I enjoy the writing process. I’ve learned to relax when I have a piece in mind: I write it again and again until it’s ready to be written more fully and even then, it isn’t finished. I revise and rewrite and work my way to a finished piece that still might be added to or subtracted from later. These past five years I have learned to appreciate the practice and the process of writing, realizing that each piece shows up at its own pace.

This semester I am writing around a theme, just as I’m asking my students to do.

My theme: Just Up And Go

My first assignment, the Multigenre Narrative, will fit this theme, as will the majority of my other new pieces. This theme came from a week of sifting ideas in my notebook, and the idea is more a throwback to when I moved abroad than a comment on my current place.

I am wondering how the process might change as I seek pieces under a theme, rather than letting  a theme find me. Usually I live a theme, think it and consequently write it into piles of notebooks that yield a story or essay or two. Choosing a theme and exploring what might fit under Just Up And Go will be fun. (Why write if it isn’t fun, really?)

My writing practice remains anything goes and my revision work  must continue, but I’m kinda excited to create work centered on a single theme.