Plagiarism and Meetings

I was asked to co-chair a committee to review my school's plagiarism policy today. The "policy" (it's really a protocol- only the Board of Education can make policy) is particularly important to me because (a) I wrote it, and (b) as English Department Chair, I am invited to every discipline meeting involving a case of plagiarism. I have spoken to lots of faculty members over the years who have passionately exclaimed the insidious nature of this academic offense and the merits of one type of discipline or another. And I have been berated by parents, as have many of my colleagues, over our handling of individual cases. So I went today expecting a rigorous debate.

I got four people. Yup. Four. And two of the four were friends that were involved in pretty high profile plagiarism cases that I worked on. The other two were pleasant surprises, both middle school teachers who were espousing the merits of a unified and consistent approach to plagiarism. So we had our forty-five minute chat the five of us, while the rest of the faculty were engaged in other meetings (cell phones the topic du jour--the cry of ban them echoed down the halls--really productive, like the suggestion to build a Jetson's-like bubble over the school to intercept cell calls...) that carried weight and importance, too, I suppose. And to think that right down the hall the five of us were only talking about issues that could potentially fail a student, jeopardize their future, or lose them gobs of tuition cash.

Maybe the issue is too hard to handle, or people feel that it is the purview of the English teacher alone, or that it just doesn't affect them, or that it was just too convenient to stay put while my colleague, the associate principal, started his session. Maybe it was more entertaining. I don't know. Maybe the cell phones are just part of a deeper issue that covers plagiarism, too. Maybe it's all about the kids cheating on one level or another. All I know is that I'm passionate about my issue, as are a handful of others. Maybe I'm weird, but I can't help but feel that plagiarism in all of its manifestations is pretty darn important, probably more important than the kid in the back of the room with the cell phone. Maybe I should just sit down and keep my mouth shut.

As I adjourned our intimate gathering I made sure to make plans to convene an ad hoc committee to study the policy more, but really wondered how that would go. I mean, if I can't get more than four people to show up for a forty-five minute session, how many would be willing to sit on a committee? I guess, in the long run, screaming at a student about his iPhone is more important than the fact that this generation feels empowered to rip others off academically. I guess we as a faculty really don't care enough to attend a meeting unless it affects us. But, boy, when it does affect us, look out, then people are concerned!

Maybe that's how I'll populate my committee...wait until someone gets good and ticked because their student plagiarized a paper and they feel betrayed, and then let them help me revise the policy. And if I'm not around when they need me, they can always just text me from class. Hell, the kids do it all the time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, it's officially Thanksgiving, and I'm still up packing for my trip to New Hampshire to visit relatives. I guess I get reflective late at night, which is probably why I stay up so late...just waiting for the right moment of inspiration to hit and let the words come tumbling out. So, in a reflective mood, I put off packing once more and sit down to blog.

I have had a relatively rough year, no doubt, so this particular holiday is challenging. But, despite all of the ups and downs, I can honestly say the list of things I'm thankful for has continued to grow and morph. I think that's the key to being happy, keeping things in perspective and always recognizing that the things to be thankful for are all around me. I have deep loves and strong emotions, I admit, but it all is fine.

I won't publish my list, at least not here. But the people on the list know who they are, and why they're there (hopefully). Happy Thanksgiving!

help

Help is on the way! Thanks to my debugger :)

Waiting

I used to think that waiting was a noble thing. Delayed gratification, you know. Now, as a forty year old soon to be divorced man, I'm not so sure. I mean, I understand all of the nuances of waiting. It makes sense not to rush in and make a mistake, not to play the fool for the sake of spontaneity...I get all of that. But I'm watching the world move around me, and I wonder to myself why I'm still not moving.

I have many noble reasons for not moving. But doubt begins to creep in, and I can't help asking myself the really hard questions.

Oh well. Friday blues. Maybe the weekend will help. I used to really look forward to the weekends, too.

Crushed fingers and football

So I was having a football party this past weekend and I demonstrated to all present the depth of the male genetic predisposition to stupidity. Here's the scenario: six people coming over, fifteen minutes before kickoff, and I assess the seating arrangement in my family room as deficient. Solution: move a chair from my living room (upstairs) to the family room (downstairs). The chair isn't that heavy, mind you, but I was determined to get this done quickly, so off I went with the chair in question hoisted above my head as I ambled down the stairs. Somewhere near the bottom stair, my foot slipped a bit and I missed the step. Result: I do a seat drop on the bottom step, the chair comes crashing down and rests on the railing and banister, and my left ring finger ends up pinioned between the two (banister and chair). Now, any good physics student understands the concept of mass and acceleration combining to create force, so you can understand what ended up happening to my poor ring finger. I took a chunk out of the tip, crushed the nail (nice purple contusion under the nail), bled like a stuffed pig, and pretty much had to muscle the chair back up into place in the living room because I couldn't leave it teetering on the brink between the railings. Painful, all in all. I spent the rest of the day nursing the injured digit and hoping that I wouldn't bleed into the chili abd chicken wings.

Chalk one up for stupidity. Oh well, the food was good!

Problems with Blog

I'm working on this...

Geekiness to the Nth Degree

Yeah, I'm a geek. This post is going to be brief, but I figured I'd show off a bit of my technical acumen (limited as it is) with my latest web project. I have been working as an educational technologist on top of my day job as an English teacher. It's been pretty interesting, all in all, and has brought me in contact with many interesting people and even more interesting technical projects, one of which has been to redesign the school's technology website.

I did the website, but my boss wanted a blog on the site, and, not being a web designer, I was baffled as to how to get it to appear on the page. Lots of research and work with the tech guys led me to the hack I eventually found, which was to house the blog on Blogger and to bring it in to the TechTimes website via the iframe tag. It's not perfect, but it works! Maybe I'll take another stab at getting Wordpress up on the site, but, for now, the blog is there, the boss is happy, and I can begin the Guidance department redesign!

I have to say that, while it certainly isn't writing fiction, it's still pretty damn rewarding...and fun, too. Techtimes is found at http://ves.neric.org/techtimes/index.html. Just go to the Blog section to see the handiwork.

The Times They Are A Changin'

Let's start with Bob Dylan, shall we?

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'."

Had a relatively good weekend, all things considered, even though it didn't start out that way. I saw "Pride and Glory" with a friend, had a great steak dinner, watched sports, slept in, and all in all tried to reassemble my world order. Lots going on, here, folks, beyond the typical school stuff. I suppose the greatest seismic shift that occurred for me this weekend was a radical shift in the personal geography. I guess after all this time reality caught up to me and the landscape changed. The tectonics of my personal life are forces that I try to keep stable, but sometimes a confluence of events overwhelms the berms, and I get shaken. Unfortunately, this latest earth quake, which I should have seen coming but was blissfully squatting with my head in the sand, disrupted my stability so much that I lashed out at those around me, those who were innocent and unaware, and I ended up looking like a real ass.

For those who happen to read this, take heed: keep your personal crap to yourself and don't unload on people unless they are aware and able to help. Otherwise, you end up like me, having a weekend of silent brooding and agonizing over an apology that you can't make until Monday.

And, if you're keeping score (who is?), it took me two days to reestablish the bedrock of my personal life. I feel fine, now, and actually have evaluated the past week's events as positive, life affirming steps. In the language of my students, it's all good. Now I can move forward. Now I can take that step that I've been longing to.

Not a bad weekend at all.

Errors

“A man's errors are his portals of discovery.” Joyce.

True. Very true.

September and School

We're back. It's been busy, getting acclimated to a new school year and its requisite crop of new students, new colleagues, new administrators, new challenges. It has been a rough ride so far, for a variety of reasons. So, on a Friday night with both of my daughters in the house with friends for sleepovers, I'm sitting at the dining room table blogging. But I suppose its better than sitting and waiting, staring at a phone that won't ring...

Here's a poem for the upcoming fall that is already in full swing despite the absence of calendar confirmation. Kind of a downer, but you gotta write from where you're at, right?

September

It’s all new now,
Starting over and moving on,
In the crinkled chill of fall.
And yet I can’t fight it,
The thin line between hope and
The not so hopeful is too thin,
Vibrating in the wind of
Dwindling possibilities,
Threatening to snap at
The slightest gust.
It’s all very sad, you know.
It just starts, gets warm, and
Then it sinks, frigid shadows
And shivering hollows,
The abyss of September roars
Open and I plummet,
Grasping at dreams that are
So far from here, so far from
The cool autumnal breeze that
Buffets me on this beach,
Looking out at the frothy Atlantic,
While I try to stay warm
And remember where it is I
Want to be, despite it all.
Despite it all.

