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?