I've been busy helping others find their words

I haven't blogged much in the last few weeks. Today someone inquired about my absence from the blogosphere, causing me to consider the following:

1. People actually read my awful writing from time to time. Poor bastards.
2. If the best you poor bastards can do with your down time is read this nonsense, then I suppose I'd better deliver. ;)

An update:

Since October I have spent most of my waking hours at the high school where I work as a student teacher, coaching students with their writing. I have immersed myself in teaching, creating a workshop environment in my classroom and conducting feedback sessions with dozens of students before school, during my lunch break, during my planning period, and after school. At home I have pored over student papers, scrawling comments in the margins as I munch on pizza or Chinese food - who has time to cook?

I finish student teaching tomorrow, and tonight I find myself reflecting on how helping my students find their words has taught me innumerable lessons about language.

A few of those lessons:

1. Anyone can write. One only needs fair access to words.
2. The only cure for writer's block is writing.
3. We make much of words, of their power to create and destroy. But punctuation and white space are also potent forces which writers must learn to manipulate with care.
4. Writers must take their own advice. I frequently notice that my own writing improves when I consciously employ the strategies I teach my students. For me, good writing is not innate. Sometimes I write well and often I write poorly. On those days when the words cannot find me, I work more deliberately to find the words. I'm often surprised that my best writing does not occur naturally but purposefully. Mind you, this is not one of those days, and I am in no mood to heed my own instruction. :)

While I've enjoyed (nearly) every minute of student teaching, I look forward to moving on next week. For the next few months, I'll be interviewing for jobs, catching up on sleep, and of course, blogging for poor bastards with nothing better to do than read my crap.