I am a writer.

I am a writer.  When asked to define myself, this is one of my first go-to labels.  But this means I am meticulous in my writing; there is rarely any half-assing involved in anything I write down.   This makes forced writing quite difficult for me.  Not being someone who has ever struggled with writing, I don’t really know what it’s like to be a “struggling writer.”  Yet I feel confident in my ignorance that it is far more frustrating to be a phenomenal writer and unable to find a muse frequently than a mediocre or entirely incompetent writer who is never able to compose eloquent prose.

I say this because I am sitting here, trying to thoughtfully reflect on an occasion that would be worthy of discussing, yet the words are not flowing off my fingertips.  I could discuss the conversation I had with a boy I work with, who is eight years old and has autism, during which he told me that the “Slow Children Playing” sign was quite mean, and that people should not call the children slow.  I could discuss how this same boy told me today, as we were discussing idiom meanings, that if someone had a frog in their throat, they might just croak (get it? Cleaver, right?).  I could even talk about how this boy has a larger vocabulary than most of my professors, yet he can’t produce the language to carry on a conversation for longer than a single turn.  But the words to produce such an essay just…aren’t coming.

No, my muse, the stubborn being that she is, only seems to want to write about the frustrations of writing.  I suppose this is appropriate enough, so I will allow it.

This struggle is something I infer many of our students face when given writing assignments.  They wait and wait for the muse to inspire, yet nothing ever comes.  Is it really fair, then, to punish them for turning in assignments that are bereft of beauty, passion, or detailed analysis?  “My muse took a vacation, Ms. Teacher.  I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault.”  This seems like suitable enough of an excuse for me; I can relate! 

But the real problem here is not that their muse took a vacation.  She’s just taking a little nap, lounging around, and our students don’t know how to wake her.  It is our job to teach them how to rattle her catches and wake the sleeping dragon, filled with flames of inspiration that burn away all doubt and leave only the most brilliant compositions.  We can do this through frequent, ungraded writing activities, such as free write—the tool to blame for this mess of an essay—or other simple strategies. 

In truth, aren’t all our students brilliant writers simply lacking the ability to use their own muse?