Swashbuckling Sun Belters

I'm "doing" Sun Belt this summer–a four week Summer Institute for teachers of writing. It's so laid back... we have a total of at least 3-4 hours a day to work on our own material (independent reading, writing, listening to music, consulting with each other... etc.). It is lovely. And daunting.

I am not so much a writer as a person who wishes she wrote more. I always envisioned writers as these terribly inspired people who crank out ingenious word mosaics of the tops of their head. Usually, I picture these people wearing glasses and perhaps chewing on a pencil in an over crowded office cluttered with dirty coffee mugs and brimming with books by people like Michel Foucault, Joan Dideon, John Steinbeck, or Proust. They dive into their writings without hesitation, without pretense, without fear. They are bold. They are confident. They write with authority.

Meanwhile, I hack away at my little black computer surrounded by sippy cups and half-eaten bagels. My teeth feel scuzzy from so much coffee, consumed in a vain attempt to stimulate my mind to the point of production. I listen to everything from Bruce Hornsby to George Winston seeking my muse. The most productive thing I wind up doing is creating a killer playlist. Praising myself for my ecclectic compilation of musical selections, I decide that my coffee buzz has dissipated and the laundry sounds much more enticing.

I believe that my slothlike approach to writing stems from the lack of tangible evidence of my labor when it comes to writing. No matter what I write, it can always be better. I might hammer out 5 pages of absolute crap, resulting in perhaps two surviving paragraphs. Anne Lamott would argue that this is success (check out Bird by Bird). However, I have a greater sense of satisfaction after folding 4 pairs of Adam's boxers and tucking them neatly away in his drawers. The labor involved in writing instills me with a love/hate relationship to the practice. When the writing is good (as it feels at the present moment), it is so good. But when it's bad, it is mind-numbing, chew my arm off, speaking in tongues, otherworldly, gut wrenching.

I'm still learning my process. Sometimes, I can lie awake at night and mentally write my papers and then sit down at the computer and bust it out. Other times, I will sit in front of the computer for so long that I develop butt-rot and an acute pain in my lower back and neck. Perhaps this blogging will become a piece of that process, since the audience feels more tangible, more real, more immediate.