#running away is easy

[deltasaviorthemaker]

Als'w xlex mr xli amrhsa?

[thegirlwiththelilactattoo]

No. 6, or a Writing Process

Once upon a time, my writing process was as follows: write an entire paper based on vibes and evidence from readings. Let the argument develop organically. If at some point I didn't like the writing style, argument, or anything else, delete the entire paper and restart. It didn't matter if I had 1 page or 8, if I didn't like the paper, I would rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

Most of the forms of taking stock of ideas before writing haven't worked for me. Outlines in their I/II/III/a./b./c. are too structured to be hold the all the ideas happening in my head that cannot be made sense of in roman numerals. For me, the process of writing is where I start making connections and synthesizing ideas. It's the part that I like and enjoy. I need to dump fully formed ideas, musings, considerations, secondary and primary data on a page and only then can I make sense what all the information is telling me. I couldn't tell you how one idea builds into the next or where one ideas flows into the other because I need to write it first. I need to experience it and make the connections, and develop the ideas.

As a college student, this manifested in my terrible habit of writing and deleting thousands of words until what I had on the page was as if someone had lovingly made sense of the red stringed conspiracy board in my head. This worked fine for me in college. Like was it entirely inefficient? Absolutely! Did my papers suffer for it? Nope!

It's only in grad school that I've had to reevaluate this process. In No. 4, I talked about imposter syndrome. I never used to be an anxious writer. In college I felt very confident about my skills as a write, it wasn't until grad school that I started to feel like an imposter. I'm hyperaware of how my own writing style fails to match up to scholars in the field or my peers. I am compelled to self edit constantly to emulate "good" prose and that makes writing feel impossible. It's another thing grad school has taken from me, the joy of writing confidently and unashamed.

Now that I am responsible for writing a 60,000 word document in the next 13 months, I have tried to find ways of working that support my writing and thinking process.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is one of my first steps to dealing with anxiety. With a mind map I am dealing with the known. The data I already have and my general ideas. It's also the most legible outline I have to convey to my committee members that thinking is happening.

My first step before writing is to summarize the points that I want to make in a paragraph. I try to cover the main ideas in broad strokes and craft a short thesis. For me, this has to be as open as possible. If it's too specific and maps out each move, I feel restricted and anxious.

Once my summary is complete, I make a mind map. I'm in the social sciences and working quite interdisciplinary, so the mind map helps me to organize my thoughts and the breadth of data visually. This is a must for me. It's very similar to an outline, but something about the blobs feels much less stressful. I've used MindMup (free) and am currently using MindNode (paid).

I basically use the mind map as a quasi outline to get the general idea of the logical path of my argument and the main pieces of evidence I'll use to craft my argument. This also serves as the basic structure of the chapter organization.

Because the mind map is relatively general, I feel free to explore various lines of thought, which then leads me to my Zero Draft!

Note: I also use a similar mind map in the literature review process either through an app or on a bulletin board like how I describe in this post.

[Alt text: Screenshot of a mind map. The original content has been covered with boxes to generalize the categories. The first node says Argument One which leads to another node that says Literature Review. It then branches off to three child nodes that say Data 1, Data 2, and Data 3.]

Zero Draft

I'm currently at the Zero Draft phase of my first chapter. This topic is mentioned in Joan Bulker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a day, where most of her advice for writing your dissertation is to just...write.

This is the part of writing that is really fun for me, the infodump. I use a zero draft to do all the messy thinking and linking of ideas. I leave ideas unedited and clunky. I move from section to section at my leisure. I delete things. I write notes to myself about ideas I want to develop or lingering questions that I want to address.

It's the draft where I feel free to just say anything without justifying myself. As such, I don't really make any concrete arguments in this draft. It's kind of like sculpting the body and later I figure out what the head will look like.

The zero draft is for messiness that I will then refine in a later draft. Once my zero draft is written, I have a good sense of what I actually want to say and can rewrite my first draft to most effectively say it. It's essentially like doing a reverse outline.

Closing Thoughts (???)

Writing can be such an opaque process and academia thrives on this "figure it out own your own" mentality. I've never really found writing advice that spoke to my own particular neurodivergent way of thinking, so I hope this is helpful to at least someone else!

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[mlcbluez]

what happened here🤔🤨

[nixonnewjersey]

In October 1944, Dick wrote a letter to one of the wounded men, 2nd Lt. Charles Hudson, and ended it with, "Love and kisses"

Relatives of Hudson wrote to Dick in 2001 and sent him a copy of his 1944 letter

(Source: The Richard D. Winters Collection, Box 8, the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.)

