Change is Coming

Lately, I've been seeing the signs. Not sure what they mean or where they're taking me,

The raven calling to me from the top of the phone pole was the first one. Then the random black feathers show up on the sidewalk in front of me. The Raven, despite sometimes being interpreted to mean death, also means that change is coming.

Then I found a decapitated common rat in my kitchen. Ewww. My skin still crawls. Thankfully, it was cleanly decapitated, I think by one or another of my pets, but I can't get it out of my head. I've never seen a rat around my house. How did it get in? How did it get into my kitchen? How come there was no blood?

Okay, I get that the explanations are simple -- It may have snuck in when someone left the door open by mistake. It was killed by one of my cats who, proud of his or her hunter ability, left it for me to see. One animal or another cleaned up the mess. But I think there's more. I wonder if this was another sign.

The Rats are highly adaptable animals that are also survivalists.

My question, now, is what does it all mean? What changes are coming? The ground is shaking. The heat is getting closer.

Will I be able to handle the explosion when it comes? Will I be able to live up to the title of this blog? Will I be able to Stand for Something Now?

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Working Past the Haze

Write something short, my grandmother said. She knows how hard I've been working on trying to publish my novels, maybe she thought it would be easier to publish something shorter. ... so here I am, updating my blog. Maybe my Tata (the name we've always called her) knew something was dragging me down. Maybe she knew writing anything would make me feel better. She's right, I know.

I'm at that point where I've lost the sparkles and the rainbows. I'm floundering in the fog of missed chances and the haze of broken spirits. The promise of a dream-fulfilled has been looming like a helium baloon for many years now. "You're so close," mentors have told me. "You're so lucky, agent so-and-so still has your manuscript," friends have said. But the promise feels empty from my vantage point.

How many years can you count yourself lucky that you're "so close" before it becomes a bold-faced lie? What I thought was a party-sized helium baloon turned out to be a car-sized hot-air ride. I'm at the point right now where I just want to slip on the parachute and jump out of the basket.

Then I try to think of what my life would be like if I didn't have my writing to keep me going.

I can't. I am a writer. I am a dreamer. I am a maker of wishes. Giving up on my dreams would be tantamount to a death sentence for me.

So, because I abhor the idea of giving up, I'm putting on blinders and going forward. I don't know how to go any other way. The depression that tried to smother me recently can't possibly beat my stars-and-rainbows personality. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still not feeling in the best of moods. I'm still deathly afraid of never achieving my dreams. But I can't live like that. It's not in my nature.

That day, oh so many years ago, when my mother broke the news to me that Santa Claus wasn't real, is still such a vivid memory. I cried for the rest of the day and into the next. The idea of there not being a Santa Claus, to me, meant that there was no hope and no goodness in this world. It only got better when Mom and I redefined Santa's existence -- yes, he lived once and he continues to live in the hearts of many. He just doesn't have a sleigh and reindeer.

So, this dream of being a published author is my grown up Santa Claus moment.

Yes, I am a writer, and I have dreams of writing stories that will live in the hearts of young people everywhere for a very long time. When the dark reality tries to drag me down, I will wish upon the evening star, but wishing and dreaming aren't enough.

Tightening those blinders around my face, I continue forward, working ever-diligently, my dreams alive and palpable, until the day I find my reindeer.

The Clock is Ticking

Fifteen minutes. That's all the time I have to write today -- I have to finish packing for our vacation and finish getting the house ready for our absence, but I'm giving myself fifteen minutes to write.

Fifteen minutes are not enough to revisit the current Work in Revision. When I enter that world, I'm transported in time to another place where heroes and heroines fight against time to save the world. Fifteen minutes won't even get me through the portal. The quarter hour will become an hour and a half. Can't do that today.

I could spend this time writing posts on one social network or another, but that's not creating,
                 that's regurgitating
                 and trolling
                 and stalking. Don't feel like that today.

Today, I feel like connecting with my blog again. So here I am.

I've been thinking about the writing business. To me, writing is not difficult. Revising, although tedious and frustrating, is fun for me. It's the BUSINESS part of the phrase that handcuffs me and makes me beg, Please, Sir, may I have another ... rejection? Because a dozen for this thing I call my reason for living is simply not enough.

I can blame bad luck for the dearth of favorable reactions, but, no. Luck has nothing to do with it. Simply put, my problem is that I don't know how to sell myself.

In the spirit of 50 Shades of Gray: I am a Submissive in a Dominant world.

