WRITING: Self Discipline

Of which I have none.  Nada. 

In Roxana Robinson’s class on short story at the Wesleyan conference, each night we’d read a classic and be assigned one page to write on a given topic.  Professor Robinson did a terrific job on covering a particular element and driving home the concept in each session.  Except to me.  Oh, I got the concept easily enough, mainly because I’ve had it drilled in my head in the past four years of classes with Ersinghaus.  But I don’t like to listen and do as I’m told.

So, the assigned "describe an empty (of people) room informed by grief" became a dead child’s room at night where the toys came to life seeking their hostess.  Pure cheating.

Another, "describe someone eating" became a flash fiction piece on a wife’s decision to murder her husband because of the way he ate his eggs.  So I added another character and ended up describing him through her eyes.  Not exactly what I was supposed to do, since it more clearly unveiled her character instead.  However, this one is the basis for one of a trilogy I need to write in a pseudohypertext experiment.

But I swore at the end of the conference week that I would push myself to write instantly religiously on a particular element either of imagery or something else and I have not written a word.  So herein I reveal myself to you for what I am.  A born procrastinator and lazy writer.

Now, with that said, I am so ashamed of myself that I must go write a story.  Or at the very least, my version of poetry.  Or something.