I'll bounce, I always do, but for now I must be content to wait for that upturn to happen. Oh, and this isn't one of those whiny posts, either. It's a legitimate poem, so I guess I'm covered. Now if I can just get a story going I'll be really happy.

Goodbye Summer

This seemed appropriate, being the night before school starts and summer on its way out. I like Hair of the Dog's version, but it's traditional, so any number of Irish bands have covered it. Says a lot.

The Parting Glass

Of all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company.
And of all the harm that ere I've done, alas was done to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I cannot recall.
So fill me to the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.

Of all the comrades that ere I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And of all the sweethearts that ere I had , they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise while you should not,
I will gently rise and I'll softly call, "Goodnight and joy be with you all!"

Oh, if I had money enough to spend and leisure time to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in this town that sorely has my heart beguiled
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips, she alone has my heart in thrall.
So fill me to the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.

Mike D'Angelis's voice is so raspy as he finishes their set at The Parting Glass in Saratoga that the sadness and melancholy just jump out of the speaker at you. Sadness. Deep sadness. Really moving. Like summer, too, joy is so quickly spent, and leaves you waiting for it to come around again. What a great song.

Goodnight and joy be with you all.

Billy Collins- Poetry for the end of summer

Here's a poem from Billy Collins- who doesn't love Billy Collins?- found in this month's Poet's and Writers. He has another poem about a school teacher that I can't find, but when I do I will reprint it here. This one is just a classic play on language and adages, those quirky phrases that hold an ounce of truth despite sometimes being obscure. Enjoy...four more days of summer!

ADAGE, by Billy Collins

When it's late at night and branches
are banging against the windows,
you might think that love is just a matter

of leaping out of the frying pan of yourself
into the fire of someone else,
but it's a little more complicates than that.

It's more like trading the two birds
who might be hiding in that bush
for the one you are not holding in your hand.

A wise man once said that love
was like forcing a horse to drink
but then everyone stopped thinking of him as wise.

Let us be clear about something.
Love is not as simple as getting up
on the wrong side of the bed wearing the emperor's clothes.

No, it's more like the way the pen
feels after it has defeated the sword.
It's a little like the penny saved or the nine dropped
stitches.

You look at me through the halo of the last candle
and tell me love is an ill wind
that has no turning, a road that blows no good,

but I am here to remind you,
as our shadows tremble on the walls,
that love is the early bird who is better late then never.

~from Ballistics, by Billy Collins. Copyright © 2008 by Billy Collins.

The last stanza is a killer, no doubt, with the shadows trembling on the walls. Good stuff. Now if I can find the other one...

Summer Renewal and Fresh Starts

Don't you hate whiny bloggers? I have written innumerable entries (well, not really, but it seems like I keep saying it) about the need to not whine on the web, but to write, to stretch, and to explore the art of writing. And yet, the last series of entries have been that which I hate the most: whiny, snivelling, navel gazing at its worst. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish with those posts, whether self-fulfillment or self-convincing (if that's a term), but, either way, it didn't work. I'm in a new spot, I suppose, but I have lots of personal text on the web that is kind of a verbal debris field that showed how I got here. Not very cool, I must say, to open the vault for all to see, and also not cool to break my own rules about public discourse. So, a change is coming, one that has been necessary for a long time.

Summer is the time to focus on renewal, plain and simple. So this is where I turn now, back to the writing (now that I have time), and maybe to some web development. With my transition away from teaching AP English and focusing on other more technical pursuits, I have to discontinue the AP website. God knows how much I tinkered with that thing, changed it, redesigned it, tried out new code snippets, so I'm kind of sad at stopping it. It will stay up for a bit, but there will be no new assignments, no new class novels, no new extra credit. Instead, I'll be designing a new technology web site, one that will serve as a portal for me to deliver technology information to the faculty, gather interesting tech oriented articles, and generally sound the bell for movement towards 21st century skills.

