• the profession
• writing

Here's my next question. WHEN do you write? A lot of people recommend when first getting up in the morning, but I've found, with every major project from my dissertation onwards, that I do best when I write from about 1-4 p.m. during the week (not on weekends). And I always stop writing when I have more to say, so I can pick up the thread easily the next day. I never impose page quotas, though, just the 3-hour time limit. I've always reserved evenings for reading, usually from about 8-midnight.

• Jim Aune's blog
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• writing

I like this a lot. I often wonder if other parts of the country have the long memories we midwestern ethnics have. But those long memories often don't extend much before the moment of immigration.

• Jim Aune's blog
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• writing

from One-Way Street, "The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses" (selections):

IV. Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.

V. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.

VIII. Fill the lacunae in your inspiration by tidily copying out what you have already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.

• Jim Aune's blog
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• writing

Is now available, with web access included in the price. One major change seems to be that one doesn't need to cite URL's anymore. I still think parenthetical citation is the Devil's Work, and I wish we would all just use Chicago.

• Jim Aune's blog
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• writing

Daily Routines is a blog about "How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." I find information like this really helpful, in my perennial quest to become more organized.

• Jim Aune's blog
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• communication
• delivery
• writing

*Sigh* The perennial post-CCCC buzz on the WPA list about whether or not to 'read' papers at the conference has begun. Here's part of Rob Hudson's post on 'The insidious practice of monotonously reading your paper at a conference': "I had the great fortune of attending CCCC this year and was surprised that some presenters actually read papers, verbatim, at the podium! Others engaged the audience with interactive, cooperative presentations. As an unenlightened adjunct faculty with a mere Masters degree in writing, perhaps I am ignorant and don't understand why I can't simply read the paper myself, at home, without paying a conference fee.... But as an instructor who encourages students to present such content well, I can't understand why this practice of monotone reading persists." There have been rants for and against, and some calls for both/and. I'm in the 'for' camp, and it strikes me as extremely problematic for people to use terms like 'insidious,' or for other posts to be subject-lined "how can communications specialist do this to each other behind closed doors?"(see Tom Miller's post). I am a writer. I teach writing. I perform writing. I publish writing. And I do all of it behind closed doors. It is odd to me that a conference on composition does not seem to welcome compositions.

• Cynthia's blog
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