I have this friend who’s a really good writer, and I’ve known her for a little over half of my life. Back in middle school she told me that she only wrote in pen. This sounded crazy to me; back then I nearly always wrote in pencil because I made a lot of mistakes and I could erase everything later and use the paper over again (save trees-- and money). But it’s what she did. She used to write chapters of her books before she knew how she would get there; she’d pick a page that seemed far enough into her notebook and write it all out. She’d give me the ending and we’d find a way to it (man, was that a journey). But she never finished a book. We’d have this idea of what a story would be, and as any writer and/or editor would know things don’t always go that way: the plot doesn’t agree with the characters, or a new opportunity comes up, or the project loses it’s momentum, or it stops being fun. Whatever happened the stories never made it to their destination.
My Freshman year I read a passage from “Cold Tangerines” by Shauna Niequist with my orientation group (link below). The passage expressed a concept I was very familiar with (especially after middle school math), but had never practiced: writing in pencil. My whole life I’ve had my life planned out. If you asked me in high five what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have thought singer, actress, daycare provider, teacher, firefighter, doctor…. And I would said: Business Woman, and it would have been the same answer up until the fifth grade when I started saying Teacher. Well if you keep up with me, then you may know that I recently changed my major from English Education to Writing (something I had wanted to do for a whole day my freshmen year). Part of the reason I made the change was because I could see a rough outline of where my life would go ten+ years into the future. I knew what school I would work for at least five years after graduation, I knew where I would move after that, where I would continue my education, where I would end up teaching and eventually become the principle… It sounds so egotistical now that I’m writing this, but I just knew, with the connections that I have, where I go, and with my connections and the direction my heart was pulling me, doubting it seemed arbitrary.
Writing in pencil means that whatever plans we make are subject to change. It means that at any point in my life I can deviate from the plan I set before me and make adjustments. It’s opening ourselves up to explore opportunities as they come our way. It’s forgiving ourselves for our mistakes and starting over if we need to. It’s letting the scuff marks show on our final papers as evidence of a mistake corrected or an idea developed. It’s a lot of things. Writing in pencil den’t mean that we have no plans or ambitions. It just means that we allow ourselves the freedom to change them.
I was just thinking about this as I decide how to change my class schedule and I continue thinking about my areas of study. I thought to grabs my colored pens (Thursday felt wanted to be orange) but then I remembered that I’ve changed my plans a lot lately and i never know what any semester will bring. So I left my pens and I picked up a pencil. I’ve already erased quite a bit, and not everything I erased was replaced.