So creatively I'm moving around in new directions, and, yes, the stories are still clamoring in my head. Maybe with this move I can give them some air. So what else can I say except: shut up and write.

Alone

Alone? I guess I am, which is a striking revelation for someone accustomed to believing otherwise. I know that, ever since I bought my house, it seems like I am alone, knocking about through these hallways and rooms. But I'll never stop trying to make connections. I know that I must learn to be with myself, to appreciate myself...I can do that. But there's also a point where it all has to connect. But I'm sure that there is a person out there who is willing to try to make that connection, too, someone who isn't satisfied with life in its normal, safe mode. Great risk, I know. But worth it. The alternative, of course, is to go back to how it used to be, if that's possible...but is it really an alternative worth exploring? For me, no.

I'd rather put in the effort to live the life that will make me happy than be a corpse, even if martyring my own happiness for the happiness of others was the alternative. Inherently, if I'm not happy myself, then the happiness I make for others is somewhat of a sham. Sure, everyone else feels good (I guess that part is true), but at what cost? Will my kids love me more for the lie I lead, or will they just be sad later when they realize what I gave up for them? And who is really to say that by subverting my own joy for the facade of whatever I once had that it will guarantee their acceptance, happiness, love, forgiveness? I'm banking on the fact that my kids will recognize the joy I find as a sign that I did the right thing for them, but I'm an optimist. They may just hate me for whatever ends up happening. Who knows?

I'm a big kid now (easy to say at forty), so game on.

Follow Your Dreams

So I turned 40 on Monday. Aside from the obvious metaphysical thrashing and writhing that that day held for me, and in conjunction with recent events that just seemed to materialize in front of me, I have come to the following conclusion. This is nothing new, but worth mentioning. I just don't want people to think that I'm passing this off as my own. So here it is, in all of its cliched glory:

Follow your dreams.

It's pretty simple, really. If you care enough about something to go for it (read publishing here, but it really applies to a variety of life's big and small challenges, too), I mean really go for it, then follow it to the end. Obstacles materialize, they always do, but the dream worth voicing is the dream worth going to the mat for. As far as I can see, there's nothing more crushing than getting so close to your dream that you can see it, but, because of the obstacles that are thrown in front of you, you opt to give up. Despair is such a negative, defeating emotion. It really says that all you worked so hard for was really not worth it at all- it was too hard, too sad, too exhausting.

If it is worth voicing, it was worth following to the end.

No matter how hard it all seems, the payoff is in the achieving, and, therefore, worth the risk. A friend once said that it seemed pointless to be walking around like a corpse, undead, unfeeling. Thise people never seem to go after what they want, what they dream of, and are content to live in some gray, emotionless world. I know I don't I want to be there; I'm willing to risk. But with the risk of going after the prize comes the risk of the pain- rejection, alienation, failure (the temporary kind, of course). In the end, it's all worth it. With great dreams come great risks, and the chance for great failure...

But there's also the risk of success beyond your wildest dreams.

Follow those dreams. Don't let despair weigh you down. Fight, scratch, claw, and slam your way through. It will be worth it in the end.

Happy birthday to me.

GHI Workforce Challenge

Tonight I ran my second 5k. My time is miserable, but I did manage to squeak in under my 40 year old age quite substantially at 36:50. Ran a solitary race despite the team we had present, which actually worked out all things considered. I needed the time to be alone in my ridiculous level of suffering and huffing an puffing. Now I'm tired and sore. It will, no doubt, be fun getting out of bed tomorrow!

But I finished, and that makes two years in a row. That, for me, the self proclaimed hater of running, is victory enough.

Scattered

I just bought a house. On my own. For the first time ever. I know that I have been trying to limit the personal experiences in this blog (I do hate whiny blog entries, and some of my older ones do qualify), but this is pretty huge. So I'm buying a house and moving soon and getting on track. It's all sunny and good in my life, right?

And yet I am so scattered. My head is so fragmented with personal life issues that the immensity of the move is somewhat diminished by it all. Throw in the end of the school year, worries about sumer work, the running of a summer writers institute, a frenetic softball season that won't seem to end, and all of the other flotsam and jetsam of daily living (yeah, I still need to pay my bills), and what I have on my hands is a good old fashioned maelstrom. I mean, come on, when am I supposed to find time to write? When can I outline the next collection of stories? When can I sort out what I'm really feeling now?

