Overlooking Anxiety

“Many anxious graduate student writters…are often chronic procrastinators, dislike writing, have difficulty concentrating on it, and fear evaluation of their work” - Lynn Z. Bloom, "Why Graduate Students Can’t Write" 

At least I am not alone.  Since all of Blooms statements about anxiety ridden writers are true of me, then I have to ask myself several questions: “What am I doing mastering in English?; Why am I pursuing a career that will plague me with this anxiety?; Why do I choose a field where the main advancement comes from good writing and where I am judged based on my written performance especially when I don’t really even like to write?” Two possibilities occur to me: either the study of English Literature gives me something far more valuable which outweighs the trials of writing or I am unstable and crazy.  I plan on exploring the first possibility and will spare you my thoughts on the later. 

I love studying English Literature, I love bringing it to others and I love language itself.  I belong in English.  But it is not because I am a gifted writer but because I value the thinking and the transformative ability of language as it exists in literature.  As I write this I pause and start talking aloud to myself.  I complete all my thoughts on the subject verbally explaining myself and my understanding of what I am doing in this field.  It is now out of my mouth and gone.  I have no record other than my incomplete memory.  However, this fact that my words would be here and gone in a moment, is the very thing that has enabled me to compose them.  As my thoughts are not written down they will not stand for judgement; therefore I can compose freely without the constrain of the critic.   However, it is necessarily that I write; I have to; I will continue.

Perhaps there are two sides of the study of English.  One is like a puzzle, where I have questions that need answers and I have a wealth of information to put together.  I listen to lectures, I talk to colleagues, I read articles and books.  These are the pieces I gather, then when I have sorted by color and type I sit down and think, write and answer my questions.  The process of putting the pieces together can be nerve racking and anxiety ridden, sometimes it is also fun.  However, it is always work and the task of writing always feel like a task. 

The other side to English is the reading of the actual texts.  This hardly ever feels like work and I read with delight and full attention.  I marvel at the use of language, hundreds of questions come to my head, I make connections and I enjoy what I am doing.  Phrases and words from authors continue to come to my mind after reading and I keep my questions so that I can go about answering them.  What draws me to the humanities and especially to literature is that it seeks to answer not only the minute questions of one text or one sentence, but by discovering the answers to the smaller questions, it demands that the larger questions of life also be answered. 

The study of literature directly concerns the study of life, the world and humanity.  I am willing to make such a bold claim because I believe it to be true and for me it is the foundation of my work and my enjoyment of it. 

I am not particularly ambitious.  I simply want to think about the world through the experiences and conversations I have and through the literature I read.  English literature is the field where this is possible. 

Labor

As I sit down to write, I am reminded what a small task is at hand and yet I still am reluctant to begin.  I have put off writing in favor of reading for the past few days, which I naturally do without thinking whenever I have something to write.  I have been enthralled all day with Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, a novel on my list of texts that I need read before I start writing my thesis.

I read because I love literature; I write to put my thoughts in order.  One is for pleasure, while the other is almost entirely practical.  When I think of writing my thesis is seems large in comparison to what I write today and it is.  It is indeed large for my experience and at times I think it is large for my abilities also.  Yet while thesis thoughts ran through my mind and intermingled with the lines of Radcliffe, I thought with awe at the even larger task of a novelist.  I would some day like to write the musings of my mind in narrative form, that is when I have something to tell, but a novel is after all a whole different and more arduous journey than that of a thesis.

I am glad that I walk one foot in front of the other and not with two feet at a time.  I am content as a critic and not a master.  Virginia Woolf was both and perhaps that is why her criticism is beautiful, clever and spot on.  She is well balanced.

I do not pretend to think that I could ever master the art of narrative or criticism, but I can be honest.  I continue to come back to honesty and it continues to draw me in.  It is of the most import, it is what makes writing true.  But honesty in mind is not enough if it is not committed to paper; therefore, I would like to add to honesty that of labor and long suffering.  Something of Trollope must be there - some going to the desk each day, engaging the mind and searching for answers to our curiosities.  Work then is intrinsic to producing anything "whole and entire".

Practical Concerns

To pull an idea past distraction I must narrow my scope of research.  If I cast the net wide with Jane Austen, then I get too many fish.  I have a very large tendency to want to check out every book and look at every article on Jane Austen.  After I have determined that a source is not useful I usually continue reading.  I am simply interested in the ideas of others as they concern Austen and I have a strong desire to come to a comprehensive knowledge of her world and our criticism of her works.  Often the scope of my research is disproportionately large to the task at hand.  Reining it in will help me develop answers to my questions rather than simply producing more questions. 

And so to no surprise casting wide is how I have begun my research on my thesis.  I spent the summer swimming in resources.  Now, I will reform. 

I really appreciated the suggestion to have three stages to writing a thesis: 1. gathering, reading and taking notes on sources, 2. (Re)forming ideas and creating an outline, 3 writing the thesis.  These distinct periods of time and purpose will help me push my question into the pen.   

In my practical quest I am also still very concerned about remaining honest.  It is only natural for practical concerns to re-color the representation of the product rendering it more agreeable, even if that product is a person, a piece of writing, or anything else.  If I have not looked at everything then how can I be sure that I am seeing things in themselves correctly?  I think that by looking deeply into a few things I can trust my instinct and rest knowing that relief from the kind of stress produced from having to know everything will free me to actually think of think in themselves.   Even as I focus on the practicality of writing my thesis, I can research and write honestly, not trying to account blindly for what I do not know nor producing a question and answer that plays entirely into the desires of my audience.    

    

Writing Honestly

I have not come to study literature because reading and writing were second nature to me, but rather because a thoughtful narrative almost always draws me in and I love the possibilities existent in language.  In fact, writing has never come easily for me.  I have always admired those that can put pen to paper producing an idea "whole and entire" as Woolf puts it.  The writing that we love speaks some truth to us - it is honestly given and we come back for it.  I want my writing to have this honesty.  If it lasts for an hour or beyond my life, it needs honesty.

This must come from me but not me mingled with the external critic.  But how to erase the inhibiting critical voice, and how to move from distraction and anxiety?

While browsing at a bookshop this summer in Austen, Texas I came across an introduction by Henry Drinker to one of Anthony Trollope's novels.  Driker explains that Trollope lost considerable favor after he candidly stated in his autobiography that each day including Sundays at 5:30am after having read over the previous days work he wrote 250 words every fifteen minutes until breakfast time.  Apparently he lost the look of an inspired artist since he wrote so mechanically and for money.  However, what a mind is that, steeping with that security and abundance of clarity - a brilliant one really.  On reading this I felt much as Woolf did when she notices the student in the library next to her.  Her mind is wandering and his is clearly steadfast.  She notes the difference with irony:

"The student who has been trained in research at Oxbridge has no doubt some method of shepherding his question past all distractions till it runs into its answer as a sheep runs into its pen.  The student by my side, for instance, who was copying assiduously from a scientific manual was, I felt sure, extracting pure nuggets of the essential ore every ten minutes or so.  His little grunts of satisfaction indicated so much" (A Room of One's Own)

I am not sure how to lead my questions past all distractions or to extract pure nuggets of anything but I think I will start with honesty and an attempt at silencing the echoing critiques.