Writing Meme

To follow up on the previous post, I am doing the academic writing meme from Professor Zero's blog. I currently find myself in need of self-reflection; this is one way in which that need manifests itself.

1. Do you outline?
Yes, but only very generally at the very beginning and then in more detail as I am actually writing. {Add} Actually, the dissertation prospectus I am working on is basically a detailed outline of my project, much more detailed than my outlines for individual essays. But there is still, perforce, much vagueness in the chapter descriptions since I don't know for sure what I am/will be arguing by the end of the writing. All I truly know is that I have certain questions, and in the process of writing I will be unpacking the assumptions behind and implications of those questions.

2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the chapters out of order?
I have never written a book but have produced a master's thesis and am currently dissertating: I wrote the master's thesis out of order, or, rather, I wrote the chapters without any real idea of their order until the very end; as for the dissertation plan, I am already planning to write chapters out of order.

3. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it?
No. Not at all. I'm thinking about the dissertation as well as the thesis, but this goes for essays, as well. I have a general idea of the direction I'm going, but I don't really know if it will make sense at the end of the road, so I try to be very flexible. It's a bit scary, but I think it's the most appropriate method of writing for me since writing, for me, is a bit like a journey. The uncertainty is the price I pay for theoretical work, I suppose.

4. Where do you write?
I write mostly at my desk, once I've been able to clear it off. (I do most of my reading at the kitchen table, on couches, or on my bed.) I can't write in cafes or other public places. I need almost perfect quiet and a way to read aloud what I've written without fear of people thinking I'm crazy!

5. What do you do when you get writer's block?
I putz around, read my "fun" guilty-pleasure books, spend more time with family, or try to reflect on my writing process by completing memes like this. ;-) But when I'm under the gun, I re-read my sources and my notes and/or cast about for new sources to help jump-start my writing process which, after all, is about synthesis and inspired thinking. And when I'm under pressure, I do force myself to brainstorm (i.e., write in almost random fashion) for a few minutes at a time, or even produce idea bubble trees; sometimes that provides the catalyst.


6. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?
I am talking about essays here, since I have never completed a book: because of deadlines that run only a few weeks at most, I tend to spend the bulk of the time before the deadline doing my research and reading, and then spend about two weeks writing while still finishing up the research. This means that I write when I get inspired, and sometimes I can draft 15 to 20 pages in a night (though I must emphasize DRAFT) but I am thankful for 5 good pages a night. This isn't what I plan to do for the dissertation, however; I expect to draft at least 5-10 good, relatively revised, footnoted pages a week once I start on a chapter, which I hope won't run more than 40-50 pages each.

7. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?
My last real project was an essay I submitted for an anthology which I subsequently asked to withdraw since I couldn't (had no time, no energy to) do the revisions the editor and I wanted, and I didn't want to have something so poorly written/conceived floating out there. The project before that was an article published in a journal, based on a couple of chapters from my thesis; like a lot of people I revise constantly, so I don't know the number of real drafts I produce during a project. But I remember that I had to draft a whole new essay based on those two chapters against my will. The editor expressed interest in the original abstract, which was based on one chapter, but encouraged me to do a comparative essay because of the relative glut of critical works on the one book on which I based the original chapter. I revised this new essay as much as I could by myself then submitted it for publication; the readers' notes came back with the suggestion to accept with revision, and I revised as per the readers' really excellent comments, after which the paper was basically done (though I have to say I didn't think the new essay was as interesting or well-conceived as the original). A more recent project, though not an article or book, was my prospectus draft, which I didn't show to anyone else before submitting to my co-chairs, who I felt should be my first readers -- or at least I thought I should try them out as first readers to see how it worked out. It turned out quite nicely, actually, but of course I didn't turn in a totally sloppy draft; since I revise as I go along, I was able to give them my first completed draft, which took between 10-12 days, I can't really remember.

8. Do you let anyone read your book while you're working on it, or do you wait until you've completed a draft before letting someone else see it?
No, I am actually very shy when it comes to sharing my work, despite my willingness to read and comment copiously on other people's work. I just haven't found a good critiquing partner, since most people seem too busy to read my stuff and sometimes the feedback I get is too shallow because the reader isn't in my field(s). My best feedback has come from professors whose classes I've taken and usually for whom I wrote the papers. I only beg colleagues to read my stuff when I am desperate (like when I am under a deadline and need a new eye). For instance, I went through the process of applying to graduate school basically without other people reading my stuff; I was sorry the one time I let my boss (who was in my field) read my personal statement because his comments were so superficial.

9. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?
When I finished my prospectus, I read my fun books, watched TV and movies, and ate out with the dh. The fact that my birthday had just past added to the festive feeling.

10. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?
One prioritized project, with others waiting in the wings. I have several ideas I am still considering but for which I have done absolutely no research.

11. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?
My essays usually grow, actually. Huh. Never thought about it before.

12. Do you have any writing or critique partners?
Alas, no. I would prefer a critique partner over a writing partner: I have tried writing/reading with other people and found myself unable to do much work. As I wrote in #4 above, I need to be alone, in a very quiet place, when I write. Critiquing, on the other hand, I can do either face-to-face or over e-mail.

13. Do you prefer drafting or revising?
It depends on the project; it depends on which process (drafting or revising) produces the most euphoria that comes from inspired writing and thinking.

14. What are your favorite writing books?
I don't think I have any, or I can't think of any at the moment.

15. Morning writer, evening writer, or doesn't matter?
Evening/night, for sure. If I am writing in the morning, it usually means that I have been up all night writing.

16. How do you handle reviews?
I haven't had to deal with them yet, although anonymous reader reviews during the peer-review process can be really daunting. I still haven't completely read through the last one.

17. How do you handle rejection?
With as much avoidance as possible. Publishing is not yet crucial to my career, so I try to treat rejection with as much sangfroid as possible; dwelling on it will only depress and stall me.

18. Do you prefer to work on writing by yourself? Or do you prefer collaborating?
I have never collaborated on an essay outside of classes, and I must say I did not enjoy these collaborations unless we were appointed specific tasks that we could call our own.

19. Able to work on airplanes?
No, I prefer to read non-academic texts on planes because they keep me awake better.

20. Have you ever abandoned a book or an article that you had finished? When? Why?
I abandoned the article I mentioned in #7. I simply could not continue it, in part because it wasn't for certain that the anthology it was part of would be published nor that my contribution to the anthology would even make the publisher's cut if the project got picked up. But the most important reason was that it wasn't related to my dissertation, which I had to start prioritizing at this point. And I was getting tired of doing presentations and writing on stuff that wasn't going to be in the dissertation.

21. What writing advice do you really believe in?
Writing is a craft, and one needs to write constantly to improve one's writing. But I have to say, my few moments of brilliant writing and thinking have come from inspiration, and thus I have learned to trust my gut instinct as much as possible when I write.

On Organization

Professor Zero, who seems to know very well what she's doing, shares her approach to academic writing in a meme. I personally like the index cards idea (#20):

I keep next to me a pile of index cards, on which I jot down a) the ideas and phrases this that come to me, do not fit in with my writing that day, but do fit elsewhere in the project, and b) the ideas and phrases that come to me and do not fit in with this project, but may be useful for something else.

I put the cards with the first group of ideas and phrases in the set of file folders I have set up, of notes towards other portions of this project.

I put the second group of cards in a box.* When I get stuck, I draw a card out of the box at random, for inspiration. When the project is finished, I use this box as seed material for other projects.

* This "box" turns out to be another blog.

As the artifacts of my own research start to pile up, I am realizing more and more that I need a better mode of organization. In fact, today, I considered going to the local big-box bookstore to buy a new journal/notebook since I have earmarked my current working notebook strictly for notes on books and articles. I have been writing the random ideas that invariably come up in older notebooks and on post-its that may get lost in the burgeoning shuffle of my workspace. I think that starting a separate file folder of "IDEAS" and using index cards would be much more organizationally smart than jotting down random ideas in different places. Or, for the notes that may have direct bearing on the dissertation later on, I can designate a whole new notebook for that purpose. Yes, I think I will. A new blog may be helpful as well -- perhaps I will follow Professor Kiita (of Chasing the Red Balloon)'s example of starting a tumbleblog -- though I must think more on this plan as I already have several blogs and webpages to maintain.

More Professor Blogs

As I have started to move into the final years of my PhD program, I have become more and more fascinated by the professorial trials, travails, and triumphs that possibly await me. I've been enjoying these particular blogs, by queer* professors of color**:

chasing the red balloon
Professor Zero
Slaves of Academe

Excellent writing all around, too.


* By "queer" I don't refer to the person's sexual orientation but to her sexual and gender politics.

** Even "of color" is a provisional term, especially in the case of Professor Zero, who has had some very interesting experiences about the curious fluidity of racial boundaries.

