How to Write a Lot

Remember my resolution for 2012? You know, the one about writing a lot? While it may not be noticeable in terms of this blog, in my "real life", I have actually-- possibly for the first time ever-- stuck to the resolution!

Since January, I have written my prospectus, two manuscripts, and statements for my job applications.  And I have this book to thank for my progress: Paul Silvia's How to Write a Lot.

This little self-help book is specifically for academic writing, and even more specifically for psychologists (as Silvia is a faculty member at the University of Kansas in Personality Psychology). Silvia manages to take concepts that I "already know" and make them so blatantly clear that I can't get around them anymore. For examples, if you want to write a lot, you have to write often.

I'm waiting for you to pick your jaw up off the floor.... I know this piece of advice doesn't seem to groundbreaking, but for me, it was. Before reading this book, I survived as what Silvia refers to as a "binge writer". I saved up all my writing for big blocks of time where I would crank out a project in one sitting. I even did this in college for my written class assignments! While it was easier as an undergraduate when my blocks of time only needed to be big enough to throw together a five page reaction paper or article critique, now it is becoming more difficult. How am I supposed to find a chunk of time that is big enough to write say, a dissertation? Instead, Silvia suggests setting aside protected "writing time" two or three (or five) times a week. The rules of writing time? Write (doesn't have to be good, just get words on paper), read, edit, do some stats, format, save, delete-- basically, do any type of work on the writing project, keep track of what you did and how long you spent, and feel good about yourself when you're done.

Anyway, I cannot thank Silvia or this wonderful little book enough for changing my life. I now successfully have writing time at least twice a week and have become a much more productive graduate student. I think I'm going to re-read this book once a year to keep the inspiration and motivation fresh.

Til then, I have some more writing to do.

Farm Anatomy

Grad school is tough. It's a life with lots of work and few pleasures. And despite loving what I do (and more importantly what I will do when I actually get a job), sometimes I like to just day dream about quitting life and moving to a farm where I can just grow vegetables, cut fresh flowers, and finally get a dog.

Julia Rothman's picture book Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life provides the perfect escape to country life without the complications of quitting my job or moving. Rothman beautifully illustrates everything from tomato varieties to the appropriate methods of stacking firewood.

I gobbled this book up as a source of entertainment and retreat from reality, but I know that I will keep it and refer back to it as a resource. The book offers a deceptively large amount of information among its fabulous illustrations, and would help any farmer-wannabe get started with planting a garden, canning foods, or identifying a piglet from a shoat (guess you'll just have to buy the book if you want to find that out!)

Okay, back to gazing at the pretty pictures. I can't say I plan on planting an orchard any time soon, but a girl can dream, can't she?

Eleventh Meeting: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

So, as it turns out, working on my prospectus, grading papers, and having ever Saturday designated for tailgating and football not only makes me neglect blogging, but reading in general. For the past three months, I have only had time to read book club books (usually I read at least one book on the side each month too). And, I am two meetings behind in my blogging! Well, that all changes now.

September's meeting was hosted by my besty Lisa. She picked Rebecca's Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  The story of Henrietta Lacks is an unusual one-- as a woman, hardly anything is known about her, but her contribution to science is infamous! Henrietta was a poor black woman living outside of Baltimore in the 1950's. When she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, her doctors took some of her cancer cells without the knowledge or consent of her family. These cells, known as HeLa cells, were the first human cells ever able to be cultured, and they revolutionized the way we research and understand cancer and living cells in general. The book is part biography of Henrietta, part biography of HeLa, part scientific journalism, part memoir of the author uncovering this story, and reads like a novel. I found it to be incredible.

The book raises a lot of issues from racism to medical ethics to justice. Why were the HeLa cells taken without consent? Why was her family never told about the cells? How could Henrietta's cells be so influential in the face of health care today while her children can't even afford a doctor's visit? While it would be easy to point fingers and paint certain parties as villains in this book, I think that Skloot did a great job of reporting objectively, with no judgment, the role of each family member or physician.

As usual, the review of Eat, Drink, and Be Literary were mixed. While most of the book club members are psychologists, we have our fair share of experience with ethics and ethical violations, so some parties thought the book was just exploiting another example of why there are so many ethical codes now. It was really interesting to hear Lisa's point of view as a health care professional, and also to hear our friend Mandy's point of view as a biologist. Mandy works with HeLa cells and could give us the inside scoop on how prevalent they are in labs worldwide, and how much they now cost to purchase. I loved the book, and hearing everyone's points of view I loved it even more!

Upcoming book picks

September's meeting will be hosted by Lisa and she picked The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It is non-fiction (sort of a biography but sort of not) but reads like a fast paced novel. I'm 80 pages in and have found myself going to bed at nine every night this week so I could get more reading time in!

Other upcoming books are Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros (this one is my pick)... I'm hoping for some theme eats/drinks to go with these culturally specific books. We'll see if Japanese night and Mexican night pan out.

