Tom, as I think about hope, peace, joy, and love this Advent, I think that they must be aspirational. Although you don't use that word in this post, at least not that I saw, it seems that your writing about Advent is full of the idea. Yes, peace has come in the Savior, but it seems to have barely got in the door sometimes. Other times, there is peace. But, sad to say, more often than not, the peace we experience is partial and temporary. This is as it should be, I think, for it makes us long for it all the more, and this longing is what Advent is about for me this year. Forgive me if I'm superimposing my response onto your writing, but it seems that we are both longing, hoping against hope even, that one day the peace that is partial will be pervasive and permanent. Keep writing, friend.
John, aspirational is exactly the word to use for the Advent season, and I am grateful that you can see this in what I do long for--the pervasive and permanent peace that transcends understanding and is found in Christ--and what we both long for. I have been wondering if my posts this advent have been too weighted on the side of heaviness. I started out only wanting to support those who mourn, simply because I am so familiar with it now, with the feeling of being out of step with all the celebrations. But I appreciate your reading, John, and this discussion. Since the 1970s, I have had many advent seasons that were shadowed by loss--the loss of my sister, my parents, my son, and this year, one of my cousins. I know that experiencing loss means that much of the advent season is spent in thinking of the past and who is missing in the present. But I do believe that even here, in the place of mourning, if we do it well, there is a looking forward to something we haven't really known yet, and we long for it. Hope, peace, joy, and love. These are still what we aspire to. Thank you for your writing as well.
Again, Tom, you have shared many wise observations about writing and life. After all, one is a reflection of the other. This part is my favorite: "The holidays seem like a time when I could start to look at people as though they are potential friends, see them in terms of peace, see them as people who might tell me a good joke or something I haven’t heard before."
May God bring you peace, even in bits and pieces, and may those "potential friends" become a reality.
Dr. Allbaugh, thank you for your thoughtful post. Writing professionally now, I have to agree with your reflections. So many stages get revisited, and unexpected demands always seem to pop up in the middle of the process.
In the end, it feels a lot like sculpting. Sometimes when I’m halfway up, I realize there’s an issue with the foundation and I need to go back and adjust. Other times, shaping one side makes me notice another side needs attention, so the work keeps sending me back and forth. It becomes this ongoing practice of seeing what exists and imagining what could be better.
Your point about letting go of our linear ideas of grief is potent, as is the carousel metaphor.
Logan, it's so good to hear from you about this. The typical writing instructions we teachers give has more often than not come from literary work. We often read how novelists and literary figures went about composing their works, but we don't hear from professional writers about how they do the big work of the world. I appreciate your description here. It does sound similar to the back and forth of my own writing.
Thanks for your response, Dr. Allbaugh. It makes sense that many of those instructions grow out of how the classics were shaped.
I found zero-drafting especially helpful on a recent project, though now that I’m cleaning and organizing the draft, I’m realizing there are still some major connected threads I need to add! So the chaotic shaping process begins again.
Logan, I guess I have over-simplified by just a little that the old instructions were completely based on how the classics were written. There have been many in Composition Studies who moved away from that and studied professional writing, even writing for law schools. I guess I can only speak for myself when I say that a lot of process thinking came from literary studies. That's probably where I started. Your description of zero-drafting is intriguing, and if I were teaching now, I would ask you to zoom in our my class and talk about it.
Tom, a wise and insightful piece, and thanks for sharing your grief and its process so openly. Regarding the writing process comments, the English Dep chair at a school I taught at talked often about "the" writing process, as if there were a singular one. Ain't no such animal. My process will change based on the genre, the piece, my inspiration, and realizing what an idiot I was to have written some of the early words. ;)
Tim, that definite article "the" is so wrong. We are so similar. My writing process really depends what the piece is about, what genre, what my understanding of audience is, and yes, my own sense of my own early idiocy.
And thank you for your kind words about the grief part of this.
