The sad little story i brought into my creative writing class was exactly what was assigned… an exercise in creating a cheap sort of detective story in a limited amount of time. So, i brought it to class and read it, because no one else was loud or willing enough to read theirs. When i finished my professor asked me if i knew what a gumshoe was, and i held up my draft so that she could see that i had headed it “Gumshoe Exercise, Draft 1.”


There was this awful belching silent void after that, and then she asked “does anyone have a comment?” And, the girl who had just read her story opened her mouth and incredulously asked “Was that really 30 minutes of writing?” To which i honestly replied: “No, barely twenty. I didn’t make revisions.”


So, everyone in my Creative Writing class hates me as of day three with the exception of Gina, who just looked mildly bemused. We haven’t heard each other’s fiction for three or four years, and today i discovered that she’s been transformed into this pointedly ironic Douglas Adams of the twenty-something hippy chemistry-student set (while i have become a shamefully self aware Lillian Jackson Braun).


Again, the professor chimed in: “Journaling can keep your writing in good shape. Who keeps a regular journal?”


I shrunk under the glances of my classmates as i raised my hand, one of only a few.


Two years ago today (more or less) i was told by this same Ms. Prof. Kotzin that i was to keep a journal and turn it into her at the end of term. And, i groaned. A journal? How 11th grade English class…


What my professor received at the end of the term was a tiny sapling… a wet behind the ears inkling of this. And, here i am back in her classroom and as everyone fixes me with another exasperated stare i am thinking “Don’t blame me for this; she started it.”