It's all so hard (cue the whining). I hate it when it gets this way...I get rooted in bad habits and things I know I shouldn't do. Weird.

The brightest light I have is the idea that I can write this summer. Probably never happen, but I can dream, right? And with the dream comes the unshakable idea that when I set the words in motion my life will come somewhat back in line. I know this is true because I've seen it happen in my own life before. So, as Bill Muray said, "At least I got that going for me..."

Big hitter the Lama.

Cheers to the new house and new beginnings!

Poem About Reading A Novel

This is from Tin House as well. How cool is this poem?

"Why the Novel is Necessary but Sometimes Hard to Read"
by Marie Howe

It happens in time. Years passed until the old woman,
one snowy morning, realized she had never loved her daughter...

Or Five years later she answered the front door, and her suitor had returned
almost unrecognizable from his journeys...

But before you get to that part
you have to learn the names--you have to suffer not knowing anything about anyone

and slowly come to understand who each of them is, or who each of them
imagines themselves to be--

and then, because you are the reader, you must try to understand who you think
each of them is because of who you believe yourself to be in relation to their situation
or to your memory of one very much like it.

Oh, it happens in time, and time is hard to live through.
I can't read anything anymore, my dying brother said one afternoon
Not even letters.
Come on; Come on- he said, waving his hand in the air
What am I interested in- plot?

You come upon the person the author put there
as if you'd been pushed into a room and told to watch the dancing--
pushed into pantries, into basements, across moors, into
the great drawing room of great cities, into the small cold cabin or

to here-- beside the small running river where a boy is weeping,
and no one comes...

and you have to watch without saying anything he can hear.

One by one the readers come and watch him weeping by the running river,
and he never knows

unless he too has heard the story where a boy feels himself all alone.

This is the life you have written, the novel tells us. What happens next?

© 2008 Tin House and Marie Howe (Volume 9, Number 3)

Just such a cool poem! When life gets too much, poetry comes to the rescue. I hope that Tin House and Marie Howe are OK with me reprinting here...I did it with all of the utmost respect for a fantastic poem. Such a good poem.

William T. Volman in Tin House

This bit comes from an interview with William T. Volman in the latest issue of Tin House (one of my favorite literary magazines, for those interested).

Question: When you look at yourself, do you think of yourself as an insider, or an outsider, in terms of the worlds that you go into?

Answer: I don't really think of it that way. I think we're all...alone. And all we can do is sometimes we can be alone with others and be slightly closer, and other times we can't. And sometimes people give themselves a very convincing illusion that they're not alone. And that's wonderful too-- if you believe it.

I guess I believe it. I can't believe that we're alone. From a fiction standpoint, sure, we're the alpha and the omega, crafting a world that only we control (which is really, really cool), but from a reality standpoint, I need some connections. I need to believe that somewhere there is someone who gets me, believes in me, and wants to be with me. Otherwise, it's just status quo, and that's just not what I'm looking for.

Onward we go...

Spring is in the air

Today was such a wonderful day in the Albany area! Bright sun, silky air, temps in the seventies; it's as if spring is actually here. Now I'm a seasoned upstater, having lived here my entire life, so I know not to pack away my ice scraper and snow boots, but , as an upstater, I know that we eventually reach the tipping point and glide into that most enticing of seasons. I think today was that tipping point. Just too nice out there.


I helped out at my daughter's softball league's field day, cutting and rolling sod, skinning infields, etc. I ran, too, two and a half miles on the pavement (first since my bout with a stomach bug on the first half of the vacation), which felt great. And then, as my oldest went to a movie, I took my youngest window shopping for clothes for her newly purchased "American Girl" doll (Mia, a cute 18" doll that I mercifully didn't pay for- she actually saved her money and bought it on her own). The air on the ride home was sweet and smooth, the night sky a compendium of shades and tints as the sun went down, and the crickets and peepers were out in force. A truly amazing way to end the night and the vacation.

Just a super night, a night for reflection, a night for celebration for all of those who have cause, and a night for joy and reverence. I hope that all who are out and about tonight are enjoying what seems to be a most magical night.

