Oh, the wall had it coming.

Grading the same assignment 70 times over is tedious, tedious, tedious. It isn't their fault that everything sounds the same after the first essay, but all I feel is like channeling Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock and taking it out on my wall:

Curse my short attention span.

I should make this about writing, but… well, all I've got is that months and months of self-training to critique everything written is the exact opposite training that is useful for having to get through dashed-off undergrad essays as a grader. So, critique partners: I love you. Thanks for being alright. And not ever making me bored.

Gandalf!... a Space Gandalf.

I don't want to linger, but I was just thinking:  I love Doctor Who.  I love stories.  And re-watching Series 5, I have decided that writers are aspiring Doctors, and readers are their faithful companions.

The proof is in this "Meanwhile in the TARDIS" extra from the DVDs:

1) "I'm nine hundred and seven.  After awhile, you just can't SEE it.  I look at a star and it's just a big ball of gas, and I know how it began and I know how it ends, and I was probably there both times.  You know, after awhile, everything is just STUFF."  

I'm a writer.  After so long with one story, I just can't SEE it anymore.  Maybe my story is phenomenal (it's not, not yet), maybe my characters will blow you out of the water (well, that might be true, but I am biased), but I know how they began, and I know how they end, and I WAS there both times.  Sometimes I find myself changing passages or dialogue or (god forbid) entire plot lines, and I can't tell if it's because I need to to make the story better, or if I am just bored, because all I see is STUFF.

2) "That's the problem. You make all of time and space your backyard, and what do you end up with: a BACK YARD.  But you can see it, and when you see it, I see it."

Dear Doctor, do I love my beta readers (and future, unknowing, public readers), because when I forget what my story is, or why I thought it was worth telling in the first place, or when I had strokes of genius with dialogue, they SEE it.  And they remind me.  And then they also tell me the dozen places that are weak and need fixing, but that's beside the point.  Because, with all of time and space and imagination as my creative backyard, I can't always see it. 

And they do.

3) "And that's the only reason you took me with you?"

As the Doctor says, "There are worse reasons."

So that's me.  A writer.  A Space Gandalf.