And here I’m starting out, creating this new blog for a wide variety of writing. Creative, analytical, pensive, goofball, critical.

The rules of the game I’ve set for myself here are that this blog will be spitballed, freestyled, written in and for the moment.

In my educational research I’m focusing on rethinking education to make it more centered around process and action rather than outcomes and knowledge — that teaching students to play the “game” of what we do in school — improvising in the roles of scientists, writers, historians, mathematicians — is more important than making sure that their heads contain particular knowledge. So I’d like to challenge myself in the same way, to play the game of writing here, to be in the moment of writing and to do it mindfully and intentionally, and in each post to play the game of the type of writing I’m doing — reflective, humorous, critical, creative, depending on the inspiration and the thoughts swirling round my head (hopefully not like water swirling down a drain, although that may not be a terrible analogy — what if that’s what thoughts do? what if thoughts flow in like water from a shower head, drench us briefly, help us scrub clean, and then flow out again? The only question or issue with the analogy might be where those thoughts are coming from or going to, but perhaps this is manageable too? Perhaps like the plumbing in our homes the mind is a kind of black box to all but the experts ((and who would the plumbers of the mind be? cognitive scientists? psychologists? novelists? poets? your guess is as good as mine…)

I’ll try to tag my various posts as I create them, and as themes and topics emerge. I imagine there will be book and music reviews, the occasional movie review; stabs at poetry or fiction or poetic fiction or poetic nonfiction or nonpoetic nonfiction, and some cultural criticism as well. I hope you’ll join me on the trip!