I technically don’t have time to write this morning — I have student papers to read and classes to prepare. But here I am, determined to fill at least a few pages because I like what I wrote a few days ago, and I believe writing sludge on mornings like this fuels the more fruitful writing on mornings like those.
I’m at that point of the semester when I feel desperate for time: “please,” I find myself begging the Universe, “just give me a few extra hours!” Who knows what I’d do with that time if the Universe were to grant it. I’d probably spend it sleeping or walking or sorting through pictures — anything but working.
It’s time, I think, to let a few apples fall.
So here I am scribbling instead of scrambling, trying to find an inner sense of balance between Work and More Work, Teaching and More Teaching. “What do you write every morning,” J asks, looking for a general synopsis rather than precise particulars, and I’m unable to answer. How do you summarize the contents of your cognitive junk drawer or explain why it’s important to your inner sense of calm to keep one? My morning pages have become a coping ritual for me, a way to see where I am in this world and in my head: a way of assessing how I’m doing…really.
I scribbled these paragraphs in my journal on Tuesday morning. This morning, I scribbled something completely different: the sound of rain, which I’m saving for a sunny day.
Sep 30, 2010 at 10:39 am
Good for you! I do feel out of balance somehow if I haven’t written and/or posted in awhile. Even when it is just “sludge.”
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Sep 30, 2010 at 10:47 am
Hooray for morning pages!
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Sep 30, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Sludge is wonderful — says she who gets so overheated about worries over her prose that she ends up turning it all to dust, which blows away int he wind of whimsy.
By the way, it’s wonderful to “hear” that sound of rain hitting all the way here, where it’s sunny.
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Sep 30, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Yes, I start getting feeling all jittery and strung-out when I don’t get at least some morning “scribble time,” even if what I’m scribbling is complete nonsense. I think it helps me to get that nonsense “out” of my head and on the page.
I’ll probably end up blogging the “sound of rain” post one of these days, Maria. We used that as a freewriting prompt in my Creative Nonfiction classes, and the students seemed to like it.
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