WRITESPACE STUDIO 8th March 2023

Please introduce yourself by telling us where you live (country, city/state/region) and what kind of writing you do.

Jose: Hola! from Berlin

Anita: Hi, Anita from Cape Town, listening to students singing in a protest against academic exclusions. Academic writing on helping engineering students thrive, especially in their maths courses.

Vicky: morning, Vicky in Essex, UK, just defrosting from school run 🙂

Lynne: I'm Lynne, a linguist in Brighton, England, who writes about language for both academic and non-academic audiences. we have snow!

Momoyo: Hi all. I'm a sociologist and a college teacher in Japan. I write in sociology, currently focusing on migration studies.

Creative warm up: How is your writing like a puppy-octopus?

Jose: So far they seem opposite: Puppy as when I craft a sentence that is slightly playful and cute; Octopus as when I struggle with a million things pulling me in a million directions (grabbing my tentacles). The land (puppy) sea (octopus)metaphors, flesh-viscous mix seems strange to me, so far...

Lynne: Furry where it’s not supposed to be! I wasn’t sure if a puppy octopus was a dog/octopus cross or a baby octopus. Changes color when startled.

Anita: Sleeps a lot! Messy, active, excited, bursts, of clever ideas

Stephanie: Responds well to puzzles and training, a melange of different ideas

Momoyo: the puppy-octopus is full of surprises. Once I see a friendly friend, it turns into a strange creature.

Vicky: tentacles swishing, so many data-legs to train, hoops to jump, tunnels to run through, to tame. All walked out, the puppy octopus begin to take shape.

Stephanie: All the writing prompts they look really sad! They need Helen's new book! https://mattottley.com/the-tree-of-ecstasy/

Jose: maybe u can kindly write the name of that book on inter-modality… bipolar... ?

Pre-pomodoro: What do you plan to work on?

Vicky: I'm sketching out a chapter section (once I locate my cosy socks)

Anita: Paper on using projects in maths classes

Stephanie: I need to write a paragraph about the macabre and rotting bodies

Momoyo: I'll be revising the intro. section of a manuscript.

Lynne: I’m returning to a blog post I started here weeks ago and never finished: summarizing a study that relates to a paper I’m writing

Jose: I want to work today on my Findings section --- too long and complicated sentences, I feel.

Post-pomodoro: Please tell us one thing that you accomplished

Jose: I refined 3 or 4 sentences

Vicky: I had a bit of thinking time and then wrote something (by hand) on rent arrears. I wrote an entire chapter by hand in February 🙂

Stephanie: I gathered together all the ideas I want to put in this par

Momoyo: I changed the order of paragraphs. But then I put them back…

Anita: Added to outline, shifted sections about, tidied up notes.

Lynne: reacquainted myself with (edited) what I’d written so far, then added three or four short paragraphs to the blog post…will probably work through the break as I’m on a roll!

WINDOW session:

Helen: - en dash
— em dash
Freddie — who was very tired after his long day — went to bed while Helen was still running a Zoom session.
(for example)
— for example ….
I have something to say — but I want you to pause before you read it.

Vicky: Willis paid 1s a week for an unfurnished room -- except for a bed -- and 6d a day for food

Helen: Willis paid 1s a week for a room — unfurnished except for a bed — and 6p a day for food

Anita: Squash those fixed mindset beliefs, continually.
Try anonymous answers on Mentimeter.com

Please tell us one thing that your learned or discussed:

Jose: alternatives to brackets

Vicky: Does that example need to be there? and shaping economic in terms of relationships

Lynne: I got rid of an em dash then had to overstate my love for them in a guilty kind of way

Stephanie: When editing at paragraph you've just written, sometimes the topic sentence is hiding at the end.

Momoyo: magical uses of em dash and writing as collage!

Stephanie: Kill your darlings!

Anita: After a free-writing session towards a piece of writing, follow up with structuring it.

Vicky: so many good words coming from Momoyo's discussion

One word poem

Puppy-octopus: structure pathways squash dancing main person wings