000 words.
  • Expansive Learning, Third Spaces, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (and related assignments). Literature review.Ā 5,000 words.
  • Learning from Library Escape Games. Research proposal. 1,000 words.
  • Decolonizing and Participatory Research with Youth in Library Makerspaces (and related assignments). Literature review.Ā 7,000 words.
  • Possible Selves. Literature review.Ā 6,000 words.
  • Teen Participation in Library Makerspaces: A Grounded Theory Study. Research proposal.Ā 5,000 words.
  • Youth-driven School Library Services. Research proposal.Ā 1,000 words.
  • Racial Equity Initiatives in North Carolina's Public Schools. White paper. (Co-authored.)Ā 6,000 words.
In the two and a half years of my coursework, I wroteĀ 98,000 words.

Not bad. (Please don’t ask how many I published.)

Now, let’s talk about the work I’ve done on the comprehensive examination literature review package.

I identified 179 studies that were potentially of interest. Of those, I have identified as useful, read, and reviewed 35 studies. I have written synthetic notes for 33 of those; at an average of about 250 words each, that’s a total ofĀ 8,000 words. This is a marked drop-off in word count output. There are several non-writing reasons for that. I’m going to ramp it back up in the near future.

So that’s where I was as of yesterday. Look for another update after today’s work session!

From Wil Wheaton:

I love reading about other creative people’s processes, especially writers, so this look inside Wil Wheaton’s head as he revises his first novel is my kind of deal. (Add on top of that my near lifelong crush on Wil Wheaton and just… yeah.)

And it inspired me. I’ve been chipping away at my comprehensive examination package, a giant literature review and a milestone in my doctoral progress, slowly but slowly for a very long time. I started while I was still technically doing coursework in the fall, and spent the whole spring semester on it as well. And I expect to be done in December, because I expect it to take me as long as they will allow. (#thanksparenthood #gradstudentmomlife) But I have really been struggling to feel like I made progress.

So starting tomorrow, I’ll take a page from Wil’s book and actively blog each day about the progress I’ve made. I’ll begin with a report about my progress since August, and then add a little bit each day. I’ll be dropping all that stuff in a category called “What Kimberly Wrote” (nothing there yet). It will be everything that counts as part of my writing process, not just getting words out.