[wistfulwatcher]

emily prentiss + leaving and coming back for her family

[kashmimo]

[moeblob]

Happy Birthday to Ferdinand von Aegir!

I actually made 33 emotes, affectionately known as Aegirglyphics to some, for my own personal use on discord. However, I figure why not share some of them! They're free to use for discord servers/icons/pfps or whatever. However, my only request is Do NOT use them as subscriber emotes on Twitch. You can make them free follower emotes but you are not to make them locked behind a paywall.

[cdfreak]

as a cis butch lesbian the way people talk about trans women on this site is uncomfortably familiar, and extremely telling - so many people who tout themselves as gender rebels or queer activists still view trans women as inherently more masculine than cis women. the femmiest trans girl youve seen in your life will still get the same "step on me mommy" treatment that so many cis butch lesbians are subjected to, just because shes trans. even in allegedly progressive queer spaces, women cannot escape violent sexual objectification, yet we are expected to ignore it and pretend everything is fine so we dont upset "solidarity" with the people (often men lets be real, trans or otherwise) who are hurting us and dehumanizing us, WHILE solidarity between different groups of queer women remains weak. divided we are vulnerable, only through solidarity and love and mutual respect can we protect and uplift each other.

[hauntingsunshine14]

summer olympics 2028 in a universe with no exy we have:

star gymnast neil josten

heavyweight champion andrew minyard

tennis pro kevin day

rugby goddess allison reynolds

d pole laxer matt boyd

marathon swimmer renee walker

volleyball libero aaron minyard

hockey forward dan wilds

synchronized diver nicky hemmick

[sleepysuccubi]

i’ve been living in sundresses lately ✨☀️

ok to rb (unless you’re a minor then gtfo)

[axellis]

Now I'm wondering how tf peppermint fudge pulled a powerful beast jester and a powerful stoic king! Like how did he draw them both to him and how tf did he manage to (accidently or on purpose or idk) get em to poly!

Also can't get one skit out of my head so gonna vent it here incase ya want dark cacao x peppermint fudge x shadow milk ideas.

Evil/mean monster/cookie: *attacks peppermint fudge.*

Shadow milk and dark cacao: ah...so you've chosen death.

a king always has the final word, but it's up to the advisor to make sure it's the correct final word. the difference between challenging vs outright refusing a kings word is also a fine line to walk on . peppermint fudge was always a bit of an annoying case to those who just wanted to blindly follow their new ruler's word-- but to dark cacao, these are the moments that he cherishes the most

for shadow milk, it started out as simple intrigue! when a random cookie just appears and looks to be intending to stay- of course you wanna watch! so shadow milk did .

&& as for how they got to be polyam in the first place........ if shadow milk didnt think itd be fun it probably wouldnt have happened at all...

[slyandthefamilybook]

I think a lot of people's politics (especially on here) can be summed up in that they'd rather wait for Nazis to sprout than remold the conditions that allow them to exist

[razmerry]

we are reaching levels of yearning ex-boyfriends that shouldn't even be possible. my geiger counter is crackling and smoking

[bonefall]

Is there a cat in cannon who got a good death who you think didn't deserve it? Especially if they committed crimes?

Tom the Wifebeater and his redemption death. No question. It's not even close.

Not only do I reject to the "redemption death" on the grounds of it being Tom the Wifebeater who is bullying others until his dying breath, even taunting Thunder about Turtle Tail is dead and the kits must be very torn up about it, but I reject "redemption through death" entirely. I don't like it in stories. It's a theme I deeply object to.

And again it's fucking wild that every time a character is a father, even if they are a wifebeater or a child abuser, the writers think that it bestows a glimmer of goodness into them which every abused child is forced to appreciate and cry about. Breezepelt, Thunder, Tallstar, Tom's children, all of them forced to reconcile and admit how much they wuv their papa.

Abusive dads in WC regularly get redemption deaths, too. Clear Sky dies saving his grandchild, Sandgorse died saving a rando in a tunnel, Tom the Wifebeater saving his daughter.

But Tom the Wifebeater is the worst example of it. Hands down.

[bucchiboo]

Twisted Wonderland Novel 2: I had grown tired of thinking… I knew I was just running away from what had pained me, but nonetheless, my heart felt lighter. With enough distance between you and the subject, you’ll lose all desire for it. The warmth of the sun, the smell of new leaves, the damp wind of the rainy season— it’s nothing but a blur when seen from so far away.