KD^3C^3 - 20250112 I need new head shots
I've been writing/journaling daily since the new year in an attempt to kickstart a writing habit. However it's been mostly writing about writing. Here's a sample of what the has come out of the process.
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I looked into my local community college. To take a writing course. Its something I thought about doing before, although not specifically for writing. I originally set up an account in June of last year (still in the weird period of time where saying “last year” for 2024 feels wrong) when I was looking at a python class. However this time when I looked into it I though I wanted to take a credit class instead of a continuing ed class. But I forgot that community college is a real college and that means applications and transcripts and choosing an academic path and talking to and advisor and all the things that go along with college. So maybe a continuing education class might be the better option.
I had to get over my own prejudices regarding some of the continuing ed classes. The topic I want to learn about seem really rudimentary based on the syllabi available. But it’s probably worth going back to basics. Learning is a good thing and I’m mostly self taught when it comes to these things.
I watched a video about ADHD and accountability this week, from How To ADHD and it really hit home. I’ve struggled with bad and good kinds of accountability over my life and this video did a really good job of identifying how that has impacted me. I’m still only self-diagnosed with ADHD, and I feel some shame and I don’t know what to call it, stolen valor maybe, about calling myself with the disorder. I also don’t like the category of disorder, but that’s another problem. This newsletter has been a form of accountability to me. Every week (barring the occasional natural disaster) I hit send on the newsletter. Sometimes I’m not very happy with what I wrote, sometimes it is just a notice that I’m on vacation, but I still log in and hit send on something. I wonder if a class would be the right kind of accountability or not. I also looked at Study Hall, the program from internet education company Complexly, that is trying to bridge a gap in college education. I have a college education, two of them even. And when I think about my college classes, I mostly remember the bad parts. The stress and the fear and the doubt. So maybe that isn’t the right kind of accountability. I don’t know if I have the time to take a college level course right now. The English Composition Study Hall course says to expect spending 18 hours a week on the class and that’s a significant commitment. I want to learn. I want to grow, and the the easiest way to do that seems like a class.
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I think maybe part of my problem is I write chronologically. I start writing, and I don’t always know where I’m going to end up. I think this isn’t inherently a bad thing, Stephen king historically writes his novels that way. But I also don’t know if it’s the right way for me to write. I think when I used to write plays* it had benefits and drawbacks. The benefits were when things could surprise me, but the drawbacks were I sometimes felt like I was spinning my wheels.
*I say I used to write plays here, because I haven’t really written them in a long time. I absolutely feel shame about that, and the only real way to clear that shame is to start writing them again. So this is me admitting I used to be a playwright, and maybe one day I will be again.
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But writing chronologically is the only way I know how to do it. I’ve started with outlines before, but every time I put one of those together, I find myself revising it repeatedly. I joke that the only time I know what the outline of a project is going to look like is after I have completed the whole thing. I think back to my three youtube video essays on The Muppet Christmas Carol, Mike Leigh and Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and in each one I started with a thesis and worked my way backwards to it. Usually that thesis is also reflected in the eventual title of the video:
Mike Leigh is a Dungeon Master
Dogma is (structurally) a joke
Muppet Christmas Carol is an episode of The Muppet Show (this one didn’t end up in the title, but I allude to it, calling the whole thing “haunted” by the Muppet show to make it kind of spooky. Christmas Carol is a ghost story after all.
But in all of those cases, I wrote most of the essay from start to finish. Only when editing the script did I start to re-arrange things, and even then I didn’t rearrange a whole lot. If I’m being generous I’d say that when I start with a thesis, I know what I’m trying to say and I already have a rough idea of what the arguments that make up that lead to that conclusion are going to be. I have a sense of what the beginning, middle and end should be and where they go by virtue of being the middle, end and beginning.
If I’m not being generous, it’s because I’ve developed a series of bad habits when it comes to writing and I’m to unaware of them or stuck in my ways to noticeably change.
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I chickened out of signing up for an online class about writing. Well maybe I didn’t chicken out so much as do some research and decide that the online courses offered to me weren’t what I want or need. My local community college uses a national platform calle Ed2Go for their continuing ed online courses. This is a campy that seems to exist to allow community colleges to offer distance learning without actually having to hire instructors directly. YOu sign up for the class on the college’s website, but then you’re directed to Ed2Go where it becomes clear that this same class is being offered to absolutely anyone across the country. There’s no indication of class size, but it feels like it’s going to be pretty big for most of them. Big classes aren’t great to begin with, but I can also hear the sales guy talking to an administrator about how this service will save the college so much money while still providing the classes their students want. The whole thing was rubbing me the wrong way. And on top of that, the classes being offered felt like they wouldn’t meet my needs. The Beginning Writing one made it clear that it was useful for people who have English as a Second language, or very limited proficiency, whereas the Writing Online Content class felt like it was going to be spending a lot of tie on making your writing sound like everything else on the internet, which is not a goal I have. I want my writing to sound like me. Additionally I looked up the instructor for that one and her online writing (she has a blog, so at least she practices what she preaches) feels exactly like what I don’t want to be making. Not to mention her post about the benefits of using large language model based AI as a writing tool, which was an instant turnoff for me.
I’m not giving up on improving my writing, but I am going to look towards other options. I think I might start with the Study Hall Composition video series. I like what Study hall is doing as a company, trying to bridge the gap in college education through accessible internet based solutions. It came out of Crash Course, the internet education series that believes in creating free to use educational materials for everybody, and is in partnership with universities. You can theoretically start with the videos and sign up for a class for as little as 35$ and if you like the results afterwards, you can pay more to turn it into actual college credit. i don’t need actual college credit, and I don’t even want to sign up for a class yet, but I think I can start with the video series and see if I like it. I think the “try and see if it works for you” educational philosophy is one I want to explore, and see if it works for me, as a student.
