First and foremost, welcome to the DePaul Writing Center, aka the UCWbL.
If you’re reading this and we haven’t met, my name is Paul D. and I’ll be wrapping up my third— and final— year of tutoring in June 2022. I started working at the Writing Center because 1) I love writing and 2) I see myself teaching at some point in my life. I’m not sure when that time will eventually roll around, but when it does, I can guarantee we will be reading Beowulf. It’s the best epic; hands down. Reach out to me with comments and rebuttals.
This blog post contains some words of advice, which I hope you’ll find helpful, but also—know that I’m really only writing this for one person: the original, first-year, fresh-on-the-UCWbL-scene, Paul D.
If only he could read this by some miraculous, time-portal, wormhole thing… but alas, here we remain in our three-dimensional plane of existence.
That got cosmic. Back to the blog.
While this post revolves around my time at the Writing Center, it is also a reflection on ending college. My experience at DePaul has been a strange one: it’s been full of joy (thanks to all the lovely people I’ve met) and disappointment (no thanks to the pandemic); but in the midst of it all, there has been a through line of constant growth.
It’s been a turbulent, thrilling ride to be a part of. Here are some of my takeaways:
I. Don’t Forget to Write
I fell into a creative funk this year. I was working with writers on their pieces, helping others craft their stories, and just forgot to chisel out time to work on my own stuff. I struggled to write anything at all, really. Most of my creative energy was going towards the shows I was cast in this year, a conservatory class load, and— you know— the whole surviving a pandemic thing.
My biggest regret these past few years is not continuing my own writing journey. I’m excited to have more time to write soon when I graduate, but I can’t help thinking about the work that would have emerged if I’d stuck to writing as a habit.
I’ve noticed that I tend to only write when I am passing through a hard, emotionally intense time. While this makes for a cathartic experience, I am equally interested in the space in-between these moments: the slow, drawn-out, ritualistic moments of just being. They are forgettable in the grand scheme of things, but they provide context to the greatest and harshest times in college for me.
With this in mind, though, I don’t want to discredit the tonal shift I took on in the face of burnout and overwhelm. Instead of creating, I started documenting. My poetry became sightseeing. Instead of creating for the sake of creating, I was noting my life through a page.
Going forward, I’ll definitely keep documenting. But also, I won’t be forgetting to write. Hopefully, that will manifest into a form of journaling or composing every day. It’s too precious and easy of a thing to let go on the backburner.
II. You’re Qualified to Be Here
When I started tutoring, I remember a graduate student made an appointment with me in my first quarter. It was maybe my 2nd or 3rd appointment, and this writer brought the thesis they were defending in a few weeks. When they were talking through their work, I couldn’t fight the feeling of being an impostor.
“I have to be honest,” I started to tell them, “I feel unqualified to be giving feedback on this important of a paper… especially since I’m not familiar with the topic and your focus on it.”
They just looked me, with a bit of an amused expression, and said: “I know. I’m the one getting the degree. I just need a second set of eyes.”
And, just like that, I felt like a tutor again.
I’m very grateful for that appointment. It suggested an approach that I’ve only come to really adopt these last few quarters: I don’t need to push.
If I don’t know something, we can figure it out together. If I don’t know where to take an appointment, maybe it’s worth slowing down for a second and giving up the need to “take” anyone anywhere.
This may sound meta and cliché, but I really do believe it’s been a key to successful appointments these last few quarters. It all comes down to the approach of nurturing better writers, not better writing.
III. There’s Plenty of Time
In the classic, proverbial words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast.”
He’s right. As graduation approaches at a frightening pace, I feel this worry that I didn’t do enough here and fell short there. There is also this hollowing feeling that I rushed through too much of college.
To this day, one of the most memorable moments of rapport-building happened with a repeat writer named Paula, who grew up and lived in Kenya for the majority of her life. As we were concluding one of our last appointments together, she told me that the word “Paul” in her native language roughly translates to “slowly”. I just sat there and took in the breath of fresh air that was her words.
She leaned in closer.
“I feel like you needed to hear that,” she whispered.
I still keep our appointment close to my heart. Paula showed me the beauty of slowing down, creating a space that is bigger than writing. After all, “we can afford to give a writer plenty of time” (North 442).
After my time at the Writing Center, I try to slow down more. I’m pretty bad at it, to be honest with you, but I’m finding my way towards a slower pace. It feels nice to be free of pressure and pace all the time. I’m slowly (no pun intended) trusting myself enough to know that if I need to kick into gear, that will come.
Unfortunately, that’s just not a gear that is sustainable. And, dare I say it, I enjoy myself more when I take my time.
So with that, I am talking to Paul D. (and you too, if you have stuck around long enough to read this post): slow down. There’s time. I’m learning and I won’t stop learning that for a while.
I’m feeling grateful for my time here. It’s been a time and a half, and I’ve met some great people. I’ve read some great writing. I’ve found a little hub of writing people who will remain near and dear to me as I move into this next chapter.
I wish all of that and more to you.
Happy drafting,
Paul D.