Tom, as I think about hope, peace, joy, and love this Advent, I think that they must be aspirational. Although you don't use that word in this post, at least not that I saw, it seems that your writing about Advent is full of the idea. Yes, peace has come in the Savior, but it seems to have barely got in the door sometimes. Other times, there is peace. But, sad to say, more often than not, the peace we experience is partial and temporary. This is as it should be, I think, for it makes us long for it all the more, and this longing is what Advent is about for me this year. Forgive me if I'm superimposing my response onto your writing, but it seems that we are both longing, hoping against hope even, that one day the peace that is partial will be pervasive and permanent. Keep writing, friend.
John, aspirational is exactly the word to use for the Advent season, and I am grateful that you can see this in what I do long for--the pervasive and permanent peace that transcends understanding and is found in Christ--and what we both long for. I have been wondering if my posts this advent have been too weighted on the side of heaviness. I started out only wanting to support those who mourn, simply because I am so familiar with it now, with the feeling of being out of step with all the celebrations. But I appreciate your reading, John, and this discussion. Since the 1970s, I have had many advent seasons that were shadowed by loss--the loss of my sister, my parents, my son, and this year, one of my cousins. I know that experiencing loss means that much of the advent season is spent in thinking of the past and who is missing in the present. But I do believe that even here, in the place of mourning, if we do it well, there is a looking forward to something we haven't really known yet, and we long for it. Hope, peace, joy, and love. These are still what we aspire to. Thank you for your writing as well.
Again, Tom, you have shared many wise observations about writing and life. After all, one is a reflection of the other. This part is my favorite: "The holidays seem like a time when I could start to look at people as though they are potential friends, see them in terms of peace, see them as people who might tell me a good joke or something I haven’t heard before."
May God bring you peace, even in bits and pieces, and may those "potential friends" become a reality.
Paula, thank you for this wonderful prayer and blessing. So be it!
Thank you for reading.
Dr. Allbaugh, thank you for your thoughtful post. Writing professionally now, I have to agree with your reflections. So many stages get revisited, and unexpected demands always seem to pop up in the middle of the process.
In the end, it feels a lot like sculpting. Sometimes when I’m halfway up, I realize there’s an issue with the foundation and I need to go back and adjust. Other times, shaping one side makes me notice another side needs attention, so the work keeps sending me back and forth. It becomes this ongoing practice of seeing what exists and imagining what could be better.
Your point about letting go of our linear ideas of grief is potent, as is the carousel metaphor.
Logan, it's so good to hear from you about this. The typical writing instructions we teachers give has more often than not come from literary work. We often read how novelists and literary figures went about composing their works, but we don't hear from professional writers about how they do the big work of the world. I appreciate your description here. It does sound similar to the back and forth of my own writing.
Happy Advent!
Thanks for your response, Dr. Allbaugh. It makes sense that many of those instructions grow out of how the classics were shaped.
I found zero-drafting especially helpful on a recent project, though now that I’m cleaning and organizing the draft, I’m realizing there are still some major connected threads I need to add! So the chaotic shaping process begins again.
Happy Advent to you as well!
Logan, I guess I have over-simplified by just a little that the old instructions were completely based on how the classics were written. There have been many in Composition Studies who moved away from that and studied professional writing, even writing for law schools. I guess I can only speak for myself when I say that a lot of process thinking came from literary studies. That's probably where I started. Your description of zero-drafting is intriguing, and if I were teaching now, I would ask you to zoom in our my class and talk about it.
Best wishes to you.
Tom, a wise and insightful piece, and thanks for sharing your grief and its process so openly. Regarding the writing process comments, the English Dep chair at a school I taught at talked often about "the" writing process, as if there were a singular one. Ain't no such animal. My process will change based on the genre, the piece, my inspiration, and realizing what an idiot I was to have written some of the early words. ;)
Tim, that definite article "the" is so wrong. We are so similar. My writing process really depends what the piece is about, what genre, what my understanding of audience is, and yes, my own sense of my own early idiocy.
And thank you for your kind words about the grief part of this.