River of Writing

River of Writing 

University of Glasgow: Nathalie Tasler, Carole McDiarmid, Smita Odedra, Linnea Soler, Hannah Mathers

Washington University: Ching-In Cheng

We used the River of Writing exercise, which we co-created, to think about our relationship with writing. This was an activity emerging from a chat initially between Nathalie and Ching-In when we met based on our mutual interest in poetry and the conversation meandered into other realms of writing. 

Nathalie: I am supporting colleagues at the University of Glasgow in SoTL planning, and writing, and have found that there are many roadblocks on the writer’s journey. When Ching-In told me about the exercise they were undertaking with their students to explore the students’ relationship with reading, I felt this was a brilliant idea to adapt to writing. The aim is to help colleagues reflect on their relationship with writing. And of course we have to try it ourselves before asking anyone else to do it! 

Carole: I’ve used Rivers of experience before asking others to draw and was very interested to see how it would be doing from my own reflective lens. Nathalie’s angle of thinking about what we can learn about blockers really resonated both in my own writing and in what I hear from colleagues I work with, supporting them with SoTL. 

Smita: Before taking part in this activity, I’d never invested much time reflecting on my writing journey. To be honest, I was a bit dubious about the process of spending time thinking about writing, instead of spending that time just writing. However, when I met up with the rest of the group and saw their rivers and heard their personal journeys through writing, I could feel myself swept into the undercurrent and able to meaningfully connect with the activity. I finally felt inspired to draw my own river. The process made me deeply consider my lifetime of writing, reading and connection with the written word. I thought about the catalysts and constraints for creativity, and who has influenced me along the way. Importantly, it unlocked long-forgotten memories of the joys of writing stories for sharing. I am hoping that in future I’ll be able to channel this positive energy from recollected emotions to motivate myself at times when I’m feeling distant and disconnected from writing.

Linnea: When I first learned of the River of Writing exercise, it immediately resonated with me. I could visualise my writing journey with trickles and torrents, lochs and lagoons, marshlands and maelstroms, and a significant number of dams and diversions. What I also could see is how writing is not a solitary experience and my river of writing is fed and influenced by tributaries of support from my trusted friends and colleagues, through the mutual sharing and discussion of our personal journeys. Furthermore, it was fascinating to realise that, even though I felt that my writing river had, at times, completely dried up, yielding a barren river-bed with only a trickle of writing wending through the dust to suggest any forward movement, the reality was that I possess a hidden aquifer of inspiration and motivation, and is just needs to be tapped to increase the current of writing.  By painting a visual description to an actual physical (and emotional) action of writing, it gave me a new perspective on the factors that help drive me forward, as well as obstacles that impede the flow of writing.  I am still creating my physical map which, to be completely honest,  will never capture the turbulence and turmoil I can see (and feel) with my minds-eye. But even a shallow facsimile, and the process needed to deconstruct and reconstruct my thoughts and experiences, is powerful in making writing a more present reality in my daily life.  I am grateful to Nathlie and Ching-In for their creative collaboration to produce this Rivers of Writing exercise. I also feel very lucky (and special) to be part of this exercise and to be able to share the joy of this journey with our wonderful wee group. 

If you want to explore and try the exercise for yourself, please feel free to use the Google Presentation below: