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Stumpage Reports
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Sunday, December 01, 2002 :::
The Joy of Writing: or Raw, Bleeding Nerve Endings in My Mouth
An online conversation with Bookpimp last night caused me to painfully reflect on my writing habits these last eighteen months. I love to write, there are few things I would rather do. If I could find someone to actually pay me to do it, it would be like having a license to steal. In the past when I was particularly excited about something I just wrote, I might hop up, light a cigarette and pace happily back and forth.
My current living conditions do not permit indoor smoking, so my current writing habits usually take this form. The bulk of the writing I do these days are 15 - 25 page papers for class. I usually actually start writing them about 2 - 3 weeks before they are due. It can be difficult at this point, with sometimes an hour or two of effort resulting in only a couple paragraphs. But usually, 2 or 3 days before deadline, I will hit on a magical zone. This zone is probably produced by a combination of deadline pressure and hopefully a better grasp on what I'm trying to say and how to say it. This has happened twice I can recall this semester, both times writing about Civil War battles, slinging adjectives (sparingly), flipping back and forth between secondary sources and the The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, I find several hours have passed and I've produced 3 - 5 pages of prose I'm pretty damn proud of.
I noticed the following phenomona once before and attributed it to stress. But talking with Bookpimp last night, right after a productive writing binge, I realized this is price I pay for my art. Apparently I grit my teeth when the writing is going really well and as I was chatting last night my jaws and the sides of my head were screaming. I could still feel the after effects this morning. If I ever write a book or an article for a scholarly journal you guys will know it when you see me because my mouth will have no teeth and only raw nerve endings poking out of my gums. If I cut my ear off and send it to an editor, I hope my friends stage an intervention.
Quote of the Day:
"the flower of southern manhood being reduced to atoms of bleeding flesh by the hot yankee lead" --
Me, slinging some bullshit at Bookpimp last night as an example of what I was writing. I'd never put something like that in a paper, but Pimp was really impressed and said "You gotta put that in your blog!" This is the only place I could think of to work it in.
::: posted by tom at 7:58 PM
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