When I Write Best

I seem to do my best writing when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Ask me to sit down and write something worth reading in half an hour, and I will freeze, sit there and think for twenty minutes, then frantically scrawl down some halfhearted bull and hand it in. But tell me to do math homework or a science project, and suddenly story after story or poem after poem will spring into my head, uninvited but certainly welcome. I only wish a poem about loneliness was an acceptable answer for an exponential equation, or a tale of brave soldiers battling evil in an alternate universe appropriate instead of a poster about the periodic table.

I wish I could say, “I know I didn’t do your assignment, but look, I was doing this, and isn’t that so much better and more worthwhile than something I didn’t really want to do in the first place? This is something that I’m passionate about, and I think that shows, and we should spend time doing what we love.”

I think that if writers have to struggle through math problems and science projects (don’t get me wrong, I do love math and science) then they should have to struggle to write a poem or a story. It would only be fair.