Research Journal #3

Okay, let's recap where I currently am in my Unfamiliar Genre Project:

• I am struggling through a rough draft. My most severe difficulties are not the craft of the format, but how to adequately meld my ideas/topic into the eulogy in an elegant way. And when I use the word elegant, I mean elegant in my own voice. I would like to think that my writer voice is kind of quirky, honest, and definitely rough. So, not elegance with crystal vases and chandeliers, but elegance the Allison way... (which I don't really know what that is right now, but hopefully I will find out!).

• I want to be true to the eulogy genre, but I also want to express my beliefs in my way. How do I do this while remaining consistent with the format? All of the eulogies that I have read thus far are entirely poetic and reminiscent, serious and somber. Is it possible to remain writing in a genre if you change the tone? Some eulogies have funny stories about their loved ones, and try to look at the positive side, but most of them are very weighty. I don't want to come across like I am criticizing the education system severely, but I also don't want to make it all easy, breezy, like there aren't significant issues that we have to face.

• Wobbling, for sure, is what I am best at in the Pose, Wobble, Flow model. This whole research journal is practically a wobble! I question everything I am doing, but I guess that at some point, it will make for better flow? <Question Mark> Hopefully? <Question Mark>

• I feel like these research journals are the closest I have gotten to flow. I am not so much worried about the craft of my words or the things that I say because they are just some form of getting words and ideas down, and I'm not focusing on the final product as much as I am for my UGP. They're kind of therapeutic. Some sort of massive collaboration of (b)rainstorming-researching-ranting for (w)riters. I kind of don't hate it, and I kind of just realized that I called myself a writer? And I've never labeled myself that before. Huh.

• And finally, I am researching. I am simultaneously researching and writing my rough draft. I don't know if that will be successful, but if I discover something in my research that isn't congruent with my rough copy, I can edit and fix it for my final. My problem with my research is that much of the eulogies I am finding are very much alike. I can't find any nontraditional forms, and I have been looking.

I can't promise that my final product will be wonderful. I also can't promise that my words, ideas, and genre won't be convoluted and a little jumbled, because that is definitely what I am struggling with most. But I am researching, I am writing, and most importantly, I am trying. We'll see where that gets me.