Writes first time, every time

I've been going "back to school" in the fall for 53 years.  At some level the questions haven't changed since kindergarten:  What to wear? Will the kids in my class like me?  Will I be able to do the work? What supplies do I need?  I loved the sensation of writing on a stack of fresh paper, the scent of the ballpoint ink tickling my back brain.  The snick of the three ring binder as I snapped a completed assignment in.

As I tried to crack a case of writer's block a few weeks ago, I decided to get off the keyboard and onto a pad of paper.   I tend to start writing on paper, move to the keyboard, then back to paper at the end.  But was midway through a complete re-write of an essay I was writing in circles, unable to find a line through it that would make sense to a reader.  It was a bit like decided to take the next offramp from the highways when traffic has come to a crawl and try the side roads.  They might not be as fast, but there's hope that you'll get there eventually, and you're moving and filling the page.

Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones has a writing exercise that I sometimes use with my students:  "Pen or pencil.  Five minutes.  Go." What tools do I pick up to write with? Does it matter to me? Sometimes.  Why and when?
This task:  Yellow college-lined pad of paper. With a pen. Not a pencil.

I had to rummage in the drawer of office supplies to find a pen. The drawer contains principally leftovers from school supply lists gone by (why, oh, why do we have so many unused protractors in there?)  I pulled out a classic Bic pen, the one that I remember from my own school days. Clear plastic, medium point, viscous tacky blue ink.

I remember the ads on TV where they would strap the pen to the skate of an Olympic figure skater who would do some fancy turn, ice chips flying.  They'd take the pen off and write with a flourish.  "Writes first time, every time."  I thought that might be a good omen for the writing.  It was.