I have to write something…

I’ve spent the last four weeks writing papers – well, really writing ONE paper – for my doctorate, and I have finally reached the state where I have to write about something else. Indeed, I need to write about anything else. If you had told me when I took this month off work that it would come down to a 2500 word framework paper, I would have strangled you. Even though I have probably written about 6,000 words in the process, and then cut and cut and clarified, it still remains one of the most difficult experiences in many years of academic work.

The step up is, of course, the move from critique to creativity. In an undergraduate degree, all you learn is what is in the field. I suppose my arts degree told me what I needed to know and then sent me out to find out. At Masters level, one learns to critique what others think they know. In this doctoral program, I am supposedly generating new knowledge, so the sense of exposure is quite acute. With John and Narrotam determined to get me publishing, I feel like a target even though the proposal is not yet presented.

It has been an interesting journey (and you can read successive drafts at my Collective Efficacy site), but one that I would not care to repeat. Now I am madly catching up with the things I need to know, which involves stitching together background knowledge into more bits of the Literature Review.

The time has come to blog. Differently. Therefore, I am going to write about anything other than the doctorate in this blog, as often as possible, even if I only talk about the apps on my iPhone.

So there.