Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Writers cramp

One of the reasons behind starting this blog was to practice writing. I will not be so bold as to say I want to hone my craft in any way, but committing myself to putting something with purpose to paper (Last ALA Conference Session), per say, each day was/is to help me become more proficient with the actual writing process; therefore when professional development writing opportunities present themselves I would be less inclined to pass on said chance. In all honesty this has served me well in the last year. I have had two short articles accepted for publication in a book, was invited to submit two articles based on my poster sessions at ALA last summer, and at this point am cautiously optimistic one of the two invited articles has been accepted in a peer review journal.

Blah, blah, blah ... not so bad.

I have been struggling the last several days with actually writing the second article. Sunday afternoon I was optimistic after writing the abstract and making notes. Last evening (during Dancing with the Stars!) I transferred the session information from my web page CV to the paper and worked on more notes. Today I spent a great deal of time tidying up the peripheral, yet important, tasks (bibliography, literature review, setting up the paper) but am currently stymied by the opening paragraph.

Yes, the opening paragraph; the words that will set my tone for the entire article.

It's actually quite ridiculous. I have had issue with conclusions before, but never actually beginning. At this point I am debating myself as to what should, or should not, be included within the actual text of the article and it is making the task seem daunting. In order to move the process along, I have now decided to write any portion of the paper that will let me write it. With luck, and a bit of patience, I should be able to work from the end to the beginning.

No comments: