Playing the Believing Game

1

• Playing the Believing Game gt
• Establishing Momentum

2
Understanding Writing Playing the Believing Game
3
Play the Believing Game
Visualize success. While composing, ignore
negative thoughts (such as, I dont have enough
time, this is a stupid idea, Ill never get this
published).

4
Understanding Writing gt MOMO

• The positive force is the surprise of
  discovery. Writers are born at the moment they
  write what they do not expect. . . . They are
  hooked because the act of writing that, in the
  past, had revealed their ignorance, now reveals
  that they know more than they had thought they
  knew. -- Donald Murray.

5
Understanding Writing Different personality
styles have distinct composing patterns

• What Kind of Writer are You?
• How does your personality influence your
  composing?
• Process Writing Questions

6
Understanding Writing gt Composing Styles

• Procrastinators
• Excessive Planners
• Perfect First Drafters
• Collaborators
• Extensive Revisers

7
(No Transcript)
8
Understanding Writing gt Composing Styles

• Different products involve different processes.
• Class 1 -- Routine list writing
• Class 2 Projects that have a clearly defined
  purpose, organization
• Class 3 -- Speculative, Academic Research

9
Understanding Writing

• Practice Patience.
• Avoid rushing, trying to do too much at one time,
  bingeing.
• Take deep breaths. Give your eyes a rest. Walk
  away from the computer every 30 minutes and
  stretch.

10
Understanding Writing gt Believing Game gt
Double-Entry Format
When the negative thoughts are crippling,
critique them in double-entry format.

• Negative Thoughts
• Ill never get this published
• This isnt original enough
• I dont have enough time

• Positive Thoughts
• This project has potential. It contributes x
  to y research stream. It has potential. But
  okay, Ill research possible journals and email
  editors

11
Understanding Writing Play the Believing Game

• Balance library and Internet research with
  writing and revising
• Do not edit early drafts
• Be flexible about how you write. For example,
  prewrite before researching organize after
  prewriting.

12
Freewrite

• How can you be more successful at playing the
  believing game?

13
Managing

• Reserve your most energetic time of day, if
  possible, for writing.
• Break documents into manageable sections.
• Establish due dates for first, second, and
  subsequent drafts.
• Write when you are sick and tired.
• When all else fails, freewrite about your process
  and establish reasonable contingencies.

14
Managing

• Establish priorities and act accordingly
• Structuring your time without being tense
  helps writers find additional time to work and
  play. If you work with a sense of structured
  routine, with a present-orientation with
  effective organization, and with persistence, you
  will be more likely to display higher
  self-esteem, better health, more optimism, and
  more efficient work habits. Without learning
  the language of time, you risk depression,
  psychological distress, anxiety, neuroticism, and
  physical symptoms of illness.
• (Robert Boice)

15
Managing

• Log time spent researching and writing.
• I started keeping a more detailed chart which
  also showed how many pages I had written by the
  end of every working day. I am not sure why I
  started keeping such records. I suspect that it
  was because as a freelance writer entirely on my
  own, without employer or deadline, I wanted to
  create disciplines for myself, ones that were
  quilt-making when ignored. A chart on the wall
  served me as such a discipline, its figures
  scolding me or encouraging me. (Irving Wallace)

16
Managing

• Stop writing at reasonable intervals.
• Timely stopping is more difficult and important
  than starting. Without the skill of stopping on
  time, writers cannot become productive workers
  who enjoy writing. Why? If they cannot break
  the momentum of busily, urgently doing things
  that hold them in a trance-like state, writers
  cannot begin (or end) writing sessions on time.
  And if they cannot stop writing when they have
  done enough for the day, before diminishing
  returns set in, they make writing aversive and
  more difficult to resume on the next scheduled
  occasion. (--Robert Boice)

17
Managing gt Timeline Title
To edit the timeline, select the timeline object,
and then click Ungroup on the Draw menu.
18
Managing gt Sample Log

• Keep a daily log of
• new words written
• class of writing (1, 2, or 3)
• description of activities
• description of goals (people to contact, revising
  goals, research goals)

19
http//dmi.usf.edu/ein6936/hernandez/Log/oct_00.ht
m
20
(No Transcript)
21
Engage the generative nature of language

• Trust the generative process of writing. Keep
  perfectionist tendencies in check. Remember,
  Fluency Precedes Correctness

22

Managing gt Dont Let Rejection Beat You

• Solicit as much criticism as possible. In a
  peculiar way, criticism looses its venom when
  taken in large dosages. And, of course, if you
  risk rejection on ten projects, sooner or later
  one of them will be accepted, thereby rescuing
  your pride!

23
Dont Let Rejection
Managing gt Dont Let Rejection Beat You

• Be realistic. Remember its much easier to
  criticize than invent. Every manuscript can be
  critiqued, even ones authored by major scholars
  and researchers.

At some point you need to overcome your
perfectionist tendencies and let your manuscript
go, especially when efforts to improve it are
intruding on your own professional growth.