A Manly Man

{cross-posted at Getaway}

During bibliographic research, I came across the citation for a 10-minute silent film from 1911 that I now really want to see. I am just waiting for more free time to do the research and possibly to get a hold of it. The film, directed by Thomas Ince, stars Mary Pickford as -- wait for it -- a native Filipina maiden! Whoa! The film was originally titled A Manly Man but was reissued under a new title, His Gratitude, in 1914. (Why, I haven't found out, though one could probably make an educated guess from the descriptions below.)

Here is the description of the film from the WorldCat bibliographic database (which incidentally listed the film by its 1914 reissue title His Gratitude):

An American civil engineer sent to the Philippines on behalf of the U.S. government, comes down with the fever, and is nursed back to health by Lola, a beautiful Filipino girl, whom he later marries, and with whom he has children. When his former sweetheart in America comes to find him, he realizes he cannot abandon Lola. Filmed on location in Cuba.

Here is the more helpful description from someone who actually saw the film, user "wmorrow59" at IMDB:

I happened to see this one-reel drama in a public program of shorts and features featuring Mary Pickford, all made between 1911 and 1917. The first thing that struck me about A MANLY MAN, which was one of the earliest movies shown, is how primitive it looked alongside the other films, even ones made just a couple of years later. Mary's performance is comparatively restrained, but some of the other actors offer embarrassing displays of the sort of eye-popping, arm-waving histrionics that give silent film acting a bad name. Once we adjust to their over-emphatic style, however, it becomes clear as the plot unfolds that the story is an expression of the blatant racism prevalent when the film was produced.

A MANLY MAN (reissued under the title "His Gratitude" in 1914) tells the tale of a young American fellow with an attractive blonde fiancée and a seemingly bright future. This man and his brother are sent to Luzon in a remote corner of the Philippines on a surveying expedition related to an unspecified engineering project. But the setting might have just as well have been Honduras, a Pueblo village, or the Ivory Coast of Africa; the filmmakers made no attempt to recreate anything resembling the real Luzon or to depict anything resembling genuine indigenous culture. All that was required for the purposes of their story was a primitive community populated with simple, brown-skinned "natives" in exotic garb. And it is here that our surveyor hero encounters an attractive peasant girl played by none other than Our Mary, who wears a shiny black wig and "brownface" makeup on her face and arms. The man immediately begins flirting and Mary (whose character name wasn't specified in the print I saw) is of course flattered and responds happily. In reality, I believe, a girl in her situation would find the pale-skinned man repulsive-looking and consider his overtures an insult, but even as early as 1911 the native girls of film-makers' fantasies are delighted by the attentions of white interlopers, as they would be in so many later Hollywood movies.

In any case, the surveyor's intentions towards his native sweetie are probably not all that honorable, at least initially, for after all he has a respectable blonde fiancée waiting for him back in the States, but the point becomes moot for he contracts a terrible fever and almost dies. Mary nurses him through the illness and saves his life. And then, calling upon the services of a missionary stationed nearby who is the only other European in the vicinity (the surveyor's brother having returned to America), our hero nobly marries the girl. A title card informs us that he does so fully aware that he is "sacrificing his future." During the ceremony he looks miserable, like a man doing something shameful, but we are given to understand that this expression of his gratitude is courageous in a self-sacrificing way, seeing as how the guy can never take her back home to, you know, meet anyone respectable. And sure enough, the surveyor stops dressing like a regular American and 'goes native' instead, and settles in with the locals. His brother and fiancée, meanwhile, have received an erroneous report that their loved one is dead, but when they learn otherwise and come back to retrieve him they take one look at his "wife" and shrink away in horror and disgust. But our hero stands by his woman and stays behind, thus demonstrating what a loyal and self-sacrificing person he is. He's a manly man indeed.

That's the attitude expressed in this little drama, and it may come as something of a shock to modern day viewers who aren't familiar with the popular culture of this period. This sort of casually assumed White American Supremacy was the order of the day, and general audiences of the time would have shared the film-makers' assumption that, once our hero has married this native woman, he can never return to proper society however admirable his motives: he's sullied himself. And no doubt many viewers sympathized with the reaction of the surveyor's brother and ex-fiancée who in the final scene regard him as an Untouchable.

A MANLY MAN is interesting for socio-historical reasons but it's not exactly a pleasant thing to watch. Mary Pickford fans may be interested to find her in such an unusual role, and it's a relief to note that she does not overplay or embarrass herself in this uncomfortable and unlikely setting. Getting back to the Pickford festival I attended, it was even more of a relief to leave this film behind and turn to Mary's more characteristic works.

How refreshingly reverse-Miss Saigon! Anyone else think it's cool that it's the white man who is "self-sacrificing" here rather than the native woman? Though of course one ought to take issue with the notion of "sacrifice" to be found in too many narratives of interracial relations.

