Making Progress

 Dear Writing Lab Clients,

Sawubona, welkom, wamkelekile, dumela, bonjour, jambo, ndaa, lotjhani, mohoro, avuxeni!

I would like to welcome you to the second instalment of our weekly Writing Lab newsletter, ‘The Write Idea’

Last week, Natashia shared her thoughts on finding your writing process, your rhythm and your motivation during this time. We hope that you have managed to find some processes that work for you. Most of you that have been at my writing workshops, know that I always stress and encourage you to:

    "Take risks, try new approaches to find out what doesn’t work for you, so that you don’t waste time following the crowd, thinking this must work for me. In this way, there is more time to get things done using approaches that         work for you."

I find that my rhythm and process for productivity changes daily depending on how I envision ‘progress’ for that day. It is a tricky concept and one that I have spent a lot of time trying to decipher. I have come to understand that it cannot be easily defined and often, there is a dominant universal understanding. This idea of progress pegs us up against our peers as if our studies and academic writing need to always be a competition, and that one’s progress is better than the other. That is far from the truth and I, now know that defining progress is much more complex, personal and specific to our circumstances. As Pat Thomson says:

    "Progress is always a relative thing – it’s related to the task and the time available. In order to assess my own progress more realistically, I’ve had to think about the particularity of my own situation. And I’ve had to speak to myself very firmly about not falling prey to very unhelpful comparisons. Comparison is, of course, the name of the competitive academic game and it’s toxic. I’ve had to remind myself that it is OK to do what you can, as you can, in the extraordinary times we are in. Just as it was in the old normal."

Progress is, therefore, defined by you as we are all on different journeys towards a common goal (graduation), and this becomes relevant not only now, but post COVID-19. So, when finding your process for productivity, establish what ‘progress’ means for you by being realistic when setting your daily goals. It is also important to be kind to yourself when you reach those goals and celebrate every progressive moment or milestone, no matter how small (or big) it may be.

I know that even thinking about what progress means can be quite stressful, as right now we are playing catch up with school work and, of course, those looming assignment deadlines! With so many uncertainties flying around about our future we must not forget to always take a time out (and, yes, watching your favourite series counts! I recently watched ‘Unbelievable’, go check it out for a dose of reality), but writing can also offer you a space to re-calibrate your thoughts and ‘check-in’ with yourself.

I find the strategy of free-writing quite calming as it helps me make sense of all my thoughts, especially when I am anxious and the deadlines are piling up. So, what is Free-Writing? Peter Elbow, the pioneer behind this strategy puts it quite succinctly:

“The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words; but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words. Only in the end will you know what you are saying.”

I really like his words because, yet again, we seem to want to focus on being right the first time, producing the perfect first draft, and free-writing offers that freedom to make mistakes until we find the right meanings. It is a useful idea-generating strategy similar to brainstorming, but your ideas are written in sentence and paragraph form without stopping. It has many benefits including to help increase the flow of ideas, reducing the chance that you’ll accidentally lose a good idea, helps to increase your ability to write and most importantly, allows you to appreciate the drafting and revising process of writing. So, why not try it?

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen

2. Set your watch/timer for 10 minutes

3. Then, don’t think, just write!

4. Write in sentences and use a paragraph form

5. Don’t focus on spelling and grammar, just write all the thoughts that are on your mind

6. Keep your hands moving – if you can’t think of anything, keep repeating certain ideas ‘work’ ‘work’ ‘work’ and wait for the ideas to come, and they will!

7. After the 10 minutes or when you feel you have enough, try to make sense of what you have written – maybe it can help generate ideas for your assignment, maybe even a plan for what progress looks like for the day

Sometimes, I also do what I call, free-typing. Instead of writing by hand, I open a MS document and type my thoughts vigorously, or I do a free-voice recording and record myself using my phone to capture my ideas. Whichever method you choose, the great thing about this strategy is that it is for your eyes/ears only and you can be expressive as you want.

This strategy helps me with structure and finding my compass for the day depending on how I portray ‘progress’. I hope you will try it and find what progress means for you, today, tomorrow and when we see each other on campus again.

We would love to hear from you! If you have any questions or want to let us know how it’s going, please drop us an email at fhs.writinglab@gmail.com.

Wishing you a safe week and the best of luck! Taahira Goolam Hoosen