The Best Writing I Did in 2007
Was in the classes I took.
Early in the mornings, faced with a deadline (class starting at 9 am, needing to be ready to read my work out loud), working hard, feeling there wasn’t enough time, getting the piece ready to read to a group of people who would listen carefully. Working by hand.
The deadline and the audience-in-waiting focused my mind and energy.
It’s so hard to recreate that focus on our own, in our studios, at home. Genius is figuring out how to create the conditions that allow for that kind of intense focus, that built-in audience which is how you steer your revision.
(So, I’m wondering about requiring the daily writing in my classes….it’s so much easier to concentrate when there is a built-in Reader Waiting. Students: what do you think?)
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students must put the work under your door.
it gave me material i never would have written without a deadline. i ventured out of my apartment in the snow. i had impromptu conversations with professors in the halls of lubbers. my roommates gave me privacy because i told them, “i have to write today, my professor is making me.” i was so, so proud when it was over.
if the work hadn’t gone under your door, i would have thrown it away because i didn’t like it OR i never would have written it in the first place.