When I came across the citation on WorldCat, I became a bit discouraged because it looked as if no library owned it. But doing just a little extra digging on the internet (i.e., Googling), I found out that UCLA's Film and Television Archive actually has one of the rare copies, though it's sadly not an "access print." A scholar doing work on Mary Pickford film holdings at the Library of Congress got to do 10 weeks of research documenting the Mary Pickford films that UCLA had acquired as of 1997, and here is what she writes in her online project report:

A tinted nitrate print of a rare short called "A Manly Man" (1911) is my most important discovery at UCLA. The film was made during the actress's brief career at the Independent Motion Picture Company (IMP) in 1911. Only eleven of thirty-two Pickford's titles from this period are known to survive. UCLA's unique IMP short was reissued by Universal and under the title"His Gratitude." I identified the original release title, "A Manly Man," by comparing the story told through the intertitles with the synopses of Pickford IMP titles found in trade magazines. In this short film, she portrays a woman who cares for (and eventually marries) a white man who becomes ill while working in the Philipines.

The actress played a number of non-caucausian roles (mostly Native Americans or Mexicans) during her years with the Biograph Company. During her feature career Pickford chose to play characters from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, including British, European (French, Italian, Irish, Dutch) and Asian (Japanese and Indian). At IMP, she played Spanish or Cuban characters in three productions. But Lola, her character in a "A Manly Man," is a Filipino woman of Spanish descent, as evidenced by her Spanish name. In addition, her Filipino lover is named Petro, and the Motion Picture World review of the movie refers to her as "a latin type." Unlike her other Cuban/Spanish roles ("Artful Kate" and "In Old Madrid," both at IMP), Lola is from an Eastern culture and is extremely poor. The Motion Picture World reviewer refers to her as a "semi-savage," and from a hand inspection of the nitrate print, Pickford's portrayal resembles her work in Native American roles at Biograph. It is also reminiscent of what we know of her character in the lost feature "Hearts Adrift" (1914) and her Inuit role in "Little Pal" (1915).

Like many Pickford characters, Lola is a heroine, rescuing her white husband from a knife attack by wrestling the weapon from her old lover. And when the caucausian fiancee of Lola's husband arrives in the Philipines the man does not abandon Lola, but happily stays with her. "A Manly Man" is an important film. It is one of the few examples of Pickford's work at IMP and continues her presence in racially diverse parts after leaving Biograph. And because it is similar to a number of her roles at the Biograph Company and in features, study of "A Manly Man" is vital to anyone researching Pickford's career. Unfortunately, UCLA does not have an access print (as of early 2005), so further research is impossible at this time.

I am not sure if Schmidt is correct in saying that Lola is of Spanish descent (and I am not sure if Schmidt meant that Lola is Spanish from both sides or a mestiza) since many Filipinos had Spanish names after about four hundred years of Spanish colonization. I also don't know what the writer/director was thinking, but as the IMDB commenter noted, Pickford wore "brownface" makeup, suggesting that Lola is a "native."

This may not be vital to my dissertation, but my curiosity, in any case, has been whetted.

Prospectus Draft Update 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I presumed that I would get feedback from Co-chair #2 (my departmental adviser) in mid-summer at the earliest, so I was surprised to get her comments late on Sunday via e-mail. I am glad of this format because I don't get the visual impact/trauma of a mass of red-lined pages (though she usually uses pencil). Actually, however, I didn't get the feared and expected "devastating" questions that would undermine the rationale of the project (hmm, although perhaps I am not taking the feedback seriously enough?). Instead, her feedback really engaged with my ideas, the questions and comments taking their cue from the text of the prospectus.

Basically, she said that my project was promising (that word again, sweet), but that she'd like to see me push my ideas further. She also pointed out a tiny (tiny to me, but maybe not so tiny to her) logical misstep in one of my paragraphs which made my OCD self glad that not too many others have read this version of the prospectus. Both of these comments, the general and the specific, make me feel like she has my back. In particular, I have come to like hearing comments from advisers about pushing myself further; my first adviser in undergrad was like this with all of her advisees and with herself as well, talking about constantly "broadening our conceptual horizons" and improving our writing. Given my own teaching experience, I understand intimately the time, patience, and care it takes to read and comment on student papers; so when comments from my advisers seem to go line-by-line, I feel supported, and when they're smart comments, I feel the net below me is even stronger. For instance, I especially appreciated Co-chair #2's comments that called into question the originality of certain elements of my proposed interventions. Because, you know, I haven't read everything related to the project yet, and it's good to know that I won't be heedlessly duplicating a project that's already been done sufficiently well.

