After writing, there is writing. Deadlines and word counts and reading lists have framed my work for the past eight months, but now there is some space to look at the fragments that were cut and cast aside, the questions and leads that pressed in on me from the amorphous recesses of the margins, to the tune of my hurried "Not now, not now." Today there is nothing pressing, so I let them press away.
Another degree near completion [and this might be a bit of a stretch], and I am feeling the pull of the blogosphere. I just joined Twitter. Facebook is bursting at the seams with links and videos and photos and updates from all the things I have bothered to "like." I was missing the anonymous thought missives of virtual life. I can set ideas adrift here. I can hope or dread their return. I can sink into forgetfulness when they are out of earshot. But Twitter did not satisfy. I want something more than 140 characters, and less than a dissertation. What is there in between?
I want to spend time with my fragments without the urgency of a closing date, the distant eventuality of a product. I want to see what can germinate in this nebulous thing called cyberspace. There must be something there. I don’t think it’s only procrastination that drives me to refresh my Facebook homepage while I write papers. I don’t think it was perverse curiosity that somehow brought me to Twitter two days after Osama bin Laden’s death, and one day after the Canadian federal election. What do I hope to find? What do I hope to make?
Can I plant my fragments here, or am I only burying them?
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