Why I Write: The Trials and Regressions of Writing

It was Grade 7, and I had a paper to write for English class. I don't remember the topic, but I do remember that I had done the reading and some thinking on it—I just hadn't written anything. And the hour was getting late, on the night before the paper was due. I sat down to write, and rather quickly was well into it, almost done. But by then the hour was truly late, even for a night owl like myself. I was falling asleep at my desk as I wrote, so I quickly jotted a conclusion down and went to bed. For weeks we didn't get our papers back—unusual for this teacher. Finally, she handed out typed copies of a paper to all of us. (This was long enough ago that we all wrote out our papers longhand and the typed copies were reproduced on a mimeograph machine.) She said this was an example of the sort of paper she was looking for, and pointed out a number of its good qualities. Its one not so good quality, she noted, was that it kind of tailed off at the end, with no proper conclusion. I couldn't fully recognize the handout as my essay until she said this, and then I knew!

I've recounted this story a number of times to friends and family for its humorous and mildly self-aggrandizing aspects, but as I thought about it in preparation for writing about why I write it stuck me that the incident, taking place at the start of adolescence, set a template for writing that followed. In future efforts I front-loaded my inhibitions and self-doubts, waiting till the last possible moment, and then went at it, quite enjoying myself as the words largely came of their own accord. This type of procrastination with sudden release is not the only way inhibitions show up, but it's a not uncommon variety. What followed, the sudden appearance on the page of words which seem to largely write themselves, has been mentioned by many writers both as the way in which their best writing appears,