When I Think About Writing, I. . .

WHEN I THINK OF WRITING I...
A position paper of sorts in which the author responds to the above mentioned prompt with sixteen varied responses; may God grant that this be the end of it...
by Vic Kryston


When I think of writing, I...

--look up, startled by the hubris that seduces me into believing my thoughts are worth recording word by beginning word.

--give a smug, snorting, secretive guffaw because I know how many times I've successfully used my writing flourishes to cover, camouflage, disguise, conceal, cover up and misdirect attention away from some real primal ignorance.

--stroke unconsciously the smooth spot on the inside of my third finger where I support my pen or #2 pencil, and where a callus has grown bowling ally slick because that's what happens when you write with your students from first to sixth periods.

--see the students who hate to write suddenly claim ownership and lean into the writing, pulling ideas like wax from their ears to smear across the page.

--blink away tears remembering how awful I felt when I wrote a teasing, silly column about my fraternity and hurt somebody, I mean really hurt him, and I couldn't write again for a long time afterward; not, in fact, until I forgave him.

--look anxiously at my watch at the calendar and pace through all of the days until deadline day, up until which, no matter what else I do, some part of myself mulls and grinds and rehearses and maps and worries and forms and formats THE ARTICLE.

--shiver, uncomfortable because when the writing is flowing I just sit back, inside, and passively watch while words carve out my thoughts; only since I'm just watching I wonder: who is doing the writing?

--smile like a bumble bee approaching a summer filled with rotten apples.

--smile again thinking about how a room full of disparate persons writing soon settles down into a gently rustling community.

--cringe with a panic that tightens around my neck like the third string on an anal retentive violin.

--jump away from the paper, drop my pen and walk in a feigned frenzy hoping the telephone will ring and my wife will need me to come rescue her because she locked herself out of the car and I have the spare key and how that will make me feel manly as I run away from the blank page.

--feel my pulse quicken because I remember casting out lines of verbal yearnings into a vast sea of pulsing hormones.

--giggle nervously and wonder if this is the time when the only words in the universe are, "I can't think of anything to write, anything write, anything..."

--remember my sister coming home from vacation telling me what wonderful letters I write, and a far away nun who read my fly fishing story to the class as a good example, and my biology teacher softening my D+ average by telling me my description of a double variable experiment was better than the text book's, and the English prof who academically, begrudgingly said, "You have a flare for creative phrasing which pops up occasionally."

--relax, finally, because I know that when the piece is ready I will read it again and again, caught by the reflection of myself inside of my words.

--think about the times I've felt sorry for myself because I write well enough to know I'll never write well enough, and had to make myself feel better by writing something I could feel good about, and maybe even put it into print.