Graduate students write a lot. At least we do in musicology. But often ideas won't come, or come so slowly that you can't tease them out of hiding fast enough. You know how cats sometimes run up trees and refuse to come down? Yeah, it's a bit like that...
I've noticed that computers don't always help. The temptation to delete thoughts is too great, and I can write for hours, deleting, beginning, ending, over and over again.
Paul Simon has some good advice in his song "Hurricane Eye":
You want to be a writer
But you don't know how or when
Find a quiet place
Use a humble pen
Even if you cross out what you've written, you can always go back and see how your ideas led to one another. As I stumble towards and around my dissertation, I've come to rely increasingly on humble pens and 1-subject notebooks.
This blog, on the other hand, is a diversion. I've noticed that the more I write, the better I write, so even if no-one reads this, it does me good. I'll probably write more about music than anything else, since that's my subject of study and my frame of reference.
Cheers.
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