Practicing What I Preach

Someone said in class the other day: "I hate to blog!" -- kind of in the same tone that I might say "I hate to pick up my dog's poop!"

Sorry, I wanted to say. Female apology mode (ugh).

I know how that student feels.  As soon as someone assigns me something, it loses at least a bit of its luster. Thus, when writing poems became a defacto expectation of my job, sitting down to compose one took on some of the same dread-of-the-slog feeling that the thought of having to crank out a seminar paper on Walt Whitman created in grad school. Ugh. Head>>desk.

So I can understand the feeling of squeamish reluctance my students might have for writing a blog entry (or six) about reading as a writer, or reading in general, or writing in general, or writing in their very own particular. Not only is it homework, but it's "out there" in the public realm. Who might read it? Who might stumble across it and use it in some way ... some dark, nefarious way ... (?)  [Like, is someone from the CIA reading this right now and adding it my file?]

Writing in the open is scary. Writing in general is scary. Writing "to spec" (on demand, that is, and according to a laundry-list of requirements) is not only scary, it can also be annoying, frustrating, and paranoid-inducing. Now the writer has to worry not only about the professor's opinion, but also about classmates's opinions, and rogue readers's opinions.

And then there's the real fact of my own hypocrisy to acknowledge.  "Hey, ya'll, write a blog. Write every day. Write two exercises per week and share them with the rest of the class. Read those puppies aloud in front of everyone and let us discuss them while you squirm in your seat, happy/appalled to be the center of our concentrated attention. Do everything I say. What am I going to do?  Nothing. No. I will not write my own blog. I will not write (creative stuff, in any case) every day. I will never write two exercises per week, no, and, furthermore, I will not share them with you. Why? Because I'm the teacher. Because I hate having to prove that I have ideas or skillz or whatever all the time. Because I'm lazy/blocked/busy/important/old/empty/dull/lazy. What are you looking at me for? Go write your thing and stop bothering me."

This morning, I had a stern conversation with myself in the bathroom.  "You better catch up on your blog writing," I told myself. "You've let it go for a long time."  I reminded myself that when I write regularly, I feel better. I remember things more easily. I dream better dreams. I wake up with energy and enthusiasm, rather than with a vague headache and unfocused disgruntlement.

And when I write in the open, online, here, in a blog, I have a much more muscular sense of an audience. That's scary, yes. You're probably judging me right now (admit it, you are). You might even be saying something like: She's not all that.

Well, yeah. I'm not all that. But somehow I've made good on that bathroom promise and, word by word, sentence by sentence, strung this sucker together. Do I hate it on some level? Perhaps. But I love how I feel when I'm finished.