“The dragon had finally been slain; the girl was
let down from his clutches. Taking her in his hand, the two began trotting back
towards the village”
Writing this way came so naturally, it was
almost careless. I thought, and I wrote. An idea popped into my head, and I
already had a narrative built around it. I set aside the keyboard and stared at
what I had been working on. A short, B-list production which I was proud of
nonetheless. It feels good to make something. To finish a product that you
started. To do it all on your own not bound by the rubric of a teacher or the
hateful eyes of the public. To just take time out of your day and write down
what you did, what you thought about, and what you dreamed.
It feels good to make something.
“The assignment is due in two weeks. The prompt
must be answered, the directions must be followed, and the essay must be
complete to the best of your ability. If the prompt is strayed from I do not
care if you wrote The Hobbit, Harry Potter or 1984.”
Two weeks. Fourteen days. I thought for a
second. Three hundred and thirty six hours. More than enough time to write a
masterpiece if you plan it well. I eyed around the classroom and thought to
myself.
Then again...
I went home and typed Inferno at the top
of a page. Thinking to myself about the burden to come, I sighed, stretched my
legs and began work.
Two hours later, Inferno
remained the only word on my paper.
“What do I
write... What do I think? How am I supposed to start this? Finish this? Or
better yet, get at least a sentence down?”
Truth is, I had
written a sentence down. And then erased it. Then I wrote another; erased that
one too. Write, erase. Write, erase. Write, erase. After two hours of nothing,
I figured that the best thing to do was just write and leave the poorly written
sentences on the page. An hour later, at the very least I had a paragraph. At
the very least I had something. Three hours sitting down staring at a screen; I
had to get out and do something else.
Six days left. I
had got caught up with other work and now less than half the time remained. My
paper, of course, was exactly as blank as it had been left. “Three more
paragraphs” I told myself. Looking back on what worked last time, I took a
seat, and prepared myself. Glancing at my phone, a small vibration led to a
little message pop up from my friends who wanted to play basketball.
“Where have I seen this one before” I thought to
myself. The kid who forgets to do his work and stays inside studying and
working whilst the rest of the school’s populus is at the pool, beach, playing
in the snow or maybe even basketball. I turned off my phone and, for a second,
saw my face’s reflection in the black screen before I set it down.
“But whose fault is that?”
I couldn’t stand hearing the shouts outside from
the nearby hoop, nor the light reflecting off the computer screen making it
hard to see. The windows were now closed and the doors were now shut. A blindingly
bright computer screen piercing a dimly lit room; the carpal tunnel already
building up in my worn-out hands; the scoliosis from sitting here hunched over
for hours on end; the hours, minutes, seconds, and life slowly drifting away.
Of course this is an over exaggeration but I felt it as i slowly typed away
with seemingly no end in sight. The lifeblood, the enjoyment of writing, all of
its fun and possibilities were seemingly being sucked out of me, like
everything I had ever written had led up to a research paper on a 700 year old
book instead of what my brain was telling me to write. Finally, hours later,
the last paragraph is finished. A good paper? Absolutely not. But a starting
point for something better? Certainly.
Five days pass. I had to give myself a while to
not only catch up on all the work I had to set aside just to write the essay,
but to give my brain some breathing room in between harsh sessions of seemingly
endless writing. The last day. It all comes down to this. I sit down, stretch
my legs for the last time, and my phone buzzes. A small vibration led to a
little message pop up from my friend who sits near me.
I sighed.
Being myself, I couldn’t deny helping someone
especially one who I’ve known so long. And so, the next 3 hours were spent on
assisting him with his writing. He was not a bad writer, per se, but I could
easily pick out the faults in his narrative structure, content and grammar. As
we finally finished up, he thanked me for helping him and was surprised that I
finished my essay already, knowing all the class would be working till the
midnight hour.
I sighed.
But I didn’t want to make him feel bad. And so
that was that. Finally, my own paper. 20 minutes later, I receive a class
reminder. It's from the teacher
“As of this point forward, I will no longer be
answering questions from students. Good luck on finishing your papers!”
Its that condescending exclamation point that always
gets me. I suddenly became irate, pissed off that I spent hours tutoring this
guy and not asking questions on and bettering my own work. So then the rush
began. Fixing this sentence. This part doesn’t fit with the theme.
Theme theme theme! What does
that even mean?!
After repeating the same words long enough,
sometime you say them and feel as if they aren’t real. The same is true when
writing a paper. I thought and repeated the idea of theme so much that I forgot
what I was even doing. But the hours kept drifting by. And when the clock
struck two AM, I realized that this is the best work I can turn in. If I
continue more, I will second-guess myself to the point of rewriting the entire
essay. And so the printer spewed my paper out, almost looking like it
regurgitated it. Not even the printer wanted to touch my words.
The next day, I walked into class, let go of my
paper, and thus lifted a 20 tonne weight off my shoulders. And then immediately
put it back on as I realized we weren’t getting it back for a week. Having to
wait a week, sitting so on edge that I fell off long ago, just to see if my
paper was good enough. I sat down and prepared for this class’ lecture. My
friend in front of me turned around; he smiled and thanked me.
One week later, the day had finally arrived. The
time was nigh and the moment just right. The class silent, waiting for
disappointment or awe to be handed back to them. The teacher passed back my
paper. I didn’t lift up the rubric yet; I looked through the pages and saw a
decent amount of purple marker. The red marker. Every student knows the
red marker. Turning to the rubric, I scan down the lines for the final mark,
ignoring the break down entirely.
Structure........................................
Content.........................................
Analysis........................................
Grammar.......................................
Overall..........................................100
I did not shout,
tell the people sitting next to me, or even exclaim inside my own head. I just
let go. I was now 20 tonnes lighter, a thousand times more satisfied.
The teacher
continued to pass out papers, the last landing one desk ahead. My friend in
front of me turned around; he smiled and thanked me. He got a B+, and seemed
far happier than I.
I smiled back.
I smiled back.
It feels good to make something.
It's strange. You’d think Joey Chestnut, 10 time hot dog speed
eating world champion, would never touch a hot dog for months after
competitions, but I wanted just a little to take me off the student’s high of
receiving a highly-marked paper. I continued my story from before, wanting to
write a proper conclusion to an epic tale.
But this time, I kept running into walls.
I couldn’t think of anything. Then I started to
go back on what I previously wrote. I looked at each sentence and thought “Does
this really serve the paper’s main idea? Does it support my claim and the
overarching theme?”
And hours later, my fantasy tale looked
different. This time more structured. But it felt almost... hollow. I was no
longer telling a story about a strong knight, I was proving an assertion about
why he was strong. Something was lost.
Something that felt so natural before.
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