Inertia

A stack of American Literature essays, a glass of water, a red pen.

Yet, complete inertia.

Procrastination. It's not something I indulge in often...and this first finals week, the end of my very first semester of teaching, I plunged into paper grading head-first, grading dozens and dozens of papers the first few days.

Only to find myself here, incapable of keeping myself from automatically shifting from reading to skimming when I pick up an essay. 

Really, I'm not behind; I can easily get these done before the deadline (Thursday). And I've finished the hardest part (Comp 1) and moved into the semi-fun part (Am Lit).

Something about reading reading reading makes me want to write. Even if its freshmen year student essays. I wrote a poem and a short story this week, while the pile of papers grew deeper.

A short story! The first I've written since my fiction class in college, four years ago. The closest I've come to that in those four years has been a prose poem or a bit of what I thought was prose that turned to poem.

I'm so excited about it; I read it again and again. I change out this word for that word. I correct comma splices (oh comma splices! fused sentences! at the end of my very first semester, and already comma errors glare up at me in everything--professional writing, love notes, instructions, articles, facebook statuses. comma errors abound!)

It's my pet of the moment, beloved for its difference; its lack of line and stanza! I'd forgotten how fun it is to play outside of "your" genre.

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