Pleasure to write again

I feel so happy to have spent the day working on my novel. It's sure as hell not Steinbeck or Astley but it is mine. I am so releived to finally give it the attention needed at last. I now understand why so many PhD students begin their three year journey writing the novel. It is a safety blanket, a space where they feel in control. In a way I see that process as an avoidance tactic. A tactic to stave off the insecurity and tumult of the exgetical writing.

We all adore the research process whether it is for the exegesis or the novel, but trying to pull something together when we are painfully aware of our own inadequacies, discovered through the research process. The more we read the less we know so is it any wonder we hide away and feel insecure writing the academic component. Why does the process of creation have to be so damn debilitating at times?

So how can I sum up the last three and a half years? A joy to have time to research and read. A total nightmare to navigate my way through the literary theories, epistemologies and methodologies and a total hatred of academic jargon!

As an aside, in true Shakespearean tradition.... did anyone read today's Higher Ed supplement about the corsetting of undergfrad students... geees I wish there was just such a join the dots template for the exegesis, complete with tutor created notes and clarifiactions. I'm sure even I could pass then. (Drowned by Dr Verbiage column)

What I want to say is what I think and feel about the process, not what others have deemed valuable and acceptable. I am having difficulty putting into plain English what I have learned and am learning about the craft of writing this bloody novel, and I am having great difficulty locating 'proper' sources who actually say the same thing I am trying to. I need the quotes and citations to give weight to my academic writing. Yet I thought all along that my writers journal was the data for the exegesis... apparently not as much as I had hoped.

These two were supposed to speak to each other... the journal and the research. Well in the case of my genre, they have. In the case of how I want to write and what I want to write they have. But in the case of how to write and craft the work, written in academeese... then no way. They appear totally disconnected. I can see linking threads but am unable to get these summarised on paper.

Structure and bones... the one problem assailing me in both written components. At least now for a couple of months I can lose myslef in the joy of writing. I can revel in silencing the critic on my shoulder and forget that I have some very critical friends awaiting, as executioners just down the track.

It is the freedom from stress I have craved for many months now and should go a long way to ensuring mental stability and wellness. Hopefully, I can produce this novel in that time also, and return to the Academy charging in on my white stallion ready to defeat and vanquish the exegetical dragon in the tower.

From the gloved one... no not that one!

Would you believe I am sitting at home wearing my purple woollen gloves? I have paid the heating bills and no it is not freezing. This is a new one even for me... I am wearing gloves so as to not scratch my face, arms and generally visible skin!

Given that this is a mood and wellness diary, this needs to be recorded. I have been battling off depressive swing for around five days now and have been doing everything I can think of to keep the endorphins flowing... but 'everything' is not working as expected.

I am meditating to the CD from my wonderful hypnotherapist Carolyn, and I am able to fight off the teary moments and panic attacks tightening my heart muscles. They are truly scarey and one has to have had one to understand that if a heart attack is worse pain than this.... please God spare me. I do the breathing into a paper bag when hyperventillating but have been unable to get to yoga (which I so obviously desperately need right now). And as for Art therapy... well let's just say that a trusted person equated it with "basket weaving" the other day. Wham another kick in the guts to devalue my wellness routine... so instead of going I sit at home feeling guilty and crying instead! What I wouldn't give to splash black paint all over a canvas and free up my anger right now! And somewhere where I can forget about making a mess on the carpet... Basket weaving indeed... lead by a trained therapist arts practitioner... how dare this person!

This is not the first (nor will it be the last) time that this person in authority undermines my wellness regimes. She already openly expresses disdain for the work of my psychiatrist... the wonderful Dr John who has kept me alive for over twenty years now (and that of the wonderful Gerald for ten years before him). Again this is gross misconduct to infringe on private medical treatment in this manner. But what to do... I can only attempt to resolve the conflict in the only effective way I know... by writing.

People dismiss Stephen Fry's daily Twitters but I suspect they perform a more important function than self-promotion. To my way of thinking, by twittering or blogging in a public forum we BMDs are able to gather strength from the fact that there is a positive and supportive readership somewhere 'out there' on our side. We must 'make it' to repay their faith that we can. many of these perceived readers may be 'like us' just longing for someone to understand the illness and to prove that we can win... no matter what is thrown our way.

I would also like to explore the idea that the much criticised chaotic and random thoughts illuminated by my writing are in fact valuable insights into how the mind of a BMD person functions. What I am always trying to do is to discover patterns and linkages across all apparently random and disparate threads of experience.

It is my belief that by finding these connections I can make sense of the world and see a better and clearer way ahead. This in turn reassures me that the bad times are only temporary and that they will be over once I discover the greater meaning or clearer path through.

I am currently supposed to be writing about madness and creativity IN AN ACADEMIC WAY... yet what I want to write is this material and in this style and voice. This is my working through ideas surrounding madness and creativity, and indeed generativity.

