One of my favorite sounds in the world is that of clacking keyboards from busy fingers typing while the mind frantically writes. As I myself type away, I am surrounded by a room full of click-clacking keyboards.

After yesterday’s historical election, how could I not use the opportunity for a writing assignment in the journalism class that I teach at Cosumnes River College? You’re so right, I couldn’t.

Hence the writing-on-deadline exercise that my students are working on at this very moment. They received the assignment this morning when class started at 10:30, and their deadline is noon. The assignment is to write a reaction story about the country’s newly elected president, which means that they had to go out-and-about around campus to get quotes — talk to at least 10 people, to be exact — come back to class, write up their story, and email it to me by noon.

There is something about writing on deadline that has always been something of a thrill, kind of a rush. Mind you, it’s a different kind of rush than, say, riding a scooter, but a rush nonetheless. There is an inescapable pressure that inevitably comes with a short turn around — I don’t know how to describe it, exactly, but it forces the words out onto the page, er, screen. For some reason, most of my best writing is done under that pressure. No longer can you run and hide from the message that’s been percolating in your brain for days, weeks, maybe even months. No more excuses; you must intentionally ignore distractions, intentionally formulate your ideas into sentences, and intentionally, no, forcefully, play those computer keys until they sing the glorious click-clack-click-clack.

This is the first short-deadline assignment of the semester, so I am eager to see how well the stories turn out.

In the meantime, I wonder how many reactions this humble blog can elicit…