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Orlando Return

Thursday 23 June 2022

Driving back from Orlando today, I got to thinking again about the writing project I’ve been considering, and I came up with yet another organizational idea for it. Indeed, not just another organizational idea, but a somewhat altered focus. So two initial drafts get shoved aside for a third. Fortunately, I was only a few thousand words into the other two drafts, so there’s no real loss there. I’m excited about the new approach and began jotting notes on my phone as I took the dog for a walk.

But the whole way, I think the Girl relived the highlights of competing in nationals.

Cliche

Wednesday 24 February 2021

In class today, we went over formal voice, and one of the rules I presented concerned the avoidance of cliche. “Avoid them like the plague” is the old joke — they didn’t get it because they’d never heard the cliche.

Cliches are a little depressing: they’re victims of their own popularity. Someone comes up with a clever metaphor or conceit, then everyone wants to use it. Suddenly, it’s everywhere, and just like that, a clever saying has become a dreaded cliche. Even “tired old cliche” is cliche.

When it came time for creative writing at the end of the day, I gave them a simple prompt: “Based on what we talked about in English, do the opposite. Try to come up with a text (about anything) that is filled with as many cliches and colloquialisms as you can.”

Here was my effort:

So, I lost track of time when thinking about cliches. Initially, I was like a kid in a candy store when the teacher told us, “Try to be like, ‘I’m such a bad writer’ and include a lot of cliches.” But I feel like a fish out of water trying to write badly. I always feel like Big Brother is watching me when I write. (I guess you can read between the lines on that.)

Writing in cliches is a snap in a way because it’s just a matter of time before anything and everything turns into a cliche. Soon it’s going to require nerves of steel to avoid cliches because everything can become a cliche. Sure, it’s likely every saying lives in heart-stopping fear that everyone will fall head over heels for it and use it all the time, thus turning it into a cliche. At that point, the saying, now a cliche, slinks off with its tail between its legs when it should be going around without a care in the world. After all, even if it’s ugly as sin, it’s not the cliche’s fault that everyone uses it. I’m just saying the saying shouldn’t cry over spilled milk. I mean, the writing is on the wall, and it’s the thought that counts.

And I’m sure some sayings just want to go straight for the cliche phase, but better late than never. They want to move right past that fresh-as-a-daisy, I’m-a-new-saying phase and straight to the tired old cliche phase.

Whatever your view on cliches, I guess we should all just live and let live.

That’s 19 cliches and 8 colloquialisms.

Growing and Writing

Wednesday 9 December 2020

My classes are growing. More specifically, they grew today — doubled, in fact. Today was the first day we had all students back at the same time. Sixth grade has been doing it for a couple of weeks now; seventh grade began last week; this week was eighth grade’s turn. So each class had 18-24 students in plexiglass-enclosed quad-desks, each six feet apart. “Remember,” I said countless times, “these plexiglass shields only serve as protection for you and your neighbor if you have your masks on.” This mean that it was the first day for everyone wearing masks all day.

How long will we stay like this? What effect will the Thanksgiving surge, now in full swing, have on it? I really don’t know.

As part of my promise to K about my beard (“I’ll get rid of it when we’re back in school 100%.”), I had the Boy shave me last night.

That was how we had some of our Daddy-E time. Tonight, it was writing: the Boy has discovered fountain pens,

and that discovery has inspired him to write short stories. We’re working on a tag-team zombie story now.

Recommendations

Wednesday 8 July 2020

This year, I had a student, E, who was exceptional in many ways, but most noticeable was her certainty that she would be a published writer. Indeed, that she would make her living writing. I have no doubt that she will: she has the talent and the drive. What she’s lacking, of course, is what all young writers lack: experience. Not just live experience — reading experience is just as important. So at the end of the year, I made her a list of books I’ve read which seem to me to teach something important about writing and a few films that teach something about good storytelling:

Books

Title

Author

Reason Why It’s Important/What To Learn

Absalom, Absalom!William FaulknerThis is simply the best book ever written. There is so much to learn from this book:

  • Non-linear, fragmented plot
  • Multiple narrators
  • Untrustworthy narrators
  • Multiple conflicting narrators
  • Absolutely gorgeous language
  • A gripping, engrossing plot

