Foreplay is Painful?

I feel like Boice is, at times, highlighting all the reasons I will hold off writing. And, I was irritated with myself when reading some of those points, particularly the procrastination and perfectionism points. For instance, there are times when I allow myself to feel so irritated or upset that my writing is not working the way I envisioned it, that I’ll all but destroy the work. Meaning, I’ll chuck a project for months, thinking I’ll never revisit it. However, recently I pulled out an old essay and started the re-working process. It was painful, to say the least. But by playing with it, by not allowing myself to give up on the piece simply because it didn’t take on the feel that I wanted right away, I was eventually able to produce something that not only worked with my larger creative project as a whole, but also as a kind of stand alone piece. After reading Boice, I’m wondering if this practice of writing before I’m actually ready is something I’ve been doing all along, only I’ve lacked the kind of patient follow through that Boice recommends.

After reading Boice I’m motivated to go back and approach previously written pieces as a result of some kind of pre-writing. The trick is not to allow my desire for perfectionism to cause me to wait so long to re-visit my writing. I think what will help me, and hopefully allow me to help my students, is to become more self aware of all the possible steps, the foreplay to writing. I suppose the idea here is to understand that writing when it feels good is great, but sometimes to get the writing to take on that pleasant feel, it just may require a bit more tender care.