So why the gloves... I hear you say.

Wel,l the tension and aggression being forced beneath the surface is emerging at night through insomnia and just so that there is no respite from the anxiety in daylight hours, I have developed a (and I can't believe I am typing this word) psychsomatic itch and allergic reaction!

I am sitting gloved to not scratch as I have red whelts all over my arms, neck and scalp. I am smothered head to toe in aloe vera cream, as phenergan merely sedates me temporarily and of course I get zero written for my PhD! Again.

So the current course of action... aloe vera cream, soft old trackies and gloves... no man-made fibres at all!

Now I am testing to see if I can concentrate and write. If I can do this blog I can attempt to find rational thought structures in my writing for my academic work...

Well at least that is what I am praying for today! Here goes.

Only connect

I heard on ABC radio last week that anyone who spoke about class in Australia today is seen as an intellectual lepper.. an out of touch old Marxist with too simplistic an understanding of 'modern society'. Well I am sorry I do not agree. There is nothing simplistic about understanding the ramifications of an economic system based on profits and pure capitalism, when even Governments watch fiscal bottom lines rather than social responsibilities. It may have been naive to position Communism as the desirable social model but hey let's not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater!

This occurred in a week when at University my supervisor told me my writing was basically "all over the shop", disjointed and even random... or more precisely confused and disorganised.

Perhaps it is/was. But I cannot accept that speaking about class and social capital in the C21st century is outmoded. maybe if one lives a cossetted middle-class existence in a comfy gentrifying inner suburb with sufficient income to make ends meet, say six figures... it may appear that way.

But I live in a different milieu one that uncomfortably straddles two classes... the comfortable middle class bourgeoisie and the working poor and unemployed underclass. And whilst it is simplistic to claim that social problems are exclusively found in a particular class, there can be no denying that by having access to education and income life choices offer a greater choice of escape routes, chosen or not. It is having options that allow freedom, power and self-determination.

Many women, by virtue of holding the lesser financially stable (or even viable) position are constrained in their choices but by far the most severe cases where gender intersects with economics is in the area of class. I will never turn my back on this class war as a 70s style feminist. And whislt disagreeing with many women's choices I can at least understand them and empathise with their situations.

Does that make my novel's themes irrelevant today... or are they deemed passe, unacceptable or just plain unfashionable? So now we have 'acceptable victims of society' and 'unacceptable victims of society'.

It seems to play out like this in my mind; there are those who have 'had things done to them by society (usually in the name of good intentions), like the stolen generations and the forgotten children. These are the 'deserving victims of Australia'. In this camp are the 'good refugees', those fleeing war and persecution but arriving via the controlled screening methods. Then there are the 'undeserving victims'... the slackers, dole bludgers, dollar-driven welfare mothers and the queue jumpers.

How powerful is the rhetoric? But wait deconstruct it a bit further... especially the welfare recipients classification. Could not the term underlass be substituted? If this term is mobilised then society indeed has had an active role in constructing their position and power (or lack thereof). They too have been 'done unto' and not always in the guise of good intentions.

What happens when progressive Governments send manufacturing offshore where labor costs are significantly cheaper for Industry? We have a generation or two of workers who were content to work on the production lines... many even took pride in their labour, going home each day knowing that there was something solid to show for their exertion. Many even prided themselves on their dexterity and skill sets, along with a sense of purpose in financially providing for their families.

Now I am not speaking gender here... just what appears to me a middle-class devaluing of unskilled trades which drove our economic policies (and most other Western nations in the eighties, nineties and now).

Many female workers were exploited on factory floors and in machine shops but the Unions gave them a voice. We obtained (in theory) equal pay and maternity leave provisions, sick leave, hilday leave and the 38 hour week through the collective actions of bothe women and men unionists standing side by side to obtain a better work-life balance.

At the beginning of the C21st we have an emasculated Union movement and an exploited and fearful labourforce, with unskilled laborers confined to casualised and lowly paid service sector jobs. No-one works 38 hours as full-time employment these days... not even the boureoisie, many of whom are at their desks until well after 6pm at night, just to ensure they are perceived as taking their employment responsibilities seriously.

And what of those in our community whose parents cannot sustain employment for whatever reason.... housing instability due to suburban gentrification, negative gearing and escalating rental prices, reliance on poor public transport infrastructure or choices between affording and running a car and housing costs close to work opportunities?

When do the YUPPIES and DINKS recognise that not everybody has the same choices?

Just this week I attended a Magistrates Court and yet again the unequality is there in full view. The disenfranchised appear with monotonous regularity, their lives seemingly 'medicated' by booze and drugs. Next the downward spiral of legal costs, court hearings, records, bail, probation, criminal records, decreased employment opportunities whilst participating in Court Mandated 'mutual obligations' or ' community services' which in turn imapct negatively on Centrelink work diaries and 'preparedness for work'. Catch 22. Lack of employment due to track record.