My thinking is more in line with -- Write it and they will come. (Field of Dreams)


That thinking is wrong. In this crazy publishing world, there is no magic genie who will blink her eyes and hook you up with a publishing contract. The writer has to work at it. Hard. Selling something I think should be able to sell itself.

And that's often the problem.

Those of us who write very often prefer solitary lives that we can enjoy with the characters that flow from our fingertips. That won't work.

Some writers have resorted to bypassing mainstream publishing. They write their fabulous tome, sometimes pay a freelance editor to read through it, and then call up an independent publisher who will then print up a few on demand and put a link on Amazon. For most people, that's okay. That's acceptable.

But for others, especially those: * in mainstream publishing,
                                                    * in the media that provide reviews,
                                                    * and in those writers' own peer groups,
jumping to the self-publishing route is a sign of weakness.

I agree. For me. If I were to go that route, I would be very disappointed in myself because my ultimate goal is to have high school students ravenously flock to my books. Lately, the only people flocking to e-books are hungry wives looking for a gray-eyed lover. That was a fluke, folks. People have been self-publishing for ages, but that rarely (if ever) happened before.

Instead of giving in, I'm using this summer vacation to work harder on refocusing my talents in order to better sell myself. Hopefully, 2012 will be the year I finally get an agent, the next logical step in this long, arduous nightmare we writers subject ourselves to. I will, however, keep my options open.

My fifteen minutes are up. ... or are they?

Until the next post ....

My teaching philosophy

Required. The word itself carries with it the yoke of suppression by the rules and deadlines of people who are outside of what the participant desires. Only in hindsight do we recognize that the requirements themselves are the framework of a functional existence. Therefore the teacher responsible for piecing together the puzzle for teaching a required course must accept this burden of functioning in the haze of misinterpretation.

For me, that burden is a joy, though.

As I lay the foundation in my senior level English literature class, I imagine these students building on the rock I’ve prepared for them. Don't tell my students, but I've been preparing them for writing throughout their college career by instilling a sense of curiosity.

My philosophy does not just refer to teaching English. I teach English because that’s my life experience. That’s what I do and what I know best. My philosophy of teaching reaches past the boundaries of grammar, literature, and analysis. I want my students to think for themselves. I do not mean my students should spew the words of great philosophers and life experts – although that will come with experience. I want students to be aware of their own potential. I want them to question life and expectations, to consider the possibilities, to refine their own interpretations. Inspiring those lessons is not easy. It takes setting the stage in a classroom that shakes their reality, reaching into their comfort zone and shattering it just a little bit. In my classroom, it starts with a bulletin board decorated with fruit-covered wallpaper. It also means having students analyze a simple essay for deeper meaning – not the writer’s, but their own – or determining who, Hamlet or Ophelia, was more victimized by their parents’ weaknesses in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Accessing students’ deeper learning happens once their reality becomes more accessible when viewed through the words of classic literature or modern film, when experienced through the lyrics of a good rock song or the science of a simple math equation, when analyzed through the microscope of exploration. To learn, we must break through the fear that holds us to others’ expectations. The learner must ask the burning question of an eager three-year-old – why? There is a reason that question is one of the six taught to budding journalists. ‘Why’ reveals intent and encourages honesty. It addresses motives, and, in so doing, creates deeper meaning, enabling the student to turn that child’s question into an adult’s philosophy.

To teach that deeper meaning, I teach the basics of writing: the art of brainstorming, the joy of free-writing, the structure of outlining, the randomness of clustering. Once the rough draft is complete, (heh, heh ... this is coming this week, students!) I teach them to question their essay like a journalist, asking them to possibly answer their question “outside the box.” And then comes the greatest sacrifice, peer review, where students must filter through the comments of classmates for the nuggets that will strengthen their work. The process does not end there, that is only when I actively join it and help them direct it. There is a tedious process to completion, but each step holds its own lessons. It’s in revision that we learn to focus our writing, and many a writer has gotten trapped by their own words.

I believe in the revision process, therefore, the final grade for an assignment is given when the student decides the work is complete. I am available to students and encourage early submission to allow for discussion about clarity of voice and whether the assignment may need another revision.

Writing, for many students, is just something for school. They believe they will not need these tools in the real world. Unfortunately, they will learn the truth soon enough. If they haven’t been taught the precision offered by clear writing they will be unprepared as soon as their employer asks for a proposal. The finished product may have too much information arranged haphazardly. When employers ask for clear directions, they may get imprecise writing that leads to confusion, as the chaos made worse by ambiguous instructions that contributed to the Three Mile Island accident.

