Lately I’ve been internally complaining about “having to write.” It’s kind of weird, because I don’t actually have to write here. I’m not paid; I’m not forced. If I didn’t write one day, it wouldn’t be missed much. I haven’t posted a few of the less interesting blogs to Facebook or other social media recently because they have been pretty lame. So what’s the point?

One teacher or writer sometime in my life told me 95% of what you will write is crap. The point is to write it so that the 5% that is “good” – the diamonds in the crap – comes out and you can use it. I internally rolled my eyes at that at the time, I mean, why would I write a bunch of crap that I know is crap? Ugh. 95-to-5 seems like a terrible ratio.

I’ve repeated the adage, though, for my students who decide that what they are writing is crap and it’s not worth trying. It’s okay. Keep writing, it’ll work. Sometimes you have to get the crap out of the way, like the crusty stuff in a soap tube that you have to push out of the way to get the useful stuff. It worked for a lot of kids. Cool.

I think taking on this year challenge has helped me really understand what that teacher was saying. A lot of this is pretty dull. I am tired and I just write because “I have to.” It’s almost embarrassing to put some of them into the world. But sometimes I write things that even surprise me. I learn, I reflect, I wonder. Like tonight: I worked on grading and school prep for 4-5 hours tonight and I definitely didn’t feel like writing. But I did, and I’m thinking about things just a little differently because I did.

I’m up too late, I’m hungry, and i have another long day tomorrow. I still write tonight. That’s a small victory.