I have a strange sense of calm today.  Strange given quickly elapsing summer days and the work and commitments piling up, not to mention the quickly approaching next steps I’ll be taking in the coming months (going on the market).  My calm could have something to do with the fact that I’ve avoided all forms of caffeine today.  In any event, I like it.  I’m going to try to go uncaffienated for a while.  We’ll see what comes of it.  

I really do teach writing

Yeah, I’ve taught writing for seven years.  Every semester.  But trying to write a dissertation makes me feel like a total fraud.

I’m sure my feelings are totally natural and “to be expected.”  I just can’t wait to be on the other side of this.  Even to be in the middle of it with more of a clue would be okay with me.

But seriously, after this is all over, I wonder what I’ll say the key to writing productively is.

Hope someday I’ll look back at this post and say, “Yep, I remember being there.  Glad that’s over!”

Blogging again, maybe.

Actually, who knows.  It’s been over seven months since I’ve blogged on this blog.  I was in a different place with my project when I wrote the post below.

I don’t think I want to write exclusively or a lot about my project here.  I’m the kind of writer that needs to do a lot of shitty writing and, honestly, shitty thinking, a long and laborious process that I don’t necessarily want to make public.

But, this morning, and for the past few days, I’ve felt the blogging bug a little bit.  Probably because I’ve been reading blogs for hours a day, working on my chapter.  I’m going through a year of posts on three different autism blogs, coding discourse in a way that I hope will show how blogs afford several kinds of rhetorical agency.

Anyway, I’ve had the urge to blog several times recently about different things, so why not officially open the door again.  More to come soon, I hope.

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Now, sitting in Starbuck’s, I’m having moment of nostalgia (and envy) as I see the person across the room reading Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer.  The Moviegoer was the first of many Walker Percy novels I read.  Walker Percy’s novels and essays have influenced me probably more than any other writer, but it’s been awhile since I thought about him.  Seeing the cover of his first novel, just now, was a breath of fresh air.