Second Prompt - Taking Stock (08/08)
This post is also where I decided to hone in on the withdrawal symptoms of a "drug" called Physical Affection/Social Contact, and that's what fuelled my research going forward, which will be in the next post.
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"This week's blog prompt—'In the middle of first drafting'— is a chance to reflect in action, to pause in the midst of writing your first draft for a Pomodoro or two, and to ask yourself:
- What am I trying to do with the draft?
- What are the risks I'm taking?
- Are there any blocks or problems I'm coming up against? If so, can I step around them somehow? Or leave worrying about them til later?
- And/or are some really exciting/scary things I'm experimenting with?
- How can I draw upon any of the ideas and/or techniques from any of the exercises, discussions, workshops, readings and/or guest speakers so far, to help me?
(Try to use this as a way of helping yourself think through the drafting process, by having, as it were, a discussion with yourself!)"
Woah. This is quite the loaded prompt, isn't it? Let's break it down. I'll be using the draft in post #8 for this questionnaire.
1. What am I trying to do with the draft?
I'm trying to connect with the audience on a personal and emotional level with my experiences with social withdrawal in Covid-times. The true first draft, the inspiration for #8, was written in the report style I had taken a liking to. However, it read awkwardly - it felt like there was a pane of glass standing between the reader and Subject 3, and that hindered the experience a bit. The reader had difficulty connecting with Subject 3, so I scratched that idea and rewrote it entirely as a stream of consciousness and a bunch of musings. The first description is accurate, given that I wrote it all from 9pm to 12am on Thursday night/Friday morning.
With the draft I have yet to make, I realised Loneliness was a core theme of my essay, one that I hadn't registered before as I was focused on the "withdrawal symptoms" aspect of it. I want to incorporate it more into my upcoming draft (could it still be really called a "First Draft"?) due for Monday.
2. What are the risks I'm taking?
Using a stream of consciousness style to write my essay, as well as opening about myself, hoping that somebody will care, has been really risky. I also deviated from the report style to be more personal, and I hope that pays off in the end. I was really taken by my editing group (Juno, Rhianna and Joey)'s comments about how raw and empathetic my voice could be when I wrote the quasi-date a few classes ago. I wanted to live up to that and so I decided at the very last minute (Thursday night), to overhaul my entire report draft and make it personal.
3a. Are there any blocks or problems I'm coming up against?
During yesterday's class, my peers encouraged me to go for the full personal route, use a journal form and/or use more anecdotes to better convey the emotional and social aspects of my piece. However, I feel a bit uncomfortable with my piece being primarily about me. I want to include some research about loneliness and what symptoms occur when one is withdrawn from society in this way, so I can align how my experience living in lockdown has gone with it.
3b. If so, can I step around them somehow? Or leave worrying about them til later?
I did this in my rubbish draft earlier, where I made it all about me. In fact, it was too much so about me, that I scrapped it for my Thursday night overhaul. I want to put my loneliness in the context of symptoms so it can become reliable first hand experience so that the audience trusts what I'm saying. I could worry about research later but I want to put my absolute best foot forward for this draft.,
4. (Edited this question because it didn't make sense to me) [Are there] some really exciting/scary things I'm experimenting with?
Yeah, I think so! I think with each time I write, I get closer and closer to what I think this work should be able and how I should present it. In the beginning, when I had drafted fragments of my essay, I thought it was going to be informational musings braided with my experiences living in quarantine. I was going to be bitter about what I saw in my daily trips through the Internet, but then the audience would see some of those negative behaviours reflected in me. When I experimented with the report form, it was like the audience got to watch me from a surveillance camera perspective, but then it came off as very expository. Still, towards the end of my draft, I wrote, "It almost seems as though she's suffering (drug) withdrawal symptoms" which inspired the title of my overhaul, 'Withdrawal Symptoms' and where I documented my downward spiral as I lived through Covid. This was a great step in the right direction.
And hey! Just this morning, I decided to look up "social withdrawal", came across its Wikipedia article and then decided to click on 'Loneliness', one of the links present on the page. That's led me to my current view on what it should be. The overarching, single-word theme for my piece is Loneliness, and the first umbrella under it is 'Withdrawal Symptoms'. All the little things like touch-starvation, loss of productivity, increased irritation, desperation and fantasising thus go under that.
It's the perfect plan!
5. How can I draw upon any of the ideas and/or techniques from any of the exercises, discussions, workshops, readings and/or guest speakers so far, to help me?
Mmn... I'm, uh, not really sure? I feel like I'm applying a lot already. Taking risks with my writing, doing something I haven't before, having an unsurrogated voice (or at least, making me to speak for me), letting myself write trash... I think I'm following their advice pretty well! I'll be taking into account my peers' advice and suggestions when I do my weekend rewrite for Monday's submission too. I'm feeling really optimistic about it, yeah! Hehe.
I know what I gotta do and all I gotta do is do it! Wish me the best of luck... and I wish the best of luck to all my fellow writers adjusting their work on the weekend too!
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