Just what we need for summer writing

So far this morning I've already written a chunk of prose toward an essay I've been thinking about for ages, an essay I could have started writing at any point in the past six months if the creative part of my brain hadn't been crowded out by all the concerns of pandemic teaching. With students gone and fall semester far away, I feel the way I did after finally finishing the PhD: as if a glacier has finally receded, allowing the underlying land to begin to bounce back. It may take a while to bounce back entirely, but in the meantime it feels really good to be writing again.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, because we've had a larger than normal number of faculty members attending our weekly Writing Wednesday sessions in the library. Last year Writing Wednesday was cancelled because of social distancing requirements, but this summer we're meeting again face-to-face, seven of us spread around a large classroom, working on our own projects, separate yet together. We write without distractions, phones silenced and email ignored, and afterward we share the exhilaration of making measurable progress toward our writing goals. Last week we even ate lunch together at a picnic table outside the library. We're not entirely back to normal yet, but our spirits rise as the glacier recedes.

Last week I focused on writing down a bunch of ideas about the poem I'm trying to analyze, and I so thoroughly lost track of time that the end of our session arrived as a shock. Writing these initial notes, though, revealed a sticky problem: the next steps of drafting will be largely determined by audience and purpose. Do I want to aim this essay toward an academic journal, or do I envision a more casual, non-academic audience? Do I want to focus on theoretical issues and analysis of the poem or emphasize the implications for pedagogy? I wasn't prepared to make this decision last week so I decided to park the idea and give it some time to develop.

And here's the wonderful thing: if I give the creative part of my brain time and space, it will keep working even when I'm not paying attention. The answer arrived as if unbidden: Much of my experience with the poem arises from my attempts to break through my students' resistance, so the essay will necessarily be informed by pedagogy; however, more than anything I want readers outside academe to comprehend the power of this poem, which provides valuable insight for our present moment. So I guess I'm writing a pedagogy-inflected essay for a non-academic audience, if that makes any sense. At some point I'll have to figure out where to submit such a hybrid beast, but first I need to write it.

Writing Wednesday give me time and space to do that, but the most important thing it gives is permission--to ignore texts and emails, the demands of home maintenance and the needs of family members, students, administrators, and everyone else outside this room. Writing Wednesday stands like a barrier holding back the glacier of responsibility that always threatens to overwhelm the writing life. Some small part of me knows the glacier will inevitably return, but while it's in abeyance, we sit in silence and write.