I spent Saturday May 11th at my first meeting with the new and returning fellows of the Hudson Valley Writing Project (HVWP) for the start of the 2013 Summer Institute. While I was familiar with the National Writing Project (NWP) and the protocols of the Teacher Inquiry Workshop (TIW) (and I knew what I was getting in to), I was still apprehensive about being a fellow and writing and sharing with people I did not know. As I parked my car I thought, “Do I really want to do this?” By the end of the morning the answer was a resounding, “Yes!”

Bonnie Kaplan, Co-Director of the HVWP, got us started by asking us to write about what characterizes our writing, and then to share it with someone sitting nearby. I turned to Sarah and we shared, commented, and chuckled at what we had written. But Sarah was very encouraging and her feedback inspired me to include my first reflection of the day here:

My writing is characterized by procrastination. All of the phony rituals that I turn to are actually just distractions. They are not even fun distractions; often they are chores that need to get done around the house, and they suddenly take on great importance when I am faced with the idea of writing. As though writing is a greater chore than doing laundry, washing the kitchen floor, cleaning the toilets, or organizing my shoes. Really? Why is my writing characterized by procrastination? Why not just do it? I am haunted by many failed blog attempts and undone essays. Once, when I was in the middle of writing my dissertation, I turned to baking as a distraction, cinnamon brownies, cherry chocolate chip cookies, and orange-almond biscotti. Then while eating my efforts I created a space on Blogger called Food for My Dissertation, which, of course, I never wrote. Not even one post. I think I was too busy cooking and tasting to write. I like the idea of writing: organizing, observing, thinking. But when it comes to getting the words “on the page,” or maybe it is sitting down to get the words on the page, well, it doesn’t happen.

Then there are the digital distractions. Every new, fun tool that lets me use visual media, like photographs, video, and audio to create what I organized, observed and thought in an abstract, representational, multi-media format. It doesn’t have to be words; I can let the images and audio speak for me. But is it sufficient?

So two weeks later I am sitting here re-reading my morning writing and I laugh. I had planned to post this to the blog as soon as I got home from the first meeting on May 11th, but there were some many chores to finish…