[Just go back and read the other posts if you haven't done so already and you want to know what's going on.]
High school didn't get better. It almost did, but, then, it just didn't.
The first problem was that taking drama as a class was not like working on a production. Working on a production, while fun, had a purpose. There was a goal, something everyone was working toward and, while there were production aspects of drama class (they had to perform short one-acts at the end of the school year), mostly it was just playing games. So it was fun, but it had no purpose. It got boring.
Because he got into the arts program through drama, he was required to take two periods of it a day, and he couldn't drop it without dropping the whole program and leaving the school. Not that there were any thoughts of that, because we didn't know drama was an issue.
No, the thing that came up first was English. I got an email from his freshman English teacher telling me that they had had an in-class essay to write as part of a test and that Phillip had sat and stared at his blank paper through the whole class and not written anything. She went on to tell me that she should have contacted me sooner because Phillip had been having some issues for a while, mostly that he seemed disinterested in the class and, therefore, was not participating. He was not passing, especially with the blank essay. This was an honors class, and her suggestion was that we move him into the "academic" class because, obviously, he was not capable of performing in the honors class.
The problem here was that she also had never addressed the issue with my son. She had not ever once said to him, "Hey, what's up? I'm noticing that you're not turning in any work. Is there anything going on or anything I can help you with?" No, her first response, her belated response to the situation, was to contact me and tell me that my son was not cut out for her class. (More on that in a moment.)
Now, we already knew that Phillip was having an issue with timed writing assignments. That had been something that had started during 7th grade. It's just not the way he works. (It's also not the way I work, either, but, then, I never had to write any timed essays when I was in middle school. Or, for that matter, much in high school, either. Essay questions are one thing, but the idea of sitting down and writing an essay on a topic in 45 minutes is something else entirely.) I mentioned previously that he's a perfectionist, so he has to work out the whole paper in his head beforehand. I have literally watched him stare at blank paper for six hours then write the entire three-page assignment in less than 30 minutes. Asking him to sit down and write an essay RIGHT NOW is about the same as throwing him off of a building and telling him to fly. The same kind of panic takes over his mind and, rather than being to figure out what to write, he's consumed by the ground rushing at his face.
When this started happening in middle school, he had a teacher who cared about his success as a person, not about the success of her class; and she worked with him to find alternate solutions for timed essays.
[I want to point out here that the idea of timed essays as preparing you for life or your career is bullshit. There is no time in your life after you get out of school that you will be asked to sit down and write an essay, timed or not. Sure, there are some careers that require writing at a high level, but it's not essay writing. The essay is a very specific form of writing that is almost exclusively used within the boundaries of school. And, while there are deadlines for the things you may need to write, none of those are SIT DOWN AND WRITE THIS RIGHT NOW kind of things.]
His freshman English teacher was not interested in working with him to find any solution other than him sitting down and writing the in-class essay. "Get with the system."
We had a conference -- the teacher, my son, his counselor, my wife and I -- wherein we worked out some strategies, within the system, for my son to use to find some success in his English class. And in his Algebra 2 class, as it turned out, which wasn't going as poorly as his English class, but it wasn't going at the level of his ability, either (the math issue was completely around the issue of homework (have I mentioned how much I hate homework? (but you can't pass a class with As on all of your tests if you aren't turning in the homework (which is RIDICULOUS)))).
I learned some things about his teacher during that conference including why she had never spoken to my son about the fact that he wasn't participating in the class or turning in his work. During the conference, his English teacher never once looked at anyone, either when she spoke or when anyone else spoke. She kept her eyes focused off at the floor to her left. Every once in a while, she would flick her eyes up at the group, but she was completely unable to make actual eye contact with anyone. It was disconcerting, to say the least. And off putting. Her level of introversion made me wonder how she was able to teach at all, but, also, made it obvious as to why she had never spoken to my son one-on-one. She was incapable of it. In effect, he was being punished for her inability.
The other thing that became obvious was that his teacher still didn't believe he belonged in her class. She expressed some vague belief that he couldn't write and that he should be in a class, i.e., the "academic" class, where writing wasn't required. I told her that she only thought that because she hadn't read anything that he'd written. She, basically, blew me off when I said that. It wasn't quite a "yeah, whatever," but it was close enough.
However, the next unit they were doing was fiction writing, and they were required to write a short story for that. That's my son's area of expertise, so to speak. I got an email from his teacher after she read his story, read it during class while the students were doing something else, letting me know that she had burst out into laughter during class while reading it, something that never happens with her. She apologized to me and told me that I was correct in my assessment of my son and his abilities. Not so amazingly, the relationship between my son and his teacher got better after that.
