Here I sit, as I have uncounted times in the last five years, ready to begin writing. I have a paper due, you see, tomorrow night at 6:15. The notecards are at the ready, the text itself sits nearby. Various outlines and efforts at coherence drift under and around the notecards. The introduction and thesis are, for the most part, already in place. And now I begin.
I have mused on this today, this afternoon while the children played and I read and was generally Available: I wouldn’t attempt to do actual writing when they might need me. The potential interruption would be distracting; the actual disruption might make me angry. That’s a lose-lose situation. And so I have waited until now, this evening, to craft the eleven pages that remain between me and a completed paper.
It’s only eleven pages (I’ve written one already of the twelve page assignment), something I know I can fairly easily spin off. I’ve pondered about and worked on this paper for days and weeks, even. It won’t be that hard. Still it’s funny how the paper stands in my mind, much in the way others did years ago in high school: monolithic and uncircumnavigable. There is no getting around it. I Must Needs Write.
Soon enough I’ll be in it. I’ll turn off the Jars of Clay c.d. that is keeping me company; I’ll open the file and make necessary adjustments to those opening paragraphs; I’ll pick up the notecards. I’ll be off. I will be immersed in the logic and insight I’ve been granted on this novel; I will solicit quotes from the book itself and those of Real Scholars. I will make my point.
And somewhere I’ll come out on the other side, perhaps sometime near one a.m. or later, and it will all look different. The shadow of this monolith will be behind me, the words will be in black on the white paper. The bibliography will be anatomically correct, the staple in the upper left hand corner. The Whole World will look different in that broad daylight.
I’m looking forward to it.
Wish me luck. Here I go….
