Writing: A Labour of Love

My students are in the middle of writing research papers. They are all making great progress as they try to produce a major piece of writing. I have been reminded throughout their writing struggles and development of my own writing progression.

Someone once said about writing: “You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.” My first serious start at writing was in my first tumultuous year at University, and it was definitely not a great start.

The class was on the Middle Ages in Europe. The professor was about to retire (I think he lived through the Middle Ages in fact) and was going through the motions until he would escape down to Florida. If I had to choose a word to describe the lectures, it would be ‘wearisome’. I love History, but this professor was extinguishing that love the same way a spot of flatulence would derail a first date.

When I signed up for the course, I expected exciting lectures on the bubonic plague, battles, knights, the inquisition and great architecture. Instead we learned about other things – things that were boring, things that would not stick in my mind, and things that caused me to be attacked by sleepiness during every lecture.

A large part of the course mark was based on the end of term paper. This was a large research paper on a book that the professor had chosen. I’m sure that you can guess what kind of a book this professor chose. It was not the type of book that kept you up till three in the morning because you just could not put it down. It was the opposite. Just looking at the front cover drove me into hibernation. If I ever become an insomniac, this book will be put on my night table.

The book was about a fine fellow named Bishop Rimbert and about how he wrote an even more exciting book on Anscar. What? Never hear of him? What a surprise! I tried reading the book, but it was tough. It was like walking through deep, thick mud where the earth is trying to suck you down, step by step. Panic began to swell as the realization dawned on me that I would have to write something about this book – preferably something intelligent.

I started writing. Every word was a struggle. I felt like I was chipping each word off of a giant rock with a dull pickax. How was I supposed to write 2000 words on Bishop Rimbert? As the hours passed, the word count slowly rose – it was like a never ending PBS telethon (We need just 20 more callers!) For those who have done a lot of writing, you know that writing can be an extreme struggle at times – especially when you are dealing with subject matter which makes counting fluffies in the carpet more exciting.

Writing in many ways is like child birth (members of the opposite sex don’t seem to appreciate or understand this analogy for some odd reason – especially considering they are the ones that go through it!). The writer labours to get the paper from his brain to the computer screen. It is an intense struggle – there are tears and extreme pain (albeit mental). Then – the moment of joy – the paper is delivered out of the printer! The proud student carefully and proudly picks up the paper and cradles her in his arms.

The paper was finally done (delivered). There was just one final thing that had to be done. I needed a title for the cover page. This often overlooked element of the paper is critical. The title gives the reader the first impression of what the paper will be like. Because my paper needed a little help, I knew this paper would need a real zinger for a title. I needed something that was equal parts salacious, tantalising, mysterious, insightful, profound, and original.

I came up with the stunning title “Bishop Rimbert”.

I handed my baby, I mean the paper, to the professor at the beginning of class the next week. He glanced at it and put it on the growing pile of papers. He didn’t seem exactly bowled over by my title.

Three weeks later, the professor announced that he and his teaching assistants (his personal minions) had marked all of the papers and that after class they would be handed out. I had trouble paying attention to the lecture because of the anticipation of getting my first paper back (and because counting the few remaining hairs on his head proved to be more exciting).

The lecture finally ended – much in the same way a tortoise finishes a race. He announced that the teaching assistants would be handing out the essays. He gave out the instructions: “People with the last names that start with A-H stand at the back entrance to receive your papers. Those with the last names I-R stand by the podium and S-Z to middle aisle.”

I went to the middle aisle and waited for the TA to start calling out names. The tall TA, who bore a striking resemblance to Ichabod Crane, began reading the names as eager hands reached for their papers. My hand began to twitch with excitement in anticipation of seeing my first paper graded. They would start piling on the scholarships after reading this paper. The names began “Esther Sallsworth, Jonathan Seer, Veerpal Singh.” Then something strange happened. He called out “Bishop Rimbert.”

Silence.

He repeated himself louder.

“Bishop Rimbert!”

Awkward Silence.

The beleaguered TA cleared his throat in frustration – obviously annoyed at these first year students.

“I guess Bishop Rimbert is not here!” We, the pesky first year students who surrounded him, looked at each other with confusion. We were all thinking the same thing: “Was this guy serious?” We had all written a paper on Bishop Rimbert, and he had probably just spent the last three weekends marking them.

It was when he was putting Bishop Rimbert’s paper to the side when a thought came to me. Wasn’t ‘Bishop Rimbert’ my brilliant title? Maybe he had read that off instead of my name which was located in the corner.

I cleared my throat. I was very timid in those days, but I managed to get his attention.

“Is there a name in the bottom corner of that paper?” I said meekly.

