NEW & UPCOMING. BY V. JOLENE MILLER
READING ON THE RUN Binge reading on the run because everything else can wait. ABOUT THE COLUMNIST
In Alaska, I’m a behavioral health instructor by day and a Ph.D. student by night. When I’m not teaching, I have my nose in a textbook or a scholarly article. These days, my writing is nonfiction and my puppy, Omar, is lucky if I can spare ten minutes to play fetch. I still carry a book in my purse because I hope to get a few minutes to read. Fifteen minutes before dawn, in between assignments, or right before falling into bed. Reading is my resting place.
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During the writing process, authors incorporate transitions to bridge the gap between paragraphs, character dialogue, chapters, time sequence, events, and scenes during the writing process. Transitions are necessary to move the story forward; linking the events from beginning to end. If they’re done well, they create a narrative path for the reader to walk along, immersed in the magical happenings as they unfold. Likewise, when bridges are made well, people can traverse from one side to the other - typically, across bodies of water. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like bridges. Their height boggles my brain, and I worry about falling off or over the sides of them. Their length can make me dizzy with apprehension, and I worry about them falling down or crumbling beneath me. Oftentimes, I find myself holding my breath or gripping the arm rest on the car door until my knuckles are white, and we’re safely across. The great thing about book transitions and bridges is that they can lead us to something new, maybe even something unexpected or exciting. Last semester, my graduate school coursework could have used a bridge, and maybe a sign to indicate the transition to actively working on the dissertation phase of things. Previously, I’d spent a year feverishly cranking out coursework assignments. The rapid pace had me reading and writing faster than my NaNoWriMo days when I managed 10,000-word days to write novels. Switching to writing a research outline and a literature review made my head spin. Someone had clearly changed the rules and failed to inform me.