This is unquestionably my all-time favorite book, and I read it at least once every two years.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being*Milan KunderaThis novel mixes philosophical musings, random bits of weird history, and a fantastic story set in Prague, with the Prague Spring as its setting. (Google it before you read this.) Kudera uses an unconventional point of view in this book: not really first person, not really third, it’s a curious mix of both. You’ll never forget your first time reading this, and you’ll walk away wanting to imitate its totally original point of view.
As I Lay DyingWilliam FaulknerEach chapter is told by different 15 different narrators, and it uses a non-linear plotline.
Red PlentyFrancis SpuffordHistorical fiction at its best. This excellent novel blends actual historical characters mixed with invented characters. Each chapter is a different time and different place in the USSR with different characters, but there are a few overlaps that provide continuity, so it’s a good study of fragmented plot development.
The Adventures of Tom SawyerMark TwainTwain is the master of making jokes by leaving much of the joke in the reader’s mind: he gets you going and then stops, knowing your train of thought will end in humor. He’s also a master of writing in comic dialect.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
My ÁntoniaWilla CatherThere’s nothing complicated or groundbreaking in this novel. It’s just simple, linear, first-person story-telling at its best; a lovely, lovely book.
Tales of GaliciaAndrzej StasiukThis novel mixes magical-realism, untrustworthy narrators, non-linear and completely fragmented plotlines to create a masterpiece. One of my all-time favorites.
Bleak HouseCharles DickensIt’s Dickens — read all his works. He’s a master. He’s especially good at creating multiple plotlines and weaving them together.
Great Expectations
4 3 2 1*Paul AusterThe book of multiple plotlines: this novel takes one character and imagines four different lives for him. There are overlaps and similarities, but it’s the differences that make the book incredible. And that ending: you see it coming a thousand miles away, and yet it still shocks you and takes your breath away.
The Noise of TimeJulian BarnesThis novel is told in short fragments. There is a plot, but it’s not immediately obvious.
The New York TrilogyPaul AusterThe meta-fiction masterpiece in which the author mixes real life with the story, this novel layers different realities (including the reader’s) into a mind-bending blending of storylines.
East of EdenJohn SteinbeckPossibly the greatest straight, simple, linear-plotline novelist America has produced, Steinbeck simply tells unforgettable stories in a straightforward, compelling manner.
The Grapes of Wrath
Being There*Jerzy KosińskiThis novel utilizes something like magical realism in a subdued way.
One Hundred Years of Solitude*Gabriel Garcia MarquezThe master of magical realism, Marquez is a spellbinding writer. You will never read a book with a story told in quite the odd, confusing, compelling way as this book. One of the most original books you will ever read.
Go Set a WatchmanHarper LeeThis was the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. It will teach you how much a story can change upon revision.
To the LighthouseVirginia WoolfThis book completely blew my mind the first time I read it. There’s no way to describe what you can learn from this book. Just read it. It’s incredible.
Brothers KaramazovFyodor DostoyevskyThese are long, complicated novels. They are also perfect novels. Demons is my favorite and his best, but most people put Brothers Karamazov in that slot. They’re difficult to read because they require a lot of background knowledge, and the Russian names are difficult at first to someone not familiar with the language. Read along with an audio version.
Demons
Crime and Punishment
The Haunted Bookshop Christopher MorleyEveryone who loves books should read this one–a story about a bookshop?! What could be better. 
A Gentleman in MoscowAmor TowlesThis is just a charming story. Nothing experimental or bizzare — just a great story told expertly.
Jane EyreCharlotte BronteA surprisingly modern novel that’s relatively old (1847). You’ll learn how to maintain a theme throughout a novel, how to give that theme a surprising twist toward the end.
Wide Sargasso SeaJean RhysOne of the most original books written. This was written some 120 after Jane Eyre, and it is something of a prequel to Bronte’s novel. DO NOT read this without reading JE first. You’ll learn how to find inspiration from other books.
Angela’s AshesFrank McCourtThis book will teach you how to write a memoir like a novel.
The OutsidersS. E. HintonShe wrote it when she was 16. Enough said.
The PlagueAlbert CamusAn example of existentialist (look it up) writing — it’s a novel with a philosophical agenda.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of ChinaJung ChangFamily history at its finest. It will also teach you a lot about Chinese history.
The Name of the Rose*Umberto EcoHistorical fiction that’s incredible: a mystery set in a 14th-century monastery. How could you not want to read that?
The Master and MargaritaMikhail BulgakovWhat happens when a Russian writes a novel with the devil as one of the main characters? Perfection happens.
The Diving Bell and the ButterflyJean-Dominique BaubyI mentioned this in journalism; we read one of the chapters. From this you’ll learn how to write short, powerful observations about some of the most mundane things.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest DisasterJon KrakauerThis is history written like it’s a novel.
The Sense of an Ending*Julian BarnesA slim book about confusion that puts the reader in the exact same spot of ignorance as the protagonist. It will teach you pacing.
Breakfast of Champions*Kurt VonnegutA meta-novel that’s mind-bending, Breakfast also incorporates little sketches into the novel.