Add in poor or little education, severe learning disabilities, mental illness, drug addiction and domestic violence and sexual abuse and then tell me that these people are 'underserving victims' of our society.

Today I have had a phone conversation with an acquaintance who is a single mother of two beautiful little girls. She is trying to study part-time to gain better employment opportunities whilst using the amount of child care she can afford on her Centrelink payment whilst paying private rental and trying to keep her car on the road. She is a single mother as a result of living in an abusive relationship (where the girls' father abused alcohol and drugs). He also threatened her many times with a registered fire arm kept in the house... as the gun must be kept at the house of the license holder (suburbia) even when it is deemed necessary for shooting feral animals and vermin on his family's farm some two hours drive away.

Yep, that's a safe home in this circumstance isn't it?

This man had his gun license suspended whilst having an alcohol interlock device fitted to his car... but now that his family have left him through fear, the Courts have deemed it safe to return his gun license! He has threatened his ex-wife's life with the bloody thing. She has an intervention order which he willfully ignores and the local police (who are frantically busy) ignore repeated calls to address his intervention breaches... as he is usually gone by the time they get there and there is no evidence! So no police action, no paperwork trail, no evidence for Court... only a woman in fear of her life and waiting for him to murder both herself and their daughters.

Is this a class issue? He also has no employment because if he holds a job he would have to pay maintenance. On welfare he doesn't have to... and he can keep paying his mortgage by living with another working single mother and her children, whilst he receives Centrelink benefits. No proof as they keep a separate bedroon for his new 'housemate' who as a sole parent couldn't afford to live in a house near her employment otherwise. It also allows her children stability of schooling to stay in the area.

Choices?

Options?

As if!

Then let's look at another acquaintances twenty-one year old daughter. Left school at Year 9 because she is functionally illiterate and very disruptive. Like many young women her focus is on gaining a boyfriend, who just might be Prince Charming and bring with him the possibility of a home and family. She studies at TAFE, gets a low level qualifiaction in a service Industry and works very long hours for very little pay. From her perspective her friends (unemployed and students) are having a much better time socialising each weekend whilst she is salving away in a kitchen.

It does not take a rocket scientist to realise that she will be tempted away from her employment which is not stable anyway to go back on welfare and party with her friends... after all that's where a Prince Charming might emerge. Sometimes it happens. She has friends who have met and coupled with young male apprentice tradespeople who have a solid future ahead. That's what she longs for... but again alcohol and binge drinking are part of the environs. Very soon she fails her 'job readiness' test through breaches due to hang overs and day-time sleeping in. Then the job offers are worse. More casual, reliant on non-standard working hours (meaning need for own transport). She can only afford an unreliable car which does not allow for a solid work attendance and major financial burdons to keep the thing going.

Inevitably, this young woman perceives pregnancy as a 'career option'. She wants a family and sees that being home with children might be the answer. The government pension looks good through her eyes, as she has never tried to provide a home for her family on such a sum, and the baby bonus does appear generous. Ah but where does she and her baby live? Her mother has re-partnered and lives in her step-father's home with his family. Her boyfriend is drinking, gambling and totally unreliable. She begins to fear his outbursts and rage. There is a ten year waiting list at the Ministry for Housing in this area and even longer further away from Melbourne.

Are we as a society not culpable in this situation also? How can we have an education system that allows 14 and 15 year olds to finish and enter a competitive labourmarket with no skills and no functional literacy? Would this have happened if her parents had paid for a Private Education? I think not... or if she was functionally illiterate, her family could have at least supported her through levels of TAFE studies until she was employable and skilled... by paying the fees.

I despair, when I am constantly told that my outlook on life is 'outmoded'. Is this not examples of class in all these scenarios? Working-poor, Howard's battlers... call them what you will, but I say they are the new Australian underclass. Whilst our society is so unequal in opportunity the issue of class will continue to underpin my writing... and to deny the importance of class demonstrates to me the degree of disconnect between the lived experiences of the educated boureoisie and the rest of us.

Only connect, that's all I ask of my peers.

The horror of the exegesis in the PhD

You may be wondering why I have been silent for over a fortnight. (I have been jotting things in my physical journal but not onto the blog site).

It is that time of the PhD candidature. The last roll of the dice. The final write up before returning to the novel.

My latest supervision session was another twist in the plot of the scholarship narrative. All throgh my candidature I have assumed that I actually had a defined path, a clear way ahead.


There were of course moments when I have felt completely lost within the maze of pathways and data trails tand at other times I have found myself lost in the academic language of the 'big theorists' of the C20th. At times I have felt that writing the novel is problematic, both in practice and actual performance, for a novice fiction writer particularly in the realms ethics of storytelling and story ownership.

