I Stayed Awake Until 3:47

I’d been writing all day, untangling Kindergarten “word-laces.” It had been like being inside the word boxes within which I’d been writing. Unwriting is a better description. I’d been leveling down text, turning somewhat musical prose into a four-note learning-to-read practice story.

Writing for new readers is labor intensive, filled with worrying over digraphs and dipthongs. Much time is spent checking whether kids have encountered r-controlled vowels or the alternate meaning of loaf. No glamour is waiting between these words. No subtext is between the lines. The pictures carry the story’s main load, but the words are what takes the most time. In fact for all of the thought that goes into the words, it’s sad in the end that they seem more like floor tile than the art that they are.

Like building a house, it’s purposeful work. Kids need books they can read from beginning to end—to feel the success of finding meaning. Even if grown-ups think it’s stilted and stiff, there’s nothing like the “I did it myself” feeling. So I go over, and over, and over each word, making sure it works for a child who’s beginning. The challenge must be Goldilocks “just right,’ not too easy or the book would be boring, not too hard or one more kid turned off to reading. I don’t want any kids not reading.

It was only 8 pages I finished today. At max it was 200 words. But every word was weighed one thousand ways—looked at, and spoken, and heard. I probably walked two miles while I wrote it and listened to four 80-minute CDs. But when I was done, I was sure a new reader could read it. I also knew a parent could hear it repeated endlessly.

I was exhausted and at least 10 years older when I finished that story.
Hungry for a grown-up writing, I went hunting for a sentence challenge. I accomplished that task at 3:21. Though I wanted to stretch my mind outward, my brain made it clear it was done. So I posted my intentions of writing, but I decided to take a nap first.

I stayed awake until 3:47.
I caught the 3:48 to dreamland.

—me strauss Letting me be