March 5th, 2017 – Tank’s Empty

Five days in and I’m empty.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about, but that none of it’s ready.  Whenever moments like this happen during Slice of Life, it gives me pause.  I think about the day in, day out demands we educators put on kids.  We ask them to write multiple times a day each and every day.  It’s no wonder they stall, hesitate or even break down.

I jotted some notes down in my writing notebook and I let it sit.  I let it sit and I let the ideas slowly congeal into what they want to become.  I had a friend back in college.  She was an author.  A very good one.  I once asked her what her writing process was like.  She told me that a character would pop into her head just a faint sketch of one.  Then that character would begin to live her in mind.  She would see her or him doing small mundane actions, cleaning a counter or making a sandwich.  Eventually that character’s world began to take shape and the story would emerge.

So as I look at that notebook of ideas and snippets, of ruminations and rememberances, I am excited at the stories to come.  There they sit: waiting, marinating, coagulating, some may fall to the wayside and others are about to be told.