* Indicates mature content.

Films

Title

Reason Why It’s Important

In the Mood for Love (PG)A Chinese film. A slow, measured story that seems simple yet has incredible tension just beneath the surface. Excellent ending.
The Lives of Others (R)A German film. Absolutely the best ending of any film on the planet. My all-time favorite drama.
Conspiracy (R)This film features a bunch of men sitting around a table talking for 90% of the film. Incredible acting, though, and it will teach you what good dialogue sounds like.
Dangerous Liasons (R)Intersecting plots and plotters plotting against each other, this film will teach you how to tell a story in which emotions (in this case, fury and contempt) are always present, always hinted at, yet never fully shown — until the end. I think there was a remake of this. I’m referring to the 1988 original with John Malkovich, who is utterly brilliant in this film.

Sadly, most of these are rated R, so your folks will have to make the call on them.

Revisited

Monday 7 January 2019

In my journalism class, we’ve decided to shift from pure journalism to a bit of literary nonfiction, so we began the day with a writing exercise. I provided a starter and fifteen minutes to write: “During winter break, I learned…”

I wrote along with them and found myself thinking again of Bida and so began writing again about Bida:

During winter break, I learned anew that love and pain are often so closely twined that one cannot separate the two, that tugging on one brings the second along with it. I learned all this watching and participating in my daughter’s grief as our family cat slowly died as she lay on our couch.

We’d had Bida for ten years. My daughter had never known life without that gray, grumpy, yet sweet rescue cat. She looked pitiful when we got her, hence the name, which means “poor little thing” in Polish. She looked even more pitiful as she lay dying, thin, slow, her bones protruding, her long gray hair matted because we could no longer brush her without causing her pain.

When we arrived home that night, my wife went to check on her in the room in the basement where Bida always loved to sleep. In a panicked voice, she called me downstairs. The poor cat had fallen off the bag of insulation that she loved to sleep on and landed on her back, wedged between the bag and some shelving. I thought she was already dead, but when I pulled her out gently, she shuddered, gasped, and began breathing in shallow breaths.

“Go get the kids,” I told my wife. “They’ll want to say goodbye.” She headed upstairs while I gently carried Bida to the couch in our basement family room and lay her down on the middle cushion. The four of us sat around the old, ornery cat for two hours as her breathing slowed, then stopped.

The first to come running from upstairs was L, my daughter. She was already beginning to cry, and when she saw Bida, the cat that had been around for as long as she could remember, she broke down into a sobbing, shuddering cry.

“No, Bida!” she shouted, dropping to her knees beside the couch and throwing an arm protectively but gently over the cat, who lay with her eyes open, her mouth gaping, the only movement being her rib cage that went up and down, up and down, up and down. “No, Bida! No!” she cried, her body shaking more and more violently.

I’d never been a big fan of that cat. I put up with her because L loved her so. But in that moment, watching my daughter wrecked with pain, her face a puddle, her voice almost instantly hoarse from crying, I realized I loved that cat because she loved that cat. I understood that I was near tears because she was in tears, and even because I was sad to see that grumpy cat go, to see that sweet cat suffer, to see my daughter suffer along with her.

When you love something, you open yourself up to pain because of that. You will feel that person’s pain with them; you will feel the pain of separation; you will eventually feel the pain of ultimate loss.

To love someone is to love their mortality, their temporariness, and the ________ness of everything they love.

A first draft — shows some promise, but nothing spectacular. That’s the idea.