Then of course I have been lost in the structure. How do I use and control the data I have gathered? The reading notes, journal entries, personal reflections on the frustrations wrought by writing within an academy, the Conference presentations, mind maps and diagrams. How to pull it into a co-hesive whole? And how to merge the disparate voices and styles? Indeed do they have to merged into one, or can they all exist within the one piece of text? If so, how will this work? Add to this the tension, for one about to be tested, examined, put on display and found wanting.

A sense of stability and equilibrium is not often the dominant emotion within the three years or more.

These last two weeks have perfectly illustrated the worst swings between confidence and despair. Having pulled out all my academic and exgestical writing from the previous three and a half years I began to feel confident that the research data was virtually at my fingertips on my HDD. It seemed to me that from this 75,000 was the very kernel of the exgesis and I needed only to re-frame and construct the 30,000 word piece. With great care I referred back my 'safety net'. My supervisor had provided all candidates with her model for the construction of the exegesis. I have used this document since 2007 and all the key questions have been driving my reading. All my notes from the articles and texts have been chosen with a subconscious eye on these key questions.

Thus by laying these questions out as the 'bones' for the final draft, I began feeling at once relieved and energised; confident that I have the academic capacity to bring it all together.

Well that was great up until my last fateful PhD supervision meeting.... 10th June.

This date is now etched in blood red ink on my calendar. With one simple phone conversation suddenly everything was now chaos. My supervisor queried my central 'question', my thesis statement if you prefer the academic term. Logically all hypotheses and points drawn to answer my original question now seemed so far off track as to be totally useless.

There is also an issue of cross-cultural communication. My supervisor, although brilliant, writes with English as a second language. Forma academic writing presents no problems but informal colloquial speech becomes problematic with degrees of misunderstanding arising from subtleties of nuance. What she often intends as positive feedback is inevitably received as destructive. Even after ensuring that I write down her words verbatim, feed back the core concept as I am hearing it, and gaining what appears to be agreeance on shared meanings. As a validity test, I show my written notes to a trusted colleague and friend and am reassured that my interpretation of the actual words is correct.

This meant that I was way off track, and seemingly have been for a number of years. Two key academic terms were foregrounded in our discussion. Notions of mediation and mediatization of text. I suddenly felt 'at sea'. I needed to be sure that I understood these concepts and theories as obviously what I had believed I had been writing did not answer these challenges and concepts.

Next I felt that i was being pushed right back into my supervisor's core area of expertise, psychoanalyisis and postmodern literary theory.

How can I be needing to read again at this late stage?

How can it be a productive use of my time?

But above all, how can I have missed any central theorizing?

Just to compound my despair, I realised that she had in mind a core concern for the reader's 'safe space' for interacting with what she described as 'confronting' material in my novel!

Confronting? For the reader? Come on.... these are the same readers who watch real crime and Underbelly on free-to-air-TV and buy every Twilight instalment from KMart.

I was also under the impression (now misconception) that my research and practice was to investigate the development of a 'safe writing space', a place where the real life events and tragedies can be harnessed and reconceptualised as fictional plot decisions.

As an author writing about women with degrees of mental instability, who herself is similarly afflicted on a daily basis, I am using the writing practice as both therapy and research. I am in need of the 'safe space' not the reader.

Obviously the result of this supervision session was a toppling down the mood scale towards severe depression. I managed to stay afloat by becoming very angry.

Adrenaline was my saviour this time.

I was/am angry that my work is supposed to meet my supervisors perception of what is important in my research and practice and not what is important to me, the scholar and writer; the very energy that has driven me through the ups and downs of the candidature. It is my work. I want to own it... and that looks like I will need to defend this position in my formal submission. It is as if I am now faced with countering the dominant theorizing of the late C20th.

My instinct tells me that, a colleague and playwright from the UK, Mike Harris is correct when he states that in Europe, the theory debates have moved on from the "French Theorists". I am now seeking to find what exactly is this new thinking. I hate the term post-post-modernism (or even post-post-post) yet this is currently the discourse that suits my work. I want a to find a sort of neo-humanism, one that acknowledges that in storytelling at least, there are indeed 'meta-narratives' and 'universal truths' and that these are based upon a 'universal aesthetic' and 'core humanity with moral and ethical clarity', rather than post-modern uncertainties and truth claims.

How can I possibly argue this point sucessfully? Especially at this stage of the candidature with only two weeks to go?

I am still angry. At least this anger, has stopped my fall into the paws of the black dog. It will drive me on, even if I am throwing up, gnawing on finger nails, not sleeping and feeling strung out and despairing. I will conquer this task... and I will attempt to avoid the inevitable crisis point and hospitalisation.

I will not go there because of this one conversation. Read my cyncicism.... I am so pleased she has had a pleasant an generative holiday in Paris over these last days. I definitely have not.