Well, its a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
neath the cover of october skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And Im trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the nights magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush. (Van Morrison)

Yeah, it isn't October, but the lyrics are sure great. God I love spring!

Redefining me

So one of the big questions when you write is whether or not you should try to recreate yourself if things aren't going well. I guess I'm thinking about this because things really aren't going well. I'm stuck in a bit of a rut, as I've watched my writing life come to a standstill. There are so many factors that play into this deadening of momentum, but they're boring, and probably cliche (Oh, how I hate those), so I won't go into them now. The epigraph for this blog is from Anne Tyler, and I like it, but right now I'd settle for just one life!

So should I recreate myself and try something new? Sci-Fi? Fantasy? Romance (ha! That's a good one.)? It sort of smacks of throwing in the towel, doesn't it? And I cringe at the amount of time it would take to readjust the whole mechanism of my head. I have so many story ideas that would just die the death I fear they eventually will anyway, and I don't want that to happen. I just can't see it happening. I may not have the same competitive drive I had as a college athlete, but I'm not conceding just yet.

I guess, instead of reinventing myself, I should just celebrate who I am. In the end, success comes with perseverance. It's hard, though. Some days, when all seems lost, you just have to suck it up and keep writing.

Peanut (11/90-3/08)

I said goodbye to a very good friend today.

I've written here about the grief of a pet passing, of the moment of signing the death verdict at the vet's office, and the residual grief that accompanies the last act of kindness a pet owner can do for his/her companion, so I won't rehash it now. Despite all of what I've written and felt, though, it doesn't get any easier.

He was old. Seventeen and a half years old, which is pretty good for a housecat who started life on the streets. My wife saved him, actually wrestled him out of the arms of another potential owner, and the joy he gave us was perhaps his way of saying thanks. He lived through six apartments and houses, outlived two of our three other pets, and never once scratched or bit. He was there for the birth of both of my kids, tolerated them with saintly grace, and never once failed to get the occasional mouse that wandered into either of our houses. He sat with us when we were sad, entertained us with numerous rounds of "night crazies," and gave as much affection as he could. He was a prince. And I will miss him.

I think I'll miss him more for what he said about me as a male in the house, since it was always him and I representing the gender in a house full of females. He taught me about patience and dignity, about caring for others and putting up with the capricious nature of life. He taught me how to defend my family ( a funny story for another time) and how to be reflective and calm. His last lesson was about dying. As I held him and we both waited for the sedative to take hold, he purred and snuggled up against me. And, as he faded away, he gently put his head against my arm and sort of breathed a big sigh, almost of relief (at least I'd like to think it was that). He was stoic until the end, this gentle giant who had withered away to almost nothing, and I had to think that over the last few months there was more grace in him than in lots of people I know who suffer with much less.

I had joked for awhile that I hoped to emulate my old friend when I was his age (in human years), as he simply slept all day and had people feed him and clean up after him (as well as clean him), and now I feel that even more. It must have been hell for him to not be able to do what he had always done, to let his once meticulously cleaned body fall into a smelly mess of cat litter and dread locks, yet he bore whatever ill came to him with style and poise. I hope that I have as much class.

I know this is another sad pet story, but I have absolutely no choice. He was there for my family from the start, and for that I am grateful. We all need to have that kind of love in our lives, and I was lucky for his. So I have to write this, I just have to.

I owe him this much.

Slumping? or the Sixth Rule

Well, it has been over a month and a half since the last post, truth be told it's closer to two months, in which I outlined a rather elaborate five point plan for writing. I ended with a Gaping Void comic that posits the challenge "You are either a poet or a corpse." You can see it right below this post. If that is my mantra, and I suppose in some ways it is, then I have been very corpse-like as of late. The best laid plans, etc.

That said, I haven't really been slumping. I have been gathering notes for two, count them two, stories, both of which will factor prominently in the collection that I am putting together. One of the two stories, in fact, will serve as the title story and the other is central to the thematic development I hope to establish within the collection. So I don't feel too out of sorts, I guess.