Also, she seemed quite unfazed by 1) the format of the document itself, which suggests that the format I finally settled on --

• thesis paragraph
• Rationale, Theoretical Problems, Questions
• Critical Contexts
• Proposed Structure and Chapters

-- works for her; and 2) the cultural-studies inter/multidisciplinarity of the project, which is good because this is coming from a tenured professor in my department, English.

Update

I went to Northern California a couple of weeks ago to visit my university at least once this term. I was able to talk to one of my co-chairs about the prospectus draft as well as meet with a couple of other Philippine/Filipino American studies professors to talk about my dissertation ideas. Despite the lack of comments from the other co-chair (who will probably get back to me sometime in the summer with what a friend calls "devastating questions"), I came away from those conversations feeling inspired and on the right track. The overarching feedback that I got from the first co-chair was that the project right now is a little too large, but promising. That was nice to hear (I knew I was being ambitious, but better that than having too small a concept, imo). I left the Bay Area thinking that I would jump immediately into drafting the third or fourth chapter, since, in order to pare down the project, I need to learn from practice what my limits are and will be. I figured I could edit the prospectus after that.

In the week since I've been back, however, I haven't done much to those ends. I went to the library again to pick up another shelf of books on interlibrary loan, so that's something; I have found some truly amazing stuff that would most likely fit in the first, most historical chapter. But I am feeling listless again, after having expended so much energy to produce that first draft and then travel to the Bay Area to 'talk shop' with more people in one week than I met with or even saw during the previous six months. I've been ensconced here in my house, where everything moves much more slowly, at the pace I set for myself. (Is it any wonder that I've gained almost ten pounds in a little over a year, since leaving the Bay Area to live down here?) Ah well. Perhaps the absence of comments from Co-chair #2 is preying on my mind more than I thought it was.

For those interested, here is the current breakdown of the chapters. The breakdown might change dramatically in the next couple of months, though, and the chapter titles will almost certainly be edited (they've already undergone transformation several times as my units of argument and primary texts have changed):

• Introduction


• Part I: Colonial States of Dependency


• Ch. 1: Historical Tropes of the Child: Civilization, Education, and Comparative Racialization


• Ch. 2: The Racial Contexts of Filipino Representation in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century America


• Part II: The (Sexualized) Child Talks Back


• Ch. 3: Mourning a Lost Innocence: Sexual Precocity and Sex Trafficking


• Ch. 4: Queer Boys and the Homoerotics of Empire


• Conclusion (or Ch. 5): Toward a Critical Theory of the Child

. . .

You know, it's funny: looking at this breakdown makes the project seem more real to me, as if my having decided on a particular structure makes it more doable somehow. I am actually excited about the dissertation, despite my current listlessness.

The issue I have started to worry about is whether or not the roving (roaming?) interdisciplinarity of the project will be acceptable to my English department. Co-chair #1, at the beginning of our conversation, asked me in what department(s) I envisioned myself as faculty. "And so it begins" was my first thought; I had been counseled for years not to think about the job market until it was time, but apparently writing the prospectus is that time. Anyway, I responded to her query: Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies, maybe American Studies, and English -- in that order -- and the English department must be very open to cultural studies folks. (I should note that I have never taught a literature course, not even as a teaching assistant, so any future teaching experiences in the field might shift English from last place. Or it might not. Then again, some of my favorite cultural studies scholars are in English departments, like Laura Kang, Rachel Lee, and Anne McClintock. And some of the exciting, up-and-coming Philippine/Filipino American studies folks are English or Comparative Lit professors as well.)

Co-chair #1 said that she felt the project would also appeal to Women's Studies, which makes a good deal of sense since much of the critical theory I will be harnessing for the project borrows a lot from feminist scholarship. But I told her that I don't see myself as having enough background in Women's Studies; despite having been a reader/grader for two Women's Studies courses in my graduate career so far, I don't have a truly firm grasp of the traditional (First and Second Wave) feminist theory that is required for Women's Studies majors. My project would perhaps find some fit in later Waves which are being defined right now by work on how gender and sexuality intersect with technology, race, disability, and, of course, discourses of the child, among other things. On the other hand, Women's Studies departments are also interdisciplinary -- a trait that is apparently very attractive to me -- and I wouldn't need to be a traditional feminist to be a faculty member in one such department, I'd think; I can just bulk up on my traditional feminist theory like I did with my orals fields. Moreover, the lecture course I am teaching this summer for the alma mater is titled "Asian American Women." That should count for something. Hmm...