Alright

In high school we learned about the writing process: draft, draft, draft, draft, revise, final. Introduction, three paragraphs in the body, summary conclusion. Then I got to college and learned to throw out that structure.

Apparently that included the writing process as well. Let me introduce you to the actual writing process of a college paper....This was last night, when I was working on the worst paper of my college career.

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This is by far the worst case of writer's block I have EVER had. (How fitting since it's the worst paper I've ever written.) I'm a writer, for crying out loud - THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS DIFFICULT!! But it's awful. For the last six hours I've been putzing along, a line at a time, and am about halfway down the third page, with a page and a half to go. I took about a forty-minute Monty Python break, so now I'm gonna hunker down and write this sucker. I will finish it. TONIGHT!!

So it's Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee." And it's a biographical analysis, so he's written this in response to something in his life, something tragic. According to Mr. Ingram's biography of Poe, it sounds like it's about his wife. She died about two years before the poem was written, but the gap in time is explainable, he may have been grieving and really unable to process his emotions. But it was written about five months before his own death. And the last stanza is about him laying down next to her grave...Foreshadowing his own death? Like he knew he was about to die, and he was simply biding his time until he would be with her...that seems like a stretch, but it works.

GET OFF FACEBOOK.

Alright, refocused. With "Watch What Happens" from "Newsies" rolling through my head, as it is writers block set to music. Wow, I just realized how sick I am of being sick - I've had a cold for the last five days. And this pseudo-smoker's cough if getting really old.

Oh...that reading for worldview development is really long...

Right. Poe. FOCUS.

It was published in his obituary, maybe as an explanation of his death. Like a suicide note, except not, because he died of illness, not suicide.

Am I really supposed to fill up five pages? I'm on page three and Ive said everything I needed to say! What else am I supposed to put?

GET OFF FACEBOOK!!

Had to listen to "Watch What Happens." Hush, it's motivation.

Aaaaand you're back on Facebook. Crap. Alright. Back to work.

Two more sentences typed. Considering how the rest of this paper has gone, we'll call this a "roll." And I have a title. We're movin' now, boys.

He seems to be laughing at some greater power through the piece. (I actually put that line in there.) Just as their love defies the separation of death, they defy cultural bonds, since they are children but love with a love greater than adults. They also defy the heavenly beings who separate them - "neither the angels in heaven above, nor the demons," yada yada. It's like he's assuring himself that their love is different, it's special; and regardless of those who tell him to move on, or the God who took her from him, they will be together.

Oh my Lord, why is it so much easier to journal about this??

ALMOST HALFWAY THROUGH PAGE FOUR!!!!!

Dang...I just got hungry.

The question now is, could I, in all actuality, finish this tomorrow? I mean, all I have to do is a couple classes, and this is the only thing due-

THAT IS A HORRIBLE IDEA!!!!

Not really, because I have a free hour-and-a-half before class on Thursday in which to edit it...And I have other homework to do now.

Let the procrastination commence.

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P.S. The paper is finished. I have to revise it, but the first draft at least is finished.