The TA looked at the paper. A strange look came over his face. We all watched in silence as his face went from light pink to a dark crimson. It was like watching a Tahitian sunset.

We then heard him start to mutter to himself. “Stupid! So stupid! Of course his name is not Bishop Rimbert! Stupid!”

“Greg Slingerland” he finally sputtered. I stepped forward uneasily – my face was almost as purple as his. I was embarrassed for him, and embarrassed at how bad my title was. I knew then, that there was little hope for my paper.

I snatched the paper from his hands and bolted for the door. As I walked through the door, I could still hear him muttering “Stupid!”

The paper was a disaster, but it was a good learning experience. I learned that I should do exactly the opposite with everything for my next paper.

I still have my ‘Bishop Rimbert’ paper. In fact I’ve kept all of my University papers (aka babies). Every time I am in need of a good laugh/cry I turn back to my first year papers. My first essays were not great, but looking back, they were great starts and great tries. I am enjoying (and a little envious) seeing my students take that first leap into the wild world of writing.

The Mouldy Book

I return once again to my early days at Brock University and to my quest at becoming a cultured intellectual.

The greatest extortion in this land happens every September across university campuses when students are forced to buy textbooks at exorbitant prices. A book that should cost no more than ten bucks can easily go for a couple hundred dollars at the bookstore. When my cousin Jen told me that she had some university textbooks that I could borrow I jumped at the idea. Perfect! I can save big bucks!

She dropped off a box of books the week before school started. “A couple of them might have a little water damage. Okay, bye!” she said. Her car screeched out of the driveway.

Most of the books were in pretty good shape and were the right editions. The book at the very bottom however was a different story.

After I scratched some of the mould off the cover, I discovered that the book was a History of the 20th Century. It smelled bad – real bad. I’m not sure what the book was supposed to look like, but it was now green and furry. I didn’t know they had chia pet textbooks. The pages were sticky and had to be peeled and pried apart.

I tried flipping it open. It didn’t flip open. After working at it a little, I did manage to crack it open. This sent a new wave of rank odour into my face. Everything went black...

When I came to, I was laying on the living room floor. Mom’s flowers had mysteriously wilted and died. The fish in the aquarium were floating.

Later that afternoon, I went online and checked the price of the book and saw that it was around two hundred dollars, and that it was three editions newer. I looked at the book on the screen and then back to the borrowed textbook. Two hundred dollars is a lot, I thought to myself. Maybe I’ll just use this text for a while and see how it goes.

It was my first seminar. I was very nervous too – for one hour, me, ten other students and the professor would sit around a table and discuss what we had read in our textbooks. The professor would mark us based on how intelligent and insightful our comments were.

The professor had given us the reading ahead of time. We were to read the first chapter. As I was to realize much too late, my chapter one was different than the new book’s chapter one.

When we got to the seminar room, everybody pulled out their nice glossy textbooks. My mouth watered at the ‘new book’ smell of their books (you have to be cultured to understand this). Rich snobs, I thought.

I reached into my book bag and pulled out my ‘book’. The students and professor began sniffing and looking around for the source of the smell. “It smells like there is a dead rat in the wall or something!” one girl said. At least my book was a good ice-breaker.

I coughed to cover the sound of me cracking my book open (and due to the fact that I was choking because of the horrid smell).

The student sitting beside me on my right looked at my book and me distastefully. She pulled on her hood and pulled the drawstrings until only her eyes were visible.

The student on my left side was an interesting character. He obviously wasn’t trying to go for the cultured intellectual look judging by all of the metal embedded in his face. He had python tattoos running down his arms to his fingers. He caught a whiff of the book and looked my way. He was a tough looking kind of guy and I didn’t want to get on his bad side. He probably had a python in his backpack. “Cool book dude” he said with an approving nod.

It turned out that the chapter 1 I read was quite different than the chapter 1 the rest of the class read. They all read about the death of Queen Victoria and the dawning of a new age (I was starting to suspect that Queen Victoria was still alive at the time my book had been printed). I had read about the Boer War. It was then that I started to panic – I had nothing to contribute! I had no gem or nugget of knowledge to share with the group! How was I supposed to become a cultural intellectual if I couldn’t even comment on Queen Victoria! I started breathing rapidly, but quickly stopped due to the noxious fumes coming from you know what.

The seminar was nearing an end and I was racking my brain for something to say. My thoughts were broken by the professor. “Greg, you’ve been quiet all seminar. What do you think about the Belle Epoque?”

I froze for a moment like a deer caught in the high beams of a semi. I had two options: I could run out of the room and never come back, or say something about what I had read in my mould encrusted textbook.

“Well,” I said (a very intellectual way to start any profound comment) “I think the real story here is the Boer War.”

