‘dancing with words’
On Valentine’s Day, I spent the evening with Loui, but I spent the day with my other love—writing.
As of the day before, I had all the resources and interviews I needed for a story about the University of Kentucky’s Founders Day. Since UK’s roots are in agriculture as a land-grant institution, the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment was going to publish a feature story for the university’s 160th anniversary. I was excited to be the one writing it.
Consolidating—I kept using the word “wrangling”—160 years of history into one story that also included our present and future was an exciting challenge. I gave myself a deadline: Finish the first draft of the story by the end of the work day.
I sat at the kitchen table with everything I needed—my laptop, my Wildcats reporting notebook, a history book about the UK College of Ag, the sunshine coming through the window. I petted a cat anytime Leo or George came into my orbit. I took occasional breaks, but I spent the better part of six hours writing what eventually became a 1,500-word story.
I wrote and edited in tandem, modifying the outline and strengthening the story as I went. It was very satisfying when a sentence or a quote from an interview clicked into place.
My texts throughout the day documented my progress:
To Loui, with a screenshot of the opening paragraphs: “Do you think this works or is it nonsense?”
To Loui: “I was HATING this section, then I found a quote in the ag history book that fixed it all”
To Lexi, my friend, coworker and fellow writer: “I’m writing a story and I keep alternating between thinking it’s boring and thinking it’s a masterpiece. Honestly, I think it might be both lol”
I’m very proud of the story, and it’s taken its place among what I consider to be my greatest hits. I hope you’ll take the time to read it here.
But even more importantly, it’s the most fun I’ve had during the writing process in a long time. I love to check a task off my to-do list and I enjoy compliments to my work, so sometimes I put too much emphasis on the final product or external validation. But this was a great reminder of how much I love the act of writing itself, even if a piece were to stay an unread draft on my computer or in my journal.
I’ve been reading Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work by bell hooks, in which hooks writes about the call to and craft of writing. She writes about the magic of writing that occurs not because of obligation but that “emerges as the fulfillment of a yearning to work with words when there is no clear benefit or reward, when it is the experience of writing that matters.”
I relate when she shares that she has been driven to write since girlhood. For both of us, writing is a lifelong love.
“As a writer,” she writes, “I seek that moment of ecstasy when I am dancing with words, moving in a circle of love.”