I think, in the end, that that is what made the difference, her view of him. Once she offered him some amount of respect and appreciation, he was able to come around and perform in the class, and that affected all of his school life. Of course, he was also following all of the strategies he had been given, so I missed the importance of what happened with the teacher. I think we all did, including my son. We chalked it up to him doing the things he was supposed to be doing. Not only did he make it through his freshman year, but he made honor roll. We thought we had it all figured out...
That is until he started his sophomore year, the school year that is, as I write this, just now drawing to a close.
For an example of my son's writing, you can visit this post. He wrote the short story "Into the Trench" when he was 10, and it was that story that initially alerted me to his ability. At the end of this series, if my son is agreeable, I will post the story he wrote for his freshman English class.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Monday, July 4, 2016
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Peer Editing (or Teaching Kids To Fail) (an IWSG post)
Back around the beginning of December, my younger son had his first fiction writing assignment in his freshman English class. As I've mentioned before, my son is an excellent writer. He is so far beyond where I was at his age, there's no way to make a good comparison. The story he wrote is very good, and I will be making it available at some point. It was so good, in fact, that his teacher emailed me to let me know how good it is, so good that she caused a disruption during class while reading it. Because she was laughing her ass off.
[heh heh I said "ass."]
All of that is well and good. The issue came after they turned in the first draft. After the first draft came the peer editing process. I have never been fond of peer editing; my oldest had to do a lot of this when he was in high school, but he was the one that everyone wanted to edit their papers. [Do you see a trend here?] He would mention it every now and then, but it was never an issue for him. However, what happened with my younger son is an excellent example of why peer editing should never be used. Not in school and, well, not anywhere.
So my son wrote his story and turned it in, then it was passed through the hands of several of his classmates for editing. It came back with tons of corrections. I mean the paper was all marked up. And this caused a problem.
See, my son was pretty sure he didn't have any errors, even though he hadn't given it to me to proof before he turned it in. His marked up paper filled him with doubt. It made him question what he knew.
He brought it home and gave it to me and told me, "I didn't think I had any mistakes but, now, I don't know." He asked me some specific questions about punctuation, because more than one person had made the same comma "correction." One person accused him of using too many "run on" and "long" sentences, because, the person said, sentences should be short. I agreed to look the story over for him so that he would know which "corrections" to respond to.
As it turned out, the number of corrections he needed to respond to was... zero. ZERO. Every correction made to his story was incorrect. I told him to ignore them all and turn the final draft in exactly as it had been. His grade was 50/50 turning in the paper as it had been before his peers got a hold of it. His teacher wrote "flawless" along with the grade.
There are a few things here that need to be pointed out:
1. My son knew what he was doing. He knew he knew what he was doing. But, still, when his paper came back from his peers, it filled him with doubt about what he knew he knew. That's not a good thing. If my son, who is very competent, doubted himself, how do you think other students who are not very competent responded?
2. In relation to point 1, this kind of "editing" can cause students to unlearn things that are correct. It can convince them that they were incorrect about things which were actually correct and cause them to change to some incorrect method, like putting all the commas after the conjunction in a sentence rather than before it (a very common "correction" on my son's story).
3. Every time a student makes an incorrect "correction" on someone else's paper, it reinforces that incorrect behavior. Each time that student moves the comma to the wrong place, it ingrains that process just a little deeper. Kind of like muscle memory. It's much more difficult to re-learn something like that once you've been doing it a lot rather than just learning it correctly the first time. Don't give students a chance to reinforce bad grammar/punctuation habits; they make enough of those on their own.
The whole peer editing process being used in schools is a bad joke, and teachers should quit telling it.
I want to point out that the critique partner process is the same thing as peer editing. Almost always, the assertion, "I have great critique partners," means, "My peer editors add mistakes to my manuscript!" What makes me say this? Well, the fact that so many indie authors who use CPs to help them edit their books send their works out full of grammar and punctuation lice. Yeah, lice, because that's what it's like. One person's mistakes jumping over to some other person's manuscript because neither person is competent with grammar.
Sorry, it's just the truth.
More heads do NOT result in a better product. They result in a gradual degradation of your first product as you incorporate everyone else's mistakes into your manuscript. Basically, a grammar lice outbreak.
Look. I get it. Editing is tough. Good editing is even more tough, and it's difficult to find at a reasonable price. Beyond that, most of the editors out there aren't any better than having a CP. Too many of them are "editing" because they read a lot. Seriously. I have seen so many people (book bloggers, especially) who, because they find "mistakes" in the indie books they are reading, think that makes them qualified to be an editor. It does not.
So what do you do, then?
