Learning to Love (Writing) Again

Sharde' Chapman
Aug 8, 2017 · 4 min read

I have been struggling for the longest with my love for writing. It has be hard to digest because writing is part of the work that makes me feel myself. I am inclined to write. I think more than I talk. Words are generally my ish. The fact that my desire to write continues to be confronted with the fact that I physically cannot make the words come out is nothing short of infuriating. I have had minimal moments where I have sat down at the computer and been able to tap something out. There only thing that I have kind of kept up with is my journaling which I do not do every day. Never been able to, probably never will. Let’s face it, I am not the type of person that needs to journal my feelings every day, but I do need to at least once or twice a week for mental health. But that is kind of beyond the point.

The point is this: I have a paper that is due and I’ve maybe written three pages on it. Once I got past my frustrations about writing it, I was able to rethink my approach to this piece of work and how to better make it work for me. I do not believe in doing things that are useless or fail to serve a larger purpose, especially if it means that I will be detained in my PhD program longer than I would like to be. As I was brainstorming how to approach the paper I wanted, no needed, the work to demonstrate a few things: that I have an academic voice and that I was comfortable reclaiming my voice as my own. Part of my struggle with academic writing has been ownership. It usually does not feel like I am writing for me even though these exorbitantly long papers have my name on it. One thing I’ve been intentional about is using almost all of my papers as a way of exploring themes that might appear in a dissertation. Through that strategy I have been able to pinpoint a topic and approaches that pique my interest and will allow me to finish a dissertation document that will get me out this bitch. Ultimately that is the goal. Figuring out that the diss does not have to be the opus of what will end up being my life’s work was a major weight off of my shoulders because no one tells you this. The diss is simply the document that displays your ability to add material to the conversations in your field, so although it is a commitment for a few years, it is not a life sentence.

Looking at the feedback that I have received over the years and the areas that I struggle with in terms of my writing and my hesitation at being vulnerable with my intellectual work has but a muzzle on my creativity in a lot of ways. I also realize that my approach to the academy is not reliant on writing for other intellects. Before my grandmother’s death I would read her my work or talk through my ideas with her. If she could get jiggy with my arguments then I felt like I had accomplished something. My grandmother, while really intelligent and an avid reader late in her life thanks to me, was not college educated. She became an LPN before it was a professional degree and did that while working as a waitress and a domestic. But she because my standard for writing. I still frequently ask myself if what I am writing would be understood my grandmother because that is the type of intellectual and writer that I want to be. I want to write in a way that is beautifully poetic and can be understood by those who are not in the Ivory Tower.

I have had a much easier time writing novels, blogs, and the more popular articles that have been on the Huffington Post. I really love my voice in these arenas. I have much more confidence in the work that I have done there because I feel freer. The question because how could I translate that to my doctoral work? How can I exercise the level of comfort and agency in my academic writing that I do in other writing. My importantly, how can I grasp at that sort of wonton carefreeness that I once had when I wrote? I know what it feels like when I am into the writing. I am at home in my mind and my skin. I am able to dig deep and speak my truth. I get excited about the act of writing. When I finish a piece or a chapter that I was vibing with, I’m elated. I have not felt that feeling in about a year and it has been distressing. I do not feel like myself because I identify deeply with writing. It is in my soul. It one of the things that I know a HAVE to do or else I’ll cease to be and this is no exaggeration because I have been so unhappy not writing.

So here I am, attempting to reclaim writing as safe space where I am confident and carefree. I have a blog already but that is becoming a dedicated space for travel blogging. My hope is that Medium will be a spot where I can explore my intellectual pursuits with the sophisti-ratch voice that I have in other spaces because I am convinced it is what academia needs but also, and more importantly, it is what I need. My goal is to use this to help me fall back in love with writing and the writing process. I can’t finish this program on the BS I’ve been on. That’s dead.

Sharde' Chapman

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