Author: Rebekah Ruetz

As I’ve been working on my website this week, I’ve been struggling with the challenge of finding a catchy title.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my project, my website’s purpose is share my stories about the highs and lows of pursuing music at college, and also to generate honest conversations with others about their experiences.

Originally I was thinking about something along the lines of “The Independent Artist”, since I want to focus on what it looks like to maintain confidence while being closely watched and shaped by teachers. However, now I’m looking for something more wholistic, if that makes sense.

After speaking with my mentor, my capstone teacher, and my entire capstone class, the general consensus was that “musician” needed to be in the title to avoid confusion. Otherwise, “artist” is just too broad and might suggest that I am a painter. Additionally, since my stories are specific to the musician life, it just makes sense to narrow in on that audience. So, I guess I’m heading in the direction of “The ______ musician”.

To be honest, I’m a bit frustrated with myself, because I didn’t have an issue finding a title for my 220 project last year, which was called Refuel My Day (see here). I  started calling it “ReFuel”, and then changed it because I wanted it to be a place for people to visit daily. The title came pretty naturally because it literally described what the site was meant to do. I am encouraged for my current project though, since I spoke with my capstone teacher today about mind-mapping (apparently this is a Joan Didion exercise). I haven’t done this since high school, but I’m going to give it a go again tonight and see what happens. Hopefully I’ll have a new and improved site title by our last class on Tuesday! Wish me luck!

I know this sounds incredibly nerdy, but I’m actually looking forward to the research portion of my capstone project. The thing is, I’m not sure how I’ll include my findings (especially the genre-specific ones) into my story naturally since my project will be written in a creative non-fiction form. However, I hope the approach to incorporate this information will make itself clear as time progresses, and as I start to begin reading the books on my research list, but I still find myself worrying about it now. Trusting the process is difficult, isn’t it?

I suppose my fears about this originate from my memories writing middle and high school research papers…gosh, it was like pulling teeth—so painful! I didn’t necessarily mind the researching (when I enjoyed the topic), but there was something so mundane about inserting evidence here and there and recording the sources on the bibliography pages. There was one instance where I was writing about Stradivarius, and as much as I loved reading about violin history, I became bored so quickly. There were so many opinions from different authors and experts about why his violins sound amazing (some think it’s because of the varnish, fyi), and trying to sort through them to uncover the truth was grueling. I am happy to say that I don’t think it’ll be this way for the annotated bibliographies we will create for our projects, because our kind and encouraging teachers designed it to be more open-ended on purpose. 🙂

I have to say, I am so excited to see how all of our projects end up! This is such a fabulous opportunity to express ourselves in whatever writing format we choose with whatever we are passionate about—what a gift this is!

So, here’s a toast to the research process! May it never become mind-numbing 😉

Writing doesn’t come naturally for me until I have settled on a topic/argument. What do I do when I’m not yet inspired? I run. I run as fast as I can and picture the problems and worries of the day filtering out of my brain.

I suppose what running allows me to do is analyze and accept things that are clouding my creativity, and let them go. Sometimes these conflicts and problems fuel my imagination and become part of my argument (or story, depending on the genre) in my writing. Some might say that my problems shouldn’t mix themselves into my writing, but I disagree; why not write about the things that are at the forefront of my mind? The trials and tribulations that keep me up at night and make me wonder “why, why, why?” can drive me to create my very best (not to mention meaningful) work.

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I often find myself writing at night between the hours of 7pm and 1am (yes, I happen to be a night person). There is something comforting knowing that everyone around me is in a state of rest at that hour, so I can calm my mind and allow my brain to wonder and wander. I love looking outside at the street lamps and the moon, or at the peach-scented candle I sometimes light beside me. I love to wrap myself in heavy blankets on my bed and let my fingers work speedily on the keyboard. These warm and cozy feelings both inside and out (referred to as “hygge” by Scandanivians) allow me to concentrate and prepare my ideas to flow.