#writing-process

#writing-process

Instructions I created. Instructions I am continuing to hone - instructions that required me to study my own old essays, identifying what I do when I write. The sentence rhythms. The way I move between timescales. The zooming in and out from concept to detail. The instructions tell Claude how I would like ideas composed. I pull together concepts and experiences from my lived expertise to formulate a point of view - in this case, on this new AI technology.

In class, I shared a set of drafts of a poem that appeared in my most recent collection. One by one, I projected versions of the poem onto a screen. I drew attention to the red ink slashing through unwanted words. I pointed out how I added, struck, added, struck and then re-added a comma. I boasted about my careful use of my favorite punctuation mark-the delightfully overlong em dash.

There's something about the rhythm of cycling that opens up my brain. Maybe it's the repetition, the solitude, or the fact that my hands aren't reaching for a phone every 30 seconds.

I made the mistake of letting baseball become my entire identity. And when that happens, there's not much else. And that really led me to burnout.

The problem with scholarly focus is that it leads where you intend to go... when you get there, you're likely to find that your destination isn't all that interesting.

I could picture her in my head, sort of trudging around with...cleaning supplies...taking such care to never let anybody see her, never have to talk to anybody. Who is this woman and what happened to her?