If I Start Writing Now...

I end up getting nothing done when I have a paper due.  I stress and I stress about having to write it.  Especially little papers.  I have a little paper due.  Little papers are much worse than big papers, because they need to pack a whole lot of quality into a very small word count.  So, I make tea and I look at Pinterest, and I consider starting, and then I stress some more.

I meant to get a draft done yesterday, but that didn't happen.  I picked out the author I want to write on, and I think I found the exact sentence that I want to write on, but I didn't get a draft done.  I'm too intimidated to write a draft.  I'm still figuring it all out in my head.  I'm still wrapping my mind around what I actually need to accomplish with this paper.  So no draft. I ate Indian food, and I took a shower, and I checked e-mails.  I read for another class for a bit.  I looked at shoes online.  But I didn't write the draft.  It's a new way of reading, so alien to my background in history-- we read and write so differently.  How can I learn this new way of reading?  How can I understand the mechanisms that made this writing effective, instead of reading it for how it responds to its time, how it fits into the larger context of its period, what it illumines about its society and its author?  Such a useful skill to have; such a useful skill to add to my toolbox.  Knowing this, with what I know, will make me such a keen reader.  I want to learn.  So, it's still morning, there's still plenty of time today before my Apprenticeship Teacher workshop and my Cabaret rehearsal...

Maybe I'll make a cup of tea.