So my mum and I had a long phone conversation today. It started out fine; Prof. S had emailed our first essays back, and I'd forwarded it to my mum. He had a lot of stuff to say, but also gave me an A/A-, and said that it was a good paper; so we discussed his comments and how I’d done well. Only, and I should have expected this, it didn’t end there. Mum then started on about how see, I can write essays and American Gods is just another essay and I should work on it and just finish the first draft and send it out.
And then everything went to shit. Because every day so far I have been opening up a blank document and taking out my books and then just staring at everything because literally no words come to mind and I just draw a complete blank. But my mum was like, look, just try a paragraph; it doesn’t have to be in order. You have an outline, pick a point, and work on that. And then she told me to open a document and she’d talk me through it. Only it didn’t work. I just blanked out again. And we spent almost half an hour with me sitting in complete silence and then mum asking if I’d written anything and I’d shrug and then remember she couldn’t see me, and so mumble that no I hadn’t written anything, I didn’t know what to write. And it just kept worse and worse until finally I told her that I was fine as long as I didn’t think about this essay and could we please drop it. And so a couple of minutes later she said bye and hung up.
And wrote me this email:
Reading his comments initially I was really scared but after reading his final paragraph, then reading them again you realise how he has done this, really seriously, and so that you can write a strong essay next time.
I don't know how to help you do this but trust me when i say American Gods is also do-able. If you can see that the outline you have is workable then you will be able to do it, without too much trouble. But as long as you are scared of it, made unhappy by it, then you won't make a move, na?
Which is why i said write a couple of lines, anything, just write. So long as it is about American Gods. break the hold it has on your mind that it is terribly wrong and just write. Even if it is nothing connected to your outline. The writing will help.
And please don't think I am 'getting on your case': might look like it but I am trying to not let you be defeated so that you can at least have some 'American-gods-free' time this spring break. And you are entitled to that so yeah, if I sound like I am on your case this is why.
You loved the book: write a book review, random ideas and then slowly it'll come back.
Only I haven’t the heart to tell her that I don’t love the book anymore. I don’t even hate it. I'm just terrified of it. I fear it. I fear a goddamn book. Because it has reduced to me this pitiful mass of self-doubt and anxiety that I never was before.
And then everything went to shit. Because every day so far I have been opening up a blank document and taking out my books and then just staring at everything because literally no words come to mind and I just draw a complete blank. But my mum was like, look, just try a paragraph; it doesn’t have to be in order. You have an outline, pick a point, and work on that. And then she told me to open a document and she’d talk me through it. Only it didn’t work. I just blanked out again. And we spent almost half an hour with me sitting in complete silence and then mum asking if I’d written anything and I’d shrug and then remember she couldn’t see me, and so mumble that no I hadn’t written anything, I didn’t know what to write. And it just kept worse and worse until finally I told her that I was fine as long as I didn’t think about this essay and could we please drop it. And so a couple of minutes later she said bye and hung up.
And wrote me this email:
Reading his comments initially I was really scared but after reading his final paragraph, then reading them again you realise how he has done this, really seriously, and so that you can write a strong essay next time.
I don't know how to help you do this but trust me when i say American Gods is also do-able. If you can see that the outline you have is workable then you will be able to do it, without too much trouble. But as long as you are scared of it, made unhappy by it, then you won't make a move, na?
Which is why i said write a couple of lines, anything, just write. So long as it is about American Gods. break the hold it has on your mind that it is terribly wrong and just write. Even if it is nothing connected to your outline. The writing will help.
And please don't think I am 'getting on your case': might look like it but I am trying to not let you be defeated so that you can at least have some 'American-gods-free' time this spring break. And you are entitled to that so yeah, if I sound like I am on your case this is why.
You loved the book: write a book review, random ideas and then slowly it'll come back.
Only I haven’t the heart to tell her that I don’t love the book anymore. I don’t even hate it. I'm just terrified of it. I fear it. I fear a goddamn book. Because it has reduced to me this pitiful mass of self-doubt and anxiety that I never was before.
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