The importance of writing is what drives me in my instruction. As a teacher, I am part of the process. I lay the groundwork that must be developed until college graduation and beyond. So, in summary, what is my philosophy? I offer students the tools, help them find answers to their questions, and guide them to a finished product using their own words at a newer, expanded level of comfort. The final product must be well-organized and accessible, as I expect my teaching to be.

And when I connect with students in this way, everything is great in my life.

Stand for Something Now: A Personal Legend

Stand for Something Now: A Personal Legend: My Personal Legend. According to Paul Coelho's THE ALCHEMIST, it is the thing I live my life to accomplish. "When you want something, all th...

A Personal Legend

My Personal Legend. According to Paul Coelho's THE ALCHEMIST, it is the thing I live my life to accomplish. "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it," the Old King tells Santiago. But as I studied that book and Antoine de St. Exupery's THE LITTLE PRINCE (a book that should be taught in a companion unit), I realized something. What you experience on the journey to your Personal Legend is sometimes more important than the legend itself.

Okay. Anyone who knows me knows that I've been working to become a published novelist for over a decade. When everything seems to be looking up, that mythical gold ring on the carousel of life eludes me. With the perserverence that came when I realized I had discovered my Personal Legend, I brush off the disappointment and keep moving forward.

What I missed, though, was the fact that I am happy. As I travel the sands of this desert searching for my treasure chest of Spanish dubloons, I have found the soul mate who makes the trip worthwhile. I have realized that my sons are amazing boys-becoming-men. I have admitted that I love teaching and giving my students a chance to succeed in their own Personal Journeys. And I have learned to push my body to new physical goals like running (and finishing) races.

I am not the same writer I was ten years ago -- I don't even recognize her anymore! I grow every time I take a class or finish a manuscript. When I'm revising, I readily dump passages that don't work anymore because I know there's more where those words came from. And I can't remember the last time I had mind-numbing, finger-freezing writer's block. The words are always flowing -- onto my journals, my Facebook essays, this blog, or into my works in progress.

I have made wonderful friends and met great people along this writing journey. I would never change a moment of this trip. Some of my good friends are the most magical writers in publishing today, and that circle keeps growing. Rarely, jealousy rears its ugly head, but I rein it in knowing one day my day may come.

But if my day doesn't come, I'm okay with that, too. See this has been a great journey. Sometimes I made mistakes that threatened the stability of my world, but I've learned how to find that distant star I've been following throughout this journey. I train my compass on North and continue searching. As long as I can see my Personal Legend shining in the distance I know this trip will have been worth every step.

Some things are meants to be...

The first star of the night, the Wishing Star, always hears the same wish from me: I want to see my books on (and flying off) bookstore shelves. I've been writing since I opened my first diary in fourth grade and wrote about how clearly I could see the world once I got my new glasses. Now I'm waiting anxiously for my new prescription to be filled, but there must be some sort of hold-up with the optometrist!

See, here's the thing. I want to be a published writer. I want my students to read my books. I want to tell the stories screaming to come out of my story-telling head.

I must not be ready -- this is what makes the wait okay.

I believe I will not become a published author until I am ready to move from the wanna-be ranks. But the road out of the depths of wish-dom is long and hard and no one has made a road map. Or have they? Is there some magic spell that will speed me through the steps? Will I wave that magic wand? Last night a writer friend dedicated a book to me, saying she hopes that dedication helps my wish come true sooner. Will it? Should it?

That's the question. If I wave that magic wand, what lesson will I have missed? Skipping a step in the process may mean the difference between a minor mistake and a crucial error. If I am not ready to succeed, will I be unprepared for the masses of critics that flock around all new writers? If I am not full of unsinkable self-esteem, will a child's question destroy my muse?

Maybe my last lesson could be solved by a simple set of bifocals. Maybe by skipping a step I will forever be squinting.

I think I have learned enough to understand that I have very loving and patient guardians watching over my dreams. I don't receive a gift for which I am not ready to fight, and I have been very lucky so far. But have I fought enough? Has my name flooded enough agent's offices and publisher's desks? I wonder. That part is not going to be done with magic or wishes. That part is my job. I think I still have some work to do toward my dream.

And yet, I wonder if I am being confused by the illusion of a world that doesn't exist. Are my "publication dreams" merely a way to sway me against something much better that will Be.

So, that being said, I must remember that I have volunteered to wait. If this dream I have is meant to be, it's only being human that makes me impatient. My wishing star is not ignoring me. She is waiting for the right wish. I just need to have a little more faith ... and maybe a little pixie dust.