Writing And Not Writing

At writer's group yesterday I mentioned that I hadn't written anything last week. It was so tough that for the first time in nineteen weeks I didn't publish a newsletter. "I just couldn't write anything," I said. "Not even your Morning Pages?" Lauren asked. "Well," I said, "of course I did those." David gently mocked me: "So you wrote twenty-something pages, but didn't write anything."

He's wrong and right here. 

There is a difference between writing and writing. It's possible for me to write twenty-something pages but not write anything at all. Including what I typed, I probably wrote 10,000 words last week, but I still claim, without irony, that I didn't write anything at all. 

Doing Morning Pages is a way to stay in the rhythm of writing. So too is time in my notebook filling pages, running my pen dry. Work at my laptop is the same. I keep myself in the act of writing though I'm not producing any writing. 

I suppose I should articulate the difference.

The first writing is forming letters, words, paragraphs on the page or screen. It is the art of practice, like taking jump shots in the driveway after dinner. There's no score, no audience, no opposing team. It's just jump shots. Writing is like that. I did my usual amount of that kind of writing last week. 

Writing is done with intent to go beyond the narrow confines of my mind. It is reaching out and risking rejection. Writing is done to share with an audience out in the world. 

Even with the intent, not all attempts at writing work. There are writers who claim writer's block when it's not working. Others claim writer's block keeps them even from the rhythm writing. This is where I call bullshit. Maybe not on other writers, but on myself. I can always write no matter how long it has been since I've done any writing. I can keep the rhythm going. My next jump shot isn't dependent on the outcome of the previous jump shot. Just keep writing.

Right now I'm writing and writing. I'm keeping up the rhythm with intent. I can't know for sure what kind of writing I'm doing until I finish. Writing with intent is no guarantee, but it sure as hell makes writing more likely.

Either way is good. Sure, writing is more satisfying, especially when it brings acclaim, but writing, the desperate maintenance of rhythm might be more noble. It's the act of kindling a flame when everything is damp and the process seems hopeless. The product of that kind of writing, kept in a drawer forever or maybe just in memory, becomes a touchstone, a comfort. Often that is just what I need when I am struggling as an ordinary writer but still dreaming of becoming a writer. 

Grading In The Schools

Our hall monitor and I are talking about school. Kids are done with classes, so we are here on our own, grading, putting things in order, the usual. I've confided that this is my time to look busy. I'm not busy at all, but I need to look busy because most everyone else is terribly busy and will ask me to do some of their work. I'm not into that. 

Maybe this makes me seem like a bad colleague. 

Teaching is a good job, but grading sucks. I don't know anyone who enjoys grading or all the time it involves. One guy said he enjoyed reading student writing, and maybe he did, but I only enjoy reading as they're writing and working through the process. Once the piece is done, grading is mostly a bother. I write comments but they don't teach. They are to justify the grade which is usually lower than the kid wanted. 

Grading is something I work to avoid. I've found ways around most grading and, no surprise, seen no ill effects on learning. When I do have to grade stuff such as the final exam, I suck it up and grade the damn thing. 

But that doesn't mean it has to take much time. 

A teacher here is lamenting the time it will take him to grade the finals. "I'll be at it all week." I nodded and shrugged hoping he wouldn't ask what he then asked. "They take forever, don't they?" I nodded and shrugged some more. I hate to lie, but if I tell him I've finished grading, he won't believe me but word might get out that I'm done, and I can't have that. 

I am ordered to give a final and grade it. I don't want to run afoul of my admins (I prefer they forget I exist). I want to do my job well. I'm not looking for shortcuts around the directive. I actually like giving final exams. It's four days during which kids have incentive to work hard and be quiet. This year, to make things more peaceful and like real testing, I barred phones and headphones during the test. It went great. 

The other teacher imagines I have a huge stack of finals to grade, but I don't. 

Kids finished the final in dribs and drabs. As they finished the final, I graded it. The multiple choice is cake. Takes a minute. The essay has a strict rubric (from the state exams), and I've graded enough of them that I can do one in three minutes. Then there's a piece of free-writing graded largely on how much they wrote and how well they thought. That takes two minutes but only because I like reading them. Each final takes no more than six minutes to grade and I finished them as they came in. 

Don't tell, but all my finals are graded and recorded. 

Years ago I watched a teacher calculating grades from a paper gradebook with calculator. She was frustrated. It was taking forever. I asked, why not use a spreadsheet? She said she didn't want to take the time to learn how. I nodded and shrugged, bowing out of the room. She looked flustered and rushed. She had a lot of work to do. I went back to my room and probably read a book after closing my door. 

This year, my spreadsheet has calculated the grades. I haven't entered them into the school's system yet. Better to do that closer to the due date. Until then, I've got my computer out to do this writing. Around the computer I have paper printouts of grades, a thick folder full of final exams, and a binder full of plans for next year. In a tab I have my spreadsheet and I click into it whenever anyone comes in to talk with me. I look busy as hell, so they don't stay long. And I am busy. I'm writing this. So don't bother me.

Just Do Something

My mother gave Stephanie a plant for Mother's Day. A hibiscus with lovely yellow blossoms. It came in the usual plastic pot and needed to be planted along the fence, an operation requiring a spade, some soil, water, and a few minutes of my time.

It languished on our patio in the plastic pot almost a month. The wind kept knocking it over so by today only half the soil remained and the plant looked sad, a little desperate. I may be anthropomorphizing here, but go with it. 

I hadn't planted the thing because, though logic clearly showed it would be the easiest of tasks, it always seemed like something I didn't want to do right then. I would get to it later. 

Later and later it turns out. 

Tonight, I came to sit on the patio and the plant was tipped over again. More soil had spilled out. Its lone blossom looked like Sally Struthers begging me to help feed needy children. Alright, I told it. I'll plant you. 

It took twelve minutes from decision to putting the tools away. 

Last week I had trouble writing anything worth posting. I had ideas but no faith in them or myself and left each one unfinished. 

Nike says, just do it, but Nike cripples thousands and thousands of runners and bilks people for the right to wear the swoosh, so screw them. 

I just need to do something. Almost anything. Though you already knew this, I had forgotten it. Write something. Plant something in the ground or type it on the screen and see what grows. Just do something.

The Farthest Star in the Night Sky

for Ann Moore

My friend and I walk through the night. Winter is coming back. The night sky is clear, no clouds. The night will grow colder. We sip coffee. She knows the stars. I’ve been stuck on the Pleiades. That name. A constellation I knew as a boy. A picture on a page. A story. Seven divine sisters. The Pleiades, I say, to hear the sound and give it life. She points. There, she says. I count aloud one, two, three, four, five and six. The seventh is beyond our ability to see unaided. We walk under Orion. Taurus The Bull steaming at the snout. I ask, how far away is the seventh Pleiade. She says a number beyond my imagination. The night becomes colder. I was once told that each star is someone in heaven. A pinprick in God’s dome. She asks if I’m looking for my father. No, I say. He’s farther than the seventh Pleiade. The farthest star in the cold night’s sky. We hurry. The coffee is always getting cold.