The official blog belonging to Anthony Kwok
This is for a class I took at UIUC, Informatics 303, documenting my writing process and reflecting on the change in my process.
Note: This is a self-reflection and this post is from my perspective. I am almost certain not everyone will agree with what is stated in this post.
My Usual Writing Process
Whenever I write or use the creative portion of my brain, I usually sit down in a comfortable area (usually my bed or my office chair) and begin some open world contemplation whilst staring at the ceiling. I would have my laptop besides me and a notebook by my side, pen in hand and a bottle of water ready. The chaos in my mind stirs as I begin to jot down any ideas I deemed worth pursuing. After collecting some ideas, I begin the tedious amounts of research by perusing the internet. I begin with opening my "Sick Jams" playlist or just listen to some low-fi hip hop. Dozens of tabs open as I often get lost while wandering the interwebs. I begin outlining how I want the final product to be and then break down the bigger problem into smaller steps until the small pieces became tangible enough for me to work on them. Let's say for example I wanted to write a short film on life in quarantine. I'd get set up with my notebook, laptop, pen and water bottle, begin the chaotic ensemble in my head, gather the ideas that are worth using and answer questions such as how many scenes do I want to use, what aspects of my life do I want to document, how many cameras I should use and focusing on where I want to shoot. Then I begin outlining how I want the film to turn out before moving to the next process which is execution of said outline. Amidst the execution phase, there will be numerous tweaks and edits on the fly as I adjust to the limitations of the exeuction process. Even if I weren't to make a short film, I would follow a similar process on other forms of writing. However, for the sake of my class, I decided to change something up, instead of sitting, I would stand. And yes, I am currently standing as I write this post. The reason behind why I chose to stand instead of sitting is because often my body will get too comfortable and my mind will slowly sink into the sleeping state. Thus I wanted to see if there were any changes if I were to stand while going through my same writing process. Such a simple action somehow led to more results than I expected as I began my work on this blog post.
Reflection on the Change
So despite the expected change of not falling asleep, I also realized that standing whilst working helped in other ways. Not only did I not feel any back or neck pain from being in front of a laptop for too long but I also found it easier to focus since my mind was sharper and clearer. After a while, you don't even notice the pain in your legs as the hours continue to go by. I also found my legs never fell asleep as they usually would while sitting for so long. My posture was a lot better overall and this allowed for me to have less distractions. As I outlined the draft I wanted for this post, I intermittenly take sips of my water and for some odd reason, I felt more energized than ever. Not once did I feel like falling asleep nor did other distractions bother me. Besides writing this post, I also had to read and anaylze some books from The Odyssey for my gen ed class CLCV 221. I've learned that standing provides benefits in ways that I did not imagine and I believe that such a small change is worth it. Being cooped up in a chair for so long made standing a much more attractive alternative