Friday, September 29, 2006

Working out just like I planned

I knew I would still be able to write when I started teaching. A three/three course load is generous in its own way. Right after I had Zoe, I taught two classes and edited Quarterly West and went on the job market and still wrote. How would this be different?
It's not. I wrote 2660 words today.
That's a lot for me.
Just because they were all comments for student papers doesn't mean they weren't writing accomplishments.
Anyone know of a journal that would like to publish the musings of an Assistant Prof on her students' poetry?

8 comments:

Lisa B. said...

Perhaps we should start a new journal called Comment, in which we publish the scintillating and very helpful remarks we make on student work. I obsessively save my comments, which I make electroniccaly, so I've got, say, an entire fat issue's worth. Perhaps we could have special issues devoted to one teacher's work. I feel there are a lot of possibilities here.

Nik said...

Yes! This is a brilliant plan. Like most comments, and most literary magazines, our journal would go unread but at least we could add lines upon lines to our CV. What is up with us & our compulsory comment-saving? A bit of the OCD or a bit of joy we'll take when a student complains we don't comment enough on their work, we can toss the whole tome of comments at them?

Dr. Write said...

I wrote 5,000+ words this week on student stories. Then they were commiserating that I "took it to them". Sigh. So yes, we need our own literry journal! someone should appreciate our insights!

Anonymous said...

I think you should write an experimental piece with them and then submit it to Tin House.

And I am soooooo not kidding.

Nik said...

Oh Heather, that's brilliant. Yes I will take that idea and run with it. Though my talents for the ironically absurd are less that suited to the Tin House's taste. Still...why not try my hand a detached detestment? Invested concern is soooo exhausting.
Today's count on student work (Review ala the New Yorker)? 3006.

Anonymous said...

That is exactly the spirit, nik!

Except, I hate the New Yorker. I mean, the non-fic is good, but the fiction? BAH! I always look at all my stacks and stacks of them and think "I so could have bought two pairs of Target shoes for you."

I say, aim at my personal fav, The Paris Review!

Nik said...

No doubt about the fiction in the NY. Never read it. I try to pretend to read the poems but mostly I just covet the font.

zoe p. said...

Did you say you hate The New Yorker? Well, you are so not alone. I can't read the fiction either, or the poetry and I have strong feelings about the non-fiction . . . But I admit it beats undergrad papers for light reading.