For a Digital Writing Course
Assignment: find images of interest to you and collect them.
I do not collect much of anything. I do not know of any “scene” nor do I have any particular focused interest at the moment. Maintaining my Web sites is now about maintaining content, not creativity or discovery. (They are academic tools, not hobbies.)
I seldom leave my house, except to travel between the home and the university campus. I do not have any hobbies, which would merely distract me from writing assignments. I have no desire to gather random things without purpose, and the “purpose” of completing an assignment was painful enough with the Flickr slideshow I was asked to produce earlier in the semester. Without my wife’s assistance, the idea of looking at pictures would have been too daunting.
When I have “nothing to do,” I do whatever I am asked to do by my family or employer. I have a list of stories and projects at all times, though, giving me guidance when I wonder what tasks require my attention. I don’t do random things — I despise randomness; it causes nothing but anxiety.
If I were in the composition classes of some of the theorists I have read in the last six years, I would have given up on writing. No, that is not hyperbole. I have dropped classes that annoyed me for good reason — it is best to exit early knowing the silliness to come than to fail at being silly enough.
It is odd that I have received praise for my writing, even my poetry, but I find myself not only resisting but appalled by some of the ideas presented in composition instruction texts. Creative non-fiction is something I write on a regular basis. I’ve written for stage and for radio. Clearly, I have no lack of faith in my skills as a writer, neither as craftsman nor as artist, depending on the genre.
Whatever would I collect and why? At the moment, I hope to collect my thoughts and move ahead with other tasks.