Afterward, I had students choose the sentence they like most, the sentence they’re most proud of. “Be prepared to explain to a partner why you like that sentence, why that sentence fills you with a bit of pride,” I instructed. For my own sentence, I chose the first one: “During winter break, I learned anew that love and pain are often so closely twined that one cannot separate the two, that tugging on one brings the second along with it.”

“I like it because of the word ‘twined.’ I don’t think I’ve ever used that word, and it somehow provides a theme for the whole piece that I could go back and incorporate — images of thread, fabric, sewing, weaving, and so on,” I explained.

It was just the final lesson of a day filled with successful engagement from all students. I always worry a bit about how students will perform that first day back, and I’m always impressed. And then ask myself, “Why are you always worried? They’re always great!”

Habit and Momentum

Friday 11 April 2014

I learned riding a road bike in the mountains of southern Poland that there’s a simple trick to making it to the top of a hill: don’t stop pedaling. That of course sounds a bit axiomatic, painfully obvious even, but the simple truth of momentum is that, as long as you keep pedaling, as long as you keep that cog rotating, you have a little momentum from the last rotation to help with the next. True, it starts to become almost a token momentum, and that’s when the temptation to stop is most overwhelming. The legs burn and ache; the heart feels like it’s about to explode; the vessels in the temple pulsate with almost frantic rapidity. But as long as you don’t stop, you’ve got something to build on. Once you stop, it’s almost all over, especially if it’s a steep climb and a hundred kilometers stretch out behind you.

So too with daily writing. One day off becomes two, and threatens to become three — and you can only write about the threat. I had two entries in mind; I was just too lazy to get the pictures off the camera. Maybe later — back-posting counts if you say it does.

Teaching to the Test

Thursday 13 March 2014

1-Fullscreen capture 3132014 101053 PM“I’m so sick of the PASS test,” I said to our eighth grade administrator, “and we haven’t even taken it yet.” The test — technically now called the SCPASS, which stands for “South Carolina Palmetto Assessment of State Standards because just “PASS,” as it was called for years, infringed on some copyright or other — is the state assessment for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) compliance. It’s a silly hoop students have to jump through in an effort to provide data about effective teaching, effective schools, and effective students. In theory, anyway. It consists of math, reading, writing, science, and social studies assessments, and the first portion, the writing assessment, rolls around this coming Tuesday.

Regarding standardized tests, we teachers are always told we shouldn’t be “teaching to the test.” I’m not quite sure what this means, though, because it seems that, given the fact that we have state standards from which we form our curricula and from which test makers derive the tests, any time of standards-based teaching is, to some degree or another, teaching to the test.

This is even more confusing when I consider myself as not just a reading teacher but a writing teacher as well. We teach kids that they should always taken into account their audience and purpose when writing, and so it seems to me we should be doing the same for this test. The purpose is simple: to pass at the very least, with a score of “Exemplary” as students’ ultimate goal. The audience, too, is straightforward: the only people who will read these particular essays are the exam graders. Therefore, as a teacher, I should help students figure out how to write for this purpose to this audience. “It’s jumping through hoops,” I tell them, “not real writing. You’re just trying to show them that you can do all the things on this rubric.”

So we’ve spent the better part of this week and last putting together a plan to write for this purpose to this audience. And I do so in full knowledge that this is not an accurate assessment of authentic writing; it’s an assessment of prescribed writing. Still, except for bloggers, professional writers, and diarists, almost everyone in the “real world” writes primarily prescribed writing: reports, minutes, emails, summaries, proposals, invoices, and the like, so maybe it’s an accurate assessment.

Nah — it’s just hoops.

The Bar

Thursday 7 November 2013

In winter, the floor was a glistening swirl of grit from black snow tromped in on careless feet. At the door, a slushy mix of grime and granules of ice covered the concrete floor. The dirt migrated gradually from the entrance, and midway into the bar, all that remained were faint prints and smears of boots.

The slick slush provided an added challenge to staggering customers attempting to go home. Exiting the bar, drunk patrons loaded their shoes with fatal moisture that turned the ice pack outside the door into a skating rink, and the impaired reaction time more than once resulted in a soul-sickening thud and crunch. Legs sprawled, skulls cracked, and those inside drank on, their own clumsy slipping and tumbling swirling at the bottom of the pints of beer they used to chase the ghosts of cheap vodka.