Happy Reading!

Eighth meeting: Zeitoun

Oh my! I am a bad blogger. I am two months, and several books behind. I blame it on the distractions of sunny patios and cold beers... 

Last month (May 2011), Cheyenne hosted our eighth book club meeting to discuss Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. As my previous post indicated, I read the book in two nights and really loved it. But, I love almost everything Dave Eggers does, so that is no surprise. To remind you, this book is written like a novel but is actually the true story of the Zeitoun family from New Orleans before, during, and after Katrina. It is gripping, intense, and magnificently (I think anyway) shows the many different sides of people's responses to disaster. No spoiler alerts here-- though people may feel like they know about what happened in the aftermath of Katrina, what happens to the Zeitoun family is shocking, and best left as a surprise!

The meeting was in College Green Park, and we had a picnic! Pressed sandwiches, strawberry lemonade, spinach salad, and gooey brownies (Matt's first ever attempt at baking-- they were great!) All eight of us at the meeting were cozy and cute under the little gazebo when suddenly the wind picked up, a dark cloud loomed ahead, and all of the families and kids in the part started fleeing. We all started to laugh because it seemed so eerily similar to the book. Like Zeitoun, the main character, we decided to stay in our gazebo to ride out the storm. This change in the weather was the perfect segue to a great discussion of the book.

As usual, the group was split in their opinion of the book. For example, while I thought the book was the least political Katrina story I've read, others thought it was too political. The varying opinions of the Eat, Drink, and Be Literarians never cease to surprise me, but also impress me. It is great to examine a piece of literature from so many different points of view. One thing we could all agree on is that the Zeitoun family has a story that should be told.

If you have read the book already, or perhaps don't mind a spoiler, see a video interview with Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun here.

Impatient? Me?

So, yet again, I finished the book club book more than a month ahead of schedule. I just can't help myself when the box arrives from Amazon. It's like Christmas!

I finished Zeitoun about a week ago and I cannot wait to talk about it with the club. It is unlike any of the other books we have read in that it is non-fiction. It is about the Zeitoun family and their lives in New Orleans around the time of Hurricane Katrina. It is still written like a novel, but the characters and the events are real. While reading it, I actually preferred to pretend it was fictionalized because some of the things that happened to the family are terrible, and I just wanted them to not be true.

I'm itching for anyone else to finish this book so we can cheat and talk about it before the meeting at the end of May. But I guess in the mean time I should get started on the ever-growing stack of books on my night stand.

Quitting is for schmucks.

Well, I'm a schmuck. Just this once I suppose. Typically, I have this very weird habit of never admitting that I could not finish a book or that I just quit reading it and moved on with my life. Instead, I maintain-- for weeks, months, even years-- that I am just "still reading" a book. I have several of these never-enders on my night stand at any given time, and every once in awhile I will actually convince myself that after a 3 year hiatus that I will magically be able to stay awake reading Atonement or Love in the Time of Cholera (neither case has ever been true, but both books have proven to be capable cuddling partners). But, something inside me snapped this week, and I decided to take one off the shelf and just say no... er... just say "I QUIT!"

Hello, my name is Katy, and I have stopped reading The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008 edited by Dave Eggers, Intruduction by Judy Blume.

Now don't get me wrong-- the book wasn't entirely bad. I usually love collections of essays, short stories, chapters, comics, poems, etc. I find that collections like these are sometimes the only thing that can capture my grad-student sized attention span (meaning very small because I'm supposed to be focusing on the three dozen unread journal articles sitting only a few feet away on my desk) and therefore as a "genre", I love collections. And I also adore Dave Eggers. I have read all of his books at least twice and my borderline inappropriate love of his work (and what I imagine he is like in real life) is what drew me to get this book in the first place. And Judy Blume? Hello, what adolescent girl (past, present, or future) has not been able to find her voice after reading just a blurb of Judy Blume's brilliance?

So why am I actually committing to QUITTING this book if all I can say are good things? Well... for one thing, it's freaking 2010. In fact, it's the second half of 2010. Why should I be focusing on the best literature of 2008 if there's just more (and better?) stuff piling up on my nightstand for me to look at? But still, I have clearly known that 2008 is long gone for about 18 months now, and still didn't quite give up. I put the book back on my nightstand and it continued staring me down. "Finish me! Don't give up!" it whispered every night as I would reach past it for something -- dare I say it-- better. So what happened? I answered the call of the book one night. I chose it above all others. I started a new short story and... well.. I just got bored. There. I said it. It just couldn't quite grab my attention and I kept re-reading the same two or three paragraphs night after night, trying to move forward.... somehow, this turned into literally flipping through the rest of the book and skimming random pages of random essays. When I realized that nothing more between the two pretty covers caused me to make a second glance, and that when I tossed the book off of my "to read" pile that I felt NO REMORSE I just knew. It is time to move on.

Whew! I feel liberated.