Facing the Page

Annie Dillard (1989) says, "The page will teach you to write."

The trouble is - you have to face the page, or the screen as it were, if you want to write, if you want the page to teach you. It's blankness can be overwhelming. I find that sometimes I just have to dive in and get started. This is usually after sitting down, drinking tea, getting more tea, checking email, looking at the blank page, drinking more tea. . .

You get the idea.

It does not matter what comes out so long as you are getting ideas out of your head and into word form. This, my friends, is writing. It is facing the page. Sometimes, it gets easier once you get started.

Just keep at it, even if it is bad. . .really bad.

The longer you put it off, the scarier the task gets. (This is true of most things.)

Dive in my friends! Get something on the page.

Dillard, A. (1989). The writing life. New York: Harper and Row.

More Confessions

My own writing has been buried again. Don't get me wrong, I write miles of comments on student papers and assignments (which I enjoy). But, my own writing has slipped past me.

I use myself as an example of how being overly busy can be just another form of procrastination. Certainly, procrastination is not the only reason I am teaching. I like teaching, and I like making money (more than I currently make publishing anything). Teaching makes me feel helpful and money makes me feel like I matter (We won't go into the psychology here now. We don't have that kind of time.) Writing can be hard - even when we like to do it. Some day I like writing. Some (most) days I ignore my muse.

My muse is getting impatient and rolling her eyes at me. We all have a muse you know. Things that inspire us. Your muse may not push you to write, but all of us have a muse; we may just choose not to listen to him or her.

Happy Writing!

June One - The End and The Beginning.

Turning in a finished project is hard. For me it is hard because I know there is always something that I missed or fear I could have done better. The good news is every time we write, every time we revise, and every time we put our writing "out there" for people to see, we grow as a writer. Not everyone may like what we have done, but we know that we have been stepping down the path of our writing process. It is also good to note that writing for others and writing for ourselves often requires a different kind of writing or even a different kind of process. Forge on dear writers and take what you have learned from this writing task and know that next time you write there are more skills in your writer's tool box. (even if what you just wrote feels like dirt).