Ehara i te mea

Feeling quite touched that YL acknowledged my doctorate today, fo rplacing Youthline into a stronger position from which they can move forward.
These lovely people who were so willing to share their stories with me, their openess and honesty in disclosing what they hoped for, feared, and worked to create; while they do the work, i got to tell their story and i get a doctorate off their work...
They asked me if i had a favourite waiata, So i chose ehara i te mea

This love it is not a new thing,
but is a taonga handed down by those who have gone before,
from one generation to the next

Ehara i te mea
Nō nāianei te aroha
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho

Te whenua, te whenua
Te oranga o te iwi
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho

Whakapono, tumanako
Te aroha te aroha;
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho.

Not the thing
of recent times, is love
but by the ancestors it has been
passed down, passed down.

From the land, the land
comes the wellbeing of the people;
by the ancestors it has been
passed down, passed down.

Faith, hope
and love;
by the ancestors they have been
passed down, passed down.

#acwrimo (academic writing month) day 5

Today my goal is to work out how to use scrivener. I've known other tweeps rave about it, and popped it on my to do list post phd.
I'd glanced at it before but it had seemed not quite intuitive at the stage i was at in my wriitng, I suspected it was more prepatory oriented than useful most of the way through a big project.

My intention: writing this months journal article and/or for organizing my research wriitng ideas for the coming year

First step started googling scrivener, for a paint by numbers guide on how to write a journal article using it
Found nothing that simplistic in 20 mins.
Have since st myself Scrivener as a series of pomodoro sessions, as i am really feeling avoidant of writing at the moment. Might be why Im investigating the software....but half a day dedicated to this and i assume i will know if it will suit me.

First pomodoro:
Found some descriptive accounts.Skim read them
Posted on #acwrimo my intent to use scrivener for the month, and got guided to the thesis whisperer.
Have now downloaded the free trial for a month.
and posted here.

Five pomodoro later
Ive worked my way through the essentials of the free scrivener download package.
Seems it has an ok template, which i can adapt for writing a paper.
Seems it does not do the scoping that I thought it might do.

Finding voice as a writer

I would never have completed the second journal article in two months had i not finished the month with a writing retreat.
What changed?

Talking with Anne.
I was able to clarify what i hated in the article I was writing.
Hearing myself saying it, I could now follow cj's advice: write an article i would want to read.
The world does not need more dull articles.
Snapped the shackles locking me down.
I dont have to pretend to be a dissociated writer. If painting i would be telling myself dont have to stay inside the lines.
Im still finding my way on this, but there's a bit of a transformation happening.

The other significant change was an absence of internet. I'm really glad for my endnote library in that i have articles there, and reasonable notes about them, taht makes retrieval efficient.
I know also had i had internet available, id waste time searching for who else said something rather than trusting my own thinking things through.
The tiny bits that needed follow up could be asterixed and returned to when i had internet. (These areas i fixed inside of 1 hr)

A further contributing factor was an extremely dodgy generator at the bach we were at. Day 1 was good, but days 2 and 3 and 4 would give short bursts of generator; at most 30 mins at a time...then id write frantically till i ran out of juice...then forced thinking and planning or resting time. Couldnt have planned this. But it felt very pomodoro like.

And the company and the setting were great. There were hills that could be climbed. no. sea to swim in. no. beach walks yes. cafes no shops no.

The article is now finished.

I had thought (since i had not taken it with me, and because i abandoned the plan after the first draft of a "tiny text" that Thomson & Kamler's (2013) book on writing for peer review had not worked for me this time (similarities to a previous article kept blocking me)
I think i had missapplied Thomson and Kamler's work trying to turn it into a paint by numbers style ... (my error, not theirs i hasten to add).
However, what i found on reflection was:
I did attend to voice (the first half of their book
I revisited the overall balance of the article, adjusting the front load so there was room for my argument
And I attended to 'the take home message'.
Hadnt realized at the time how much of their advice I had absorbed.

In the last month Ive had an article sent for a conference, and an article written. Ive read some books on getting ideas known. And Im now going to go back to these, they have a style i find inspiring.
so Im 8.5 weeks into the 3 month writing scholarship, Ive produced 2 articles and a conference paper.
Ive read one book about how to write academic articles for peer review and two popular writing books that present ideas.

My next goal, to move the writing into the future, as Im feeling a bit locked into the past.
I've #acwrimo dedicated for this.

Reference
Thomson, P., & Kamler, B. (2013). Writing for peer reviewed journals: Strategies for getting published. London: Routledge.