Creating Autoethnographies by Tessa Muncey

Author:Tessa Muncey [Muncey, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Research, Anthropology, General, Methodology
ISBN: 9781847874733
Google: sPZ5dsbmbC0C
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2010-04-14T04:01:37+00:00

Scribbling Phase

This is a messy phase. The ideas have stopped flowing quite so fluently or they are so abundant that you can’t keep up with them. Either way, you know you have to start to write things down. You may be one of life’s very organised minority who never leave home without a notebook and a well-documented diary, but usually these ideas will come when you are otherwise engaged. More of my scribbles are recorded on backs of envelopes as I wander in from the garden and reach the first scrap of paper I can find, although for the purposes of this writing exercise I am keeping a diary (see below). Selection of a diary provided an interesting digression, as I found a notebook used by my youngest son and a short reverie of his use of the textbook swallowed up some more valuable time.

You should be aware here that translating thoughts into text changes them. In your imagination they flow seamlessly, just like the response you rehearse to an argument the day after it has occurred. However, writing them down is a necessary start to the process, as it releases your imagination to move on to other thoughts. Unrecorded, they wear out a groove in your thinking that not only stifles your creativity but begins to bore you. Ideas may be stimulated by a novel you are reading, a newspaper article, or a quote; you may suddenly remember a reference you want to look up, or remind yourself to contact someone by email or phone. Some of my best thoughts come either first thing in the morning, after a period of sleep, or occupy my waking thoughts in the middle of the night. I have learned that the best way to get back to sleep is to write them down. Your partner may take a dim view of your putting on the light, so this may mean getting up for a short while, but it is an important task, not to be avoided. Scribbling is intended to control anxiety, which grows inexorably the nearer you get to committing yourself to the project. These scribbles may sit undisturbed for a long time. You may want to start a folder labelled ‘writing ideas’ to store them for future use, and you’ll certainly rediscover the scraps of paper and tattered envelopes when you start to tidy up, which brings me neatly to the next phase, where tidying up becomes the most important thing you must do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.