{"id":6906,"date":"2008-02-29T15:55:47","date_gmt":"2008-02-29T15:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/29\/i-am-not-the-be\/"},"modified":"2008-02-29T15:55:47","modified_gmt":"2008-02-29T15:55:47","slug":"i-am-not-the-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/29\/i-am-not-the-be\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Not the Best Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> min<\/span><\/span>

I’m on a twenty-minute break before my final consulting appointment this Writing Center Friday No. 5. So far, five one-hour appointments and one half-hour appointment. Many of them have been in the early stages of drafting for papers due next week. Twice today I have heard the entry’s title–and not only from students I worked with directly. Much apologizing is trafficked in the Writing Center for some reason or other: I’m sorry I was late. I’m sorry my draft is partial\/messy\/unfinished\/gibberish\/hackneyed\/confusing\/stained with coffee. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my sources. I’m sorry I had a garlic bagel for lunch. I’m sorry my handwriting is illegible. And so on. Maybe this is cause enough for a gigantic vinyl banner at the front door that settles it from the outset: “All apologies accepted.”<\/p>\n

I don’t begrudge anyone that felt need to level things up and make explicit one’s own sense of the text (or situation) before sharing it with others. I am prone to it myself (Oh, here’s a crude draft. Forgive me.) It’s just a pattern that has started to stand out after five weeks of longish Fridays in the WC–a pattern I probably could have anticipated had I thought about it long enough, since it turns up in classes and other venues where writing is circulated–a graceful gesture of recovery from the mustard-stain quality of so much in-progress writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> min<\/span><\/span>I’m on a twenty-minute break before my final consulting appointment this Writing Center Friday No. 5. So far, five one-hour appointments and one half-hour appointment. Many of them have been in the early stages of drafting for papers due next week. Twice today I have heard the entry’s title–and not only from students I worked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[173],"tags":[803,178,140,783],"class_list":["post-6906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing_center","tag-apologies","tag-composition","tag-writing","tag-writing-center"],"yoast_head":"\nI Am Not the Best Writer - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/29\/i-am-not-the-be\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Am Not the Best Writer - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: < 1 minI’m on a twenty-minute break before my final consulting appointment this Writing Center Friday No. 5. 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