Wednesday questions

What's this Wendy? Two blog posts in one week? Surely that has happened since around 2010? I seem to have a moment of peace and solitude for the first time in weeks. I know I am at work so it is probably a little bit naughty that I am blogging. Call it community engagement. That seems to be the buzzword of the moment. Just exactly what it means no one is quite sure but for now let's call it blogging. I feel like I have had no time for coherent thoughts lately other than the ones I have had to have for either work or study. I remember those long lost days when I used to write every morning about television. I'm really starting to wonder if I've grown past that. Don't get me wrong. I still love television. And I am very happy to read good academic work by wonderful people writing about it. It's just that I have a minimal amount of motivation to do it myself. And by minimal I probably really mean "no motivation at all". I don't know where it went. I'm not sure why it disappeared. It's just that when it comes tv studies at the moment my brain feels dulled. It all seems very obvious. Why would I bother saying something in 5000 highly referenced words when I could just send a tweet about how awesome Homeland is? Or why the writers of Doctor Who with David Tennant have him bemoaning the lack of an override switch/button/lever/system in nearly every episode? Or why I have suddenly pretty much lost interest in Bones? Or why I continue to enjoy the Big Bang Theory even though it portrays a character who in real life would sit somewhere on the autism/asperger's disorder as the butt of many jokes? Or why I am able to still enjoy Graham Norton on Channel Ten even though I had grave reservations about the shift from the ABC? Or why I can't stand Jonathan Ross? Or why I can't be bothered watching those Phryne Fisher murders even though everyone says they're fabulous? Or why I have never watched an episode of My Kitchen Rules and actually believe cooking shows to be quite boring? Did twitter ruin my blogging mojo? Maybe. It doesn't really worry me except for the fact that I have become a little concerned that I am incapable of writing anything longer than 140 characters. I think that's a small part of the attraction of returning to study. It forces me to write and think and think and write. These are things that I like doing. Perhaps, now I'm just doing them in more places than this blog. I guess it's good to diversity.

I have a dream

Tomorrow in class we look at writing for different audiences as a start to the students thinking about the purpose of their writing, their choice of words, the need to communicate clearly etc. The examples we use are part of this speech, which still gives me goosebumps, together with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I also give them some Barack Obama and this year, just to change the tone completely, this:

http://youtu.be/1aBaX9GPSaQ

(you'll have to copy and paste the link as embedding is disabled)

The book

Tremendous excitement and relief today as I got word that my book is now printed and available for purchase. This book, Event TV, is basically what my PhD thesis was all about. I am thrilled that it is in print. The publisher is PostPressed, an small, committed academic press in Brisbane, who distribute their publications online through e-content management. I am delighted that there is a student price which is ten dollars cheaper than the RRP. I am also just basically delighted that they agreed to publish something that most likely will never sell 10000 copies, that they believe in publishing academic work from young researchers in small volumes. John Knight, the editor has a strong belief in the traditional values of academia and for that PostPressed should be celebrated. If you are interested the link is here.

http://www.e-contentmanagement.com/books/398/event-tv-the-production-and-inhabited-resistance

(For some reason blogger won't do the link properly so you'll have to copy and paste if interested) There is a table of contents as well as the reviews/comments that appear on the back cover. I am extremely grateful to Geoff Danaher, Jennifer Elsden-Clifton and Jason Jacobs for writing such lovely things about my work and letting me use them. Apparently, now I need to organise a book launch. Who knows about such things? Not me, but I think I am going to have to find out.

Post op poetry

Who knew that one of the effects of having an operation would be that you start writing weird, and quite possibly,very bad poetry? Not me, but it's happening whether I like it or not. So in the interest of any Spiralling Shape poetry aficionados I now have a companion blog for poems only, (so as not to alienate any SS readers)

You have been warned.

http://towriteistodrawamap.blogspot.com/


To write is to draw a map: tentative explorations in creative writing

(something I have never been good at)

The link is down the sidebar as well.

Wise words....

And by the way, everything in life is
writable about if you have the outgoing
guts to do it, and the imagination to
improvise. The worst enemy to creativity
is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath