I'm avoiding writing again by writing

I'm all about blogging again recently, just because I don't want to write other stuff. You know what I mean? I'm writing here because I'd rather be doing this than writing my dissertation.

Right now my disseratation seems a little big. I have all sorts of ideas banging into each other, and I have a plan, like a big junk box that all of those ideas are thrown into. But when I think about starting to sort that box, it seems like I find other stuff to do instead: the dishes, blogging, playing poker. It doesn't really seem to matter what it is, just as long as it's something else.

Recently, it has been blogging, both reading and writing blog posts. I'm thinking about like a blog novel or a blog non-fiction book. I'm pretty sure that will never happen though. It's a nice idea, but if I ever start to write it, I'll just end up writing something else instead.

So I need practice following through, I guess. And confidence. That's always good. I'm pretty sure that I'm at least decent at this writing thing, but you know, those little insecurities always seem to seep in when you're not paying attention. They whisper to you from the back of your mind, " What if people don't like what you write? What if you're doing all of this work for nothing?" What if I am? What then?

Maybe that's why a lot of doctoral students get to their dissertation and freeze up. Maybe they're afraid of that final barrier between safe waters and deep waters, where there be monsters. I guess when it comes to this sort of stuff, I can swim just fine. But I like that I can still see the sandy bottom, even if I'm no longer touching it.

This experience with my dissertation has made me think a lot about how we use rhetoric in our classrooms, the way that we insist that our students write to an audience. But all of these nerves I have over what other people will think is really the only thing keeping me from writing. There has to be a better way to think about the relationship between writer and reader that what rhetoric has to offer. It makes me think of Bakhtin's superaddressee and Frank Farmer's work with that concept. Perhaps, you are my superaddressee. That's right, you, who has stumbled across this post and who may or may not respond.

Can't believe I'm actually posting this.