This year I have significant overlap between students in the residence hall and students in class. One such young man came up to me while I was on in the residence hall office to ask about a homework assignment I had given his class: we had already created outlines for the essay, and the rough draft of the essay was due the following day.
Regi: How do I do this? How do I change from outline to rough draft?
Me: That's one of the hard parts of writing.
Regi: Do I just write it?
Me: Yeah, you just write it. You have to sit down with your computer and your brain, and just begin.
Regi: So, I write sentences from the words in the outline.
Me: Yes.
Regi: So, okay, I just write it.
This conversation seems silly to some. But I think I understand the difficulty he was going through: how do I make my thoughts comfortable on paper? How do I breathe life into letters on a keyboard? It looks so impossible, so big. And my only answer as of yet is to respond with sympathy, and tell the people who ask, "Yes, it is as hard as it sounds. That is the work of writing."
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