But the post is still there...taunting me. Which leads me to add on to the five rules I developed in that last post. The sixth rule must be this: cut yourself some slack. Writing is, of course, an active verb, and I would almost whole-heartedly agree that the only way to get better at the craft is by actually practicing it. But, and I've known this forever because my college mentor, Hollis Seamon, used to tell me in every one of the three fiction writing classes I took with her, writing can occur when your brain is just processing information. You almost have to let the experience fit its way into the structure of your memories, the syntax of your life, in order to utilize it in your work. I know it sounds kind of like a cop out, but it really isn't, and it's one thing I hope my students- the serious ones who want to become writers one day- get as they write.

So give yourself some rope, cut yourself some slack, allow yourself some room (and whatever other cliche you want to add (and yes, I do argue against cliche in class, but it works here), and just relax. Rule number six will save you from excessive depression as you write. And that is often the biggest thing you can hope for as a writer.

Five Rules of Writing: A New Year's Resolution

I don't believe in resolutions, especially around the New Years' holidays. I guess I have always felt that if I wanted to get something done, I would have the discipline to get it done. No questions asked. The notion of an artificial "rule" driving the creative process seemed foolish to me, yet, when I was a younger, more idealistic writer, writing a story meant living in the moment and just getting it done. Stories often took eight to twelve hours to get started, and even then they weren't done. I would have to go back to the text multiple times, multiple sessions to get the story done, and those sessions usually fell in rapid succession. So resolutions weren't really necessary.

Over time, though, the writing changed. With jobs, kids, and responsibilities came a more restricted schedule, and fewer opportunities to sit for marathon writing sessions. Stories came in numerous short bursts over time, and they took longer to finish. And fewer came. So this is where I am, on New Year's Day, contemplating making a resolution to write more. But if I'm going to do it, I know myself well enough to know that I have to have some guidelines that will help me approach the projects ahead without crashing and burning in frustration. So to that end I will share my five rules for writing (ones that I hope I can follow!).

1. Just Do It. Thank you, Nike, for the slogan; yeah, I ripped it off, but it works. It has been my experience that thinking about writing is the surest way to guarantee that I won't write at all. Like grading papers (pretty odious for all us teachers), writing requires focus and intensity, and, despite that I absolutely love it when I'm doing it (in fact, it is a pretty essential part of who I am), overcoming the inertia to actually do it can be mind boggling. So this is where the tag line comes into play: whether in a notebook, or macbook, just get the words flowing. Natalie Goldberg's theory about writing practice comes in here. Once you just start, all of the junk that is blocking the deep thoughts will open up. And in order to do that....

2. Schedule writing time. Leaving my writing up to fate has always been a recipe for disaster. I know myself well enough to know that if I wait, it won't happen. So I will have to schedule a time, probably later at night (my mornings are crazy enough). I will start with a brief time, probably thirty minutes, but I can see it expanding. Toni Morrison wrote her first few novels after her kids went to bed, toiling away all night and getting scant hours of sleep. Will I become an insomniac? Not likely. But I will start and try to stay on schedule.

3. Set realistic goals. One issue I have is with setting the bar too high and falling short. Once that happens, I can kiss the story goodbye. This one ties in to the writing time goal: start with small, digestible pieces and keep working. Thirty minutes of writing is workable, three hours is unrealistic. Goals change, of course, but start small and be consistent.

4. KISS. Keep it simple, not the rock band. Sure I want to write a novel, and really do feel that one day I will, but if I try to tackle it all in one session, I'm setting myself up to fail. Instead, I'm going after one story at a time. I may even outline a few new stories, or try to tweak some old ones, but nothing bigger yet. Over time, I may try to work up the steam to do the National Novel Writing Month project, as I've written about here, but not now. Keep it simple, don't overshoot, and I should be fine. And lastly...

5. Sin Boldly. I ripped this title off from a writing text that I picked up on vacation many years ago, and can be found here, but that book was about writing term papers. I like the idea, though, for fiction. Don't be afraid. Go places that make you nervous. Write about things that make you squirm. This is hard for us all, but worth doing. Some writers will say that you can never write truly until your parents die, but I think that's a fallacy. Embrace your sins, delve into your psyche, and go. That's what I plan on doing. Cathartic? Hopefully. Will there be good material there? I'll never know until I try.



The comic here from Gaping Void says it all...





Happy New Year! I'm off to write!