A stack of American Literature essays, a glass of water, a red pen.
Yet, complete inertia.
Procrastination. It’s not something I indulge in often…and this first finals week, the end of my very first semester of teaching, I plunged into paper grading head-first, grading dozens and dozens of papers the first few days.
Only to find myself here, incapable of keeping myself from automatically shifting from reading to skimming when I pick up an essay.
Really, I’m not behind; I can easily get these done before the deadline (Thursday). And I’ve finished the hardest part (Comp 1) and moved into the semi-fun part (Am Lit).
Something about reading reading reading makes me want to write. Even if its freshmen year student essays. I wrote a poem and a short story this week, while the pile of papers grew deeper.
A short story! The first I’ve written since my fiction class in college, four years ago. The closest I’ve come to that in those four years has been a prose poem or a bit of what I thought was prose that turned to poem.
I’m so excited about it; I read it again and again. I change out this word for that word. I correct comma splices (oh comma splices! fused sentences! at the end of my very first semester, and already comma errors glare up at me in everything–professional writing, love notes, instructions, articles, facebook statuses. comma errors abound!)
It’s my pet of the moment, beloved for its difference; its lack of line and stanza! I’d forgotten how fun it is to play outside of “your” genre.
~
Renee Emerson 
thoughts?