Tag Archives: writer

Teach it

Permission to Create

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I love my job.

I have been teaching for 12 years now, and while one some levels that is unbelievable, on others it feels almost as natural as breathing to me. I know that sounds really silly and maybe a bit cliche, but I was born to teach—in the classroom or in life, I can’t seem to help myself; if there is a lesson to be learned, I will try to teach it to you.

Whether you want me to or not.

So when I found out I would be teaching creative writing at my school this year, it was like being handed a beautiful gift. One that I treasured every single day since January.

Now don’t get me wrong, like all classes we had our ups and we had our downs, but giving students permission to be creative, unique and innovative in a world where standardization just about beats it out of them was refreshing for both me and my students.

Because the truth is, when we are kids we feel like creativity is our right, but as we get older it is almost as if we have to apologize for thinking outside that box.

That’s sad.

But when we are given permission to create, to think with our own minds, and to really explore what makes us passionate and excited…that’s when magic happens.

And magic happened this year, my friends.

At the end of the course…

  1. Students fell in love with writing
  2. Students found confidence in their own minds
  3. Students learned to give and receive feedback
  4. Students collaborated and encouraged one another
  5. Students became authors, and published a 250 page anthology of original works.
  6. Students became dreamers and learned to both build up AND compete with one another (well…this is a lesson we are still learning. It’s high school, after all).
  7. Audience, purpose, and tone became real as students understood for whom they were writing actually mattered in how they were going to market and sell their products.
  8. Students became teachers, and took me along for a pretty wild ride.

I have published two books myself now, and I am incredibly proud to have accomplished that goal, but I’m not sure that matches the feeling of having put together the amazing anthology for my students and watching them become excited about this journey we took together.

And that’s how I know I don’t just teach, I am a teacher.

So, I give you permission to create. Sculpt something, draw something, sing something, write something.

Because I believe in magic.

Do you?

Character, Learn it

I’m Not a Romantic…

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I have never been a romantic. And yes, I know the irony of that. I write romantic novels, but I’m not the “lovey dovey, heads in the clouds, let’s kill ourselves if we can’t have one another” kind of person. To me that is not romance. That’s stupidity.

So maybe I should say I’m not what the world would call a romantic. Because Romeo and Juliet makes me want to throw up. That my friends, is not romantic. I’m reading it with my 9th graders now, because you know, it’s part of the curriculum. But DUDE, the more I read it the more I wondimageer why we consider that romantic. Let’s take another look at that balcony scene shall we?

Romeo and Juliet just met, for the first time, that night a party Romeo crashes—which by the way he only does so because he’s looking for some other hot chick he thinks he’s in love with. Talk about flaky. He kisses Juliet, runs off and then goes and hangs out under her balcony in the middle of the night eavesdropping on her private thoughts while she’s in her nightgown. While on earth does this girl not go screaming in the other direction? That is not romantic. That is creepy stalker serial killer material there.
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I think people confuse romance with infatuation and lust. It’s just not the same thing. That’s why “romance novels” get such a bad rap. If you write romances then all you are writing about is sex and infatuation. But it shouldn’t be because that’s not what romance is—it’s certainly not what the Romantics of the early 19th century believed. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelly, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne—these romantics were rebelling against the Age of Reason and elevating the idealism, imagination and emotion. It was more about  being an individual and thinking outside the box than it was about lust and sex.

And that’s what true Romance is.

It’s the man who tells the woman she’s beautiful when she is losing her hair because of a sickeningly and shockingly aggressive form of cancer—and he means it.

It’s the woman who comes home from her job and cooks a meal that is both healthy and hearty for her husband because she knows he loves meat, but she wants to keep him healthy for their family—even though she’s exhausted having worked all day she still puts her energy into making him happy.

It’s the mother who quits the job she loves to take care of the kids she adores for the husband she’s committed to.

It’s the boyfriend who holds her hair when she’s sick, and brings her soup…a cleans it up when she throws that up too.

It’s the messy stuff that holds a relationship together that makes something truly romantic. Helping someone understand that they don’t have to be perfect and understanding that you have to give a lot of yourself to get anything in return.

So no, I’m not a romantic. I’m realistic. Because when a relationship is real. That’s when it’s good.

Write it

Declare

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As a part of a 15 day challenge I found on this website http://goinswriter.com/great-writers/. I am officially starting day 1.

DECLARE

Let me start by reflecting on the importance of declarations. To declare something means that you make it public, but you do so in a strong, impervious, confident way. In 1776 a group of men, rebels, got together on a spit of land that was savage and wild and they decided to hell with the rules and regulations they’d been following according to the government they’d known their entire lives. They were tired of maltreatment (ironically since they weren’t exactly treating everyone equally, but that’s another blog post in itself) so the DECLARED their independence. This was a ballsy move. It was treason. Had they lost the war, this declaration with their names so clearly written and penned on this official document, publicized for the world and specifically for their King to see, would have gotten them killed in a horrific many (drawn and quartered…entrails cut out… the whole nine yards!). My point? Declarations are a serious business.

So, when I read that the first step to “15 Habits of Effective Writers” according to this website is “Declare” I do feel some sort of connection between my own experience and this advice.

I’ve been writing my entire life and throughout this time I’ve been praised for my talent and for my creativity. I enjoyed writing and took every chance that was thrown my way to practice the craft. I wrote short stories when I was little. I wrote two hundred pages of a novel when I was in middle school before my floppy disk (yes, a floppy disk) was destroyed by kool-aid and the hard drive burned out in our old computer in the same week–destroyed, but not forgotten. But it was always something I did, it was never who I was.

Oddly, that wasn’t the case with my career. If someone asked me what I do, my immediate response is: I am a teacher. I don’t say “I teach” I say “I am a teacher”. Because I am. I spent a lot of time becoming a teacher and it is a part of who I am inside and out. It is second nature to claim the title. It’s not what I do, it is who I am.

With a little prodding from friends and family this past year I came to realize that writing is no different. It is a part of me, and published or not, I AM A WRITER. I made this declaration several months ago, but I make it again now as a part of this challenge and as a challenge to anyone out there who may be searching for something to declare. Find out who you are. Don’t just do it, but be it and declare it. Own it, because you will start living your life in a completely different way the more you come to understand who you are, not just what you do.