Silence.

The girl to my right peeked through her hoodie and gave me a confused look.

“Very interesting” the professor said after a long pause. “I’ve never thought about how the Boer War nullified the optimism and naivety of the Belle Epoque. Very insightful.”

“I concur” I said, even though I had no idea what he just said or what concur meant.

After class, the Goth to my left looked over with admiration. “Cool comment dude – was that in your retro book? Where can I get a copy?” Well, I thought, put that shiny book of yours in a box and store it in a very damp basement for a couple of years. “It’s one of those rare books” I replied. “One of a kind in fact.”

My first day at Brock... (cue suspenseful music)

The year was 2001. High School was a thing of the past, and I was now a mature, intellectual, sophisticated university student (or so I hoped). School hadn’t officially started yet, but I had an orientation seminar to attend. It was to be a busy day. I had a dentist appointment in the morning to fill some cavities caused by gorging myself on vast amount of candies over the summer holidays. As I recall, I had told the dentist to fill them all. There were four cavities in all – one in each corner of my mouth. Because my pain tolerance is not much higher than that of a Monarch Butterfly, I emphasized to my dentist to freeze my mouth well. He did. The novocaine needles were going everywhere – top, bottom, sides, tongues, throats, nose etc. The dentist could of have set off a Roman candle in my mouth and I would of have been blissfully unaware. After the dentist had re-surfaced my molars and told me some nonsense about going easy on the fruitellas’, I headed off to Brock.

I rolled onto the campus with my burgundy 1989 International Edition Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. I found a parking spot, and made the trek over to the Mckenzie Chown blocks for my seminar. Even though my nose was still frozen from all of the novocaine, I could still smell pizza as I headed towards the seminar room. I had skipped breakfast which caused my stomach to groan like a love sick moose during mating season. My mouth started watering too – I quickly put my hand to my mouth to stop any unsightly drooling. First impressions are important after all.

I entered the room, put on my nametag and sat down. One of the leaders said “Hi! Would you like a slice of pizza and some coke?” My stomach was growling so loud that the students in the room began to wonder if a pack of feral dogs were roaming the halls. I felt my face – totally frozen. “I wuff slofff slom” I replied (for those of you who don’t speak Novocainian it could be roughly translated as I would love some). She looked confused. “I’ll slet it myslelf” I said (I’ll get it myself). She looked confused and concerned.

I picked out a nice big slice of cheesy pizza, and grabbed a cold coke out of a cooler. A little voice inside me was whispering “ARE YOU CRAZY?!” I stopped and walked back to the table with the pizza. Should I put it back? My stomach, which was now sounding like Chewbacca, was desperate for the pizza. Instead of putting the pizza back (which would of have ended this sad little story right here) I grabbed a stack of napkins.

I sat down and began to nonchalantly eat my slice of pizza. I brought the pizza to my mouth and took a healthy bite. I tried to pull the pizza away, but my incisors hadn’t taken a bite cleanly off yet. I bit down harder and began to slide my teeth around. I politely put the slice down while I chewed away. I took a napkin and delicately dabbed my mouth. The napkin came back full of pizza sauce. I quickly brought the napkin back up and wiped again. The napkin was still full of pizza sauce. I took a fresh napkin and tried again, only to realize that there must be pizza sauce all over my face. It was at that point that I started to get funny looks from my fellow students. I desperately started wiping my face with more napkins, but could never get my face clean. It then dawned on me – it wasn’t pizza sauce – it was blood and lots of it. I wasn’t sure if I had bitten my lip or tongue – they were still completely frozen. I cracked open the can of pop somehow hoping that the pop would wash away the blood. That too proved to be a mistake. I’m not sure if any coke actually made it in my mouth, but about half the can flowed down my chin and onto my shirt like the Zambezi River. My pile of napkins was dwindling quickly as I was trying to clean up two spills. I was more helpless than BP execs during the Gulf oil spill.

Finally the seminar was over. My stomach, though by no means satisfied by one bite of pizza (and half a lower lip as I was to soon learn), was settling down and now sounded like a lonesome loon on a mist filled lake on an early morn. I collected my mountain of bloody napkins and my half chewed pizza and headed for the garbage. I fled the room and ran for my car. When I got in my car, I pointed the rear-view mirror towards my face and let out a startled cry. My shirt, neck, and lower half of my face was covered with a mixture of dried blood, pizza sauce and coke. My lower lip had been severely punctured and had inflated drastically. I could of have written ‘Goodyear’ on it. It was visibly throbbing.

It was then that I realized that I had a long journey ahead of me if ever I was to become that suave, sophisticated, and serious student I had aspired to become.