About five years ago, when I was pondering going back to grad school yet again (because I am addicted or something), I ran into my old screenwriting teacher at Lunds and asked him what he thought.  He said “it will kill your writing.”

Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but he was mostly right.  Things like full-time jobs also kill your writing, but there is nothing like the brutally awful prose(?) of social science journals to make you forget that words can feel like something.

But between the 40 hours a week of work, the two classes, the prep work for conference proposals and accepted papers, and trying to round up scholarship money or grant money for travel – yeah, it kills not only your writing, but your creativity in general.

Reading shouldn’t be something you suffer through; even a scientific text can be rich and entrancing if you care about craft.  I know that isn’t a focus of the programs that generate scholars, but my life would be far more enjoyable if the craft of writing was at all evident in the world of research.

So today, after hours of torment, I set aside the texts and played guitar and spent the evening cooking with Megan and listening to the Valentine’s Day playlist on The Current.  Exercise and creative time are things I shouldn’t sacrifice, I will just have to force the time to appear out of nowhere. I’m so much happier this way.