-------------
I looked into my local community college. To take a writing course. Its something I thought about doing before, although not specifically for writing. I originally set up an account in June of last year (still in the weird period of time where saying “last year” for 2024 feels wrong) when I was looking at a python class. However this time when I looked into it I though I wanted to take a credit class instead of a continuing ed class. But I forgot that community college is a real college and that means applications and transcripts and choosing an academic path and talking to and advisor and all the things that go along with college. So maybe a continuing education class might be the better option.
I had to get over my own prejudices regarding some of the continuing ed classes. The topic I want to learn about seem really rudimentary based on the syllabi available. But it’s probably worth going back to basics. Learning is a good thing and I’m mostly self taught when it comes to these things.
I watched a video about ADHD and accountability this week, from How To ADHD and it really hit home. I’ve struggled with bad and good kinds of accountability over my life and this video did a really good job of identifying how that has impacted me. I’m still only self-diagnosed with ADHD, and I feel some shame and I don’t know what to call it, stolen valor maybe, about calling myself with the disorder. I also don’t like the category of disorder, but that’s another problem. This newsletter has been a form of accountability to me. Every week (barring the occasional natural disaster) I hit send on the newsletter. Sometimes I’m not very happy with what I wrote, sometimes it is just a notice that I’m on vacation, but I still log in and hit send on something. I wonder if a class would be the right kind of accountability or not. I also looked at Study Hall, the program from internet education company Complexly, that is trying to bridge a gap in college education. I have a college education, two of them even. And when I think about my college classes, I mostly remember the bad parts. The stress and the fear and the doubt. So maybe that isn’t the right kind of accountability. I don’t know if I have the time to take a college level course right now. The English Composition Study Hall course says to expect spending 18 hours a week on the class and that’s a significant commitment. I want to learn. I want to grow, and the the easiest way to do that seems like a class.
-----------------
I think maybe part of my problem is I write chronologically. I start writing, and I don’t always know where I’m going to end up. I think this isn’t inherently a bad thing, Stephen king historically writes his novels that way. But I also don’t know if it’s the right way for me to write. I think when I used to write plays* it had benefits and drawbacks. The benefits were when things could surprise me, but the drawbacks were I sometimes felt like I was spinning my wheels.
*I say I used to write plays here, because I haven’t really written them in a long time. I absolutely feel shame about that, and the only real way to clear that shame is to start writing them again. So this is me admitting I used to be a playwright, and maybe one day I will be again.
-----------------
But writing chronologically is the only way I know how to do it. I’ve started with outlines before, but every time I put one of those together, I find myself revising it repeatedly. I joke that the only time I know what the outline of a project is going to look like is after I have completed the whole thing. I think back to my three youtube video essays on The Muppet Christmas Carol, Mike Leigh and Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and in each one I started with a thesis and worked my way backwards to it. Usually that thesis is also reflected in the eventual title of the video:
Mike Leigh is a Dungeon Master
Dogma is (structurally) a joke
Muppet Christmas Carol is an episode of The Muppet Show (this one didn’t end up in the title, but I allude to it, calling the whole thing “haunted” by the Muppet show to make it kind of spooky. Christmas Carol is a ghost story after all.
But in all of those cases, I wrote most of the essay from start to finish. Only when editing the script did I start to re-arrange things, and even then I didn’t rearrange a whole lot. If I’m being generous I’d say that when I start with a thesis, I know what I’m trying to say and I already have a rough idea of what the arguments that make up that lead to that conclusion are going to be. I have a sense of what the beginning, middle and end should be and where they go by virtue of being the middle, end and beginning.
If I’m not being generous, it’s because I’ve developed a series of bad habits when it comes to writing and I’m to unaware of them or stuck in my ways to noticeably change.
-------------
I chickened out of signing up for an online class about writing. Well maybe I didn’t chicken out so much as do some research and decide that the online courses offered to me weren’t what I want or need. My local community college uses a national platform calle Ed2Go for their continuing ed online courses. This is a campy that seems to exist to allow community colleges to offer distance learning without actually having to hire instructors directly. YOu sign up for the class on the college’s website, but then you’re directed to Ed2Go where it becomes clear that this same class is being offered to absolutely anyone across the country. There’s no indication of class size, but it feels like it’s going to be pretty big for most of them. Big classes aren’t great to begin with, but I can also hear the sales guy talking to an administrator about how this service will save the college so much money while still providing the classes their students want. The whole thing was rubbing me the wrong way. And on top of that, the classes being offered felt like they wouldn’t meet my needs. The Beginning Writing one made it clear that it was useful for people who have English as a Second language, or very limited proficiency, whereas the Writing Online Content class felt like it was going to be spending a lot of tie on making your writing sound like everything else on the internet, which is not a goal I have. I want my writing to sound like me. Additionally I looked up the instructor for that one and her online writing (she has a blog, so at least she practices what she preaches) feels exactly like what I don’t want to be making. Not to mention her post about the benefits of using large language model based AI as a writing tool, which was an instant turnoff for me.
I’m not giving up on improving my writing, but I am going to look towards other options. I think I might start with the Study Hall Composition video series. I like what Study hall is doing as a company, trying to bridge the gap in college education through accessible internet based solutions. It came out of Crash Course, the internet education series that believes in creating free to use educational materials for everybody, and is in partnership with universities. You can theoretically start with the videos and sign up for a class for as little as 35$ and if you like the results afterwards, you can pay more to turn it into actual college credit. i don’t need actual college credit, and I don’t even want to sign up for a class yet, but I think I can start with the video series and see if I like it. I think the “try and see if it works for you” educational philosophy is one I want to explore, and see if it works for me, as a student.