Writing journal post for Monday

I'm not happy with the writing I did for Classical Rhetoric today. It is my turn on Wednesday to present a "juxtaposition paper" to the group based on three readings: Sprague's "Gorgias" (fragments), McComiskey's "Gorgias and the Art of Rhetoric," and Ballif's "Seduction and Sacrificial Gestures: Gorgias, Helen, and Nothing." I spent a long time reading these three texts closely. By Monday I had written four pages and wrote two more today. I spent the remaining time (today) editing the paper down to 3 pages. I experienced several waves of excitement while writing. Today I cut my office hours short so I could return to the task early. But I found I had a hard time thinking about things clearly...ideas that had lined up yesterday were cloudy and shallow today. Writing I thought was pretty good yesterday was disgusting today. Elbow says this is common and so I tried not to panic. What frustrated me the most was that what I wanted to say was pretty clear in my mind but eluded clarity on the page. I found myself writing and writing around the "good" points I wanted to make. Every time I stopped to read a draft I felt farther away from the interesting ideas in my head. By the time I turned it in I was convinced I had written a bad and shallow paper.
I reflected on the nagging "bad" feelings about the paper and felt pretty comfortable thinking I could get to that "good" writing in a few more drafts. This gave me comfort and a sense of control. If I worked on this paper every day in the morning for just an hour, after a week or two I think it would say what I wanted it to. Right now it feels unruly and rushed. This is a positive change in my thinking about writing. I usually put an inordinate amount of pressure to "write right the first time." Especially if it's for a short response paper. But the issues in the texts are complicated and it takes time to work things out. I had the feeling that this paper could come together in the future and that I would know how to make that happen. In the past I would retreat to that "out of body" experience feeling and just float through the difficult feelings about a piece of writing. I feel pretty positive about this small change.