There's not really a good answer to that other than to find ONE person who is better at copy-editing than you and trust that one person with your manuscript. At least, that way, you only have the potential for one person's errors in your final product. Or, maybe, you'll find someone really good, and it will end up "flawless" like my son's short story. (If you want, I'll ask him if he's taking anyone, right now.)
Actually, ideally, you would set to work learning grammar and punctuation yourself and develop your own style with it that fits your writing. That's what's most important, especially if you're an indie author. Even if not all of the grammar and punctuation isn't technically correct, if the style fits you're writing, it doesn't matter.
can you imagine what it would be like if e e cummings had followed the rules?
[heh heh I said "ass."]
All of that is well and good. The issue came after they turned in the first draft. After the first draft came the peer editing process. I have never been fond of peer editing; my oldest had to do a lot of this when he was in high school, but he was the one that everyone wanted to edit their papers. [Do you see a trend here?] He would mention it every now and then, but it was never an issue for him. However, what happened with my younger son is an excellent example of why peer editing should never be used. Not in school and, well, not anywhere.
So my son wrote his story and turned it in, then it was passed through the hands of several of his classmates for editing. It came back with tons of corrections. I mean the paper was all marked up. And this caused a problem.
See, my son was pretty sure he didn't have any errors, even though he hadn't given it to me to proof before he turned it in. His marked up paper filled him with doubt. It made him question what he knew.
He brought it home and gave it to me and told me, "I didn't think I had any mistakes but, now, I don't know." He asked me some specific questions about punctuation, because more than one person had made the same comma "correction." One person accused him of using too many "run on" and "long" sentences, because, the person said, sentences should be short. I agreed to look the story over for him so that he would know which "corrections" to respond to.
As it turned out, the number of corrections he needed to respond to was... zero. ZERO. Every correction made to his story was incorrect. I told him to ignore them all and turn the final draft in exactly as it had been. His grade was 50/50 turning in the paper as it had been before his peers got a hold of it. His teacher wrote "flawless" along with the grade.
There are a few things here that need to be pointed out:
1. My son knew what he was doing. He knew he knew what he was doing. But, still, when his paper came back from his peers, it filled him with doubt about what he knew he knew. That's not a good thing. If my son, who is very competent, doubted himself, how do you think other students who are not very competent responded?
2. In relation to point 1, this kind of "editing" can cause students to unlearn things that are correct. It can convince them that they were incorrect about things which were actually correct and cause them to change to some incorrect method, like putting all the commas after the conjunction in a sentence rather than before it (a very common "correction" on my son's story).
3. Every time a student makes an incorrect "correction" on someone else's paper, it reinforces that incorrect behavior. Each time that student moves the comma to the wrong place, it ingrains that process just a little deeper. Kind of like muscle memory. It's much more difficult to re-learn something like that once you've been doing it a lot rather than just learning it correctly the first time. Don't give students a chance to reinforce bad grammar/punctuation habits; they make enough of those on their own.
The whole peer editing process being used in schools is a bad joke, and teachers should quit telling it.
I want to point out that the critique partner process is the same thing as peer editing. Almost always, the assertion, "I have great critique partners," means, "My peer editors add mistakes to my manuscript!" What makes me say this? Well, the fact that so many indie authors who use CPs to help them edit their books send their works out full of grammar and punctuation lice. Yeah, lice, because that's what it's like. One person's mistakes jumping over to some other person's manuscript because neither person is competent with grammar.
Sorry, it's just the truth.
More heads do NOT result in a better product. They result in a gradual degradation of your first product as you incorporate everyone else's mistakes into your manuscript. Basically, a grammar lice outbreak.
Look. I get it. Editing is tough. Good editing is even more tough, and it's difficult to find at a reasonable price. Beyond that, most of the editors out there aren't any better than having a CP. Too many of them are "editing" because they read a lot. Seriously. I have seen so many people (book bloggers, especially) who, because they find "mistakes" in the indie books they are reading, think that makes them qualified to be an editor. It does not.
So what do you do, then?
There's not really a good answer to that other than to find ONE person who is better at copy-editing than you and trust that one person with your manuscript. At least, that way, you only have the potential for one person's errors in your final product. Or, maybe, you'll find someone really good, and it will end up "flawless" like my son's short story. (If you want, I'll ask him if he's taking anyone, right now.)
Actually, ideally, you would set to work learning grammar and punctuation yourself and develop your own style with it that fits your writing. That's what's most important, especially if you're an indie author. Even if not all of the grammar and punctuation isn't technically correct, if the style fits you're writing, it doesn't matter.
can you imagine what it would be like if e e cummings had followed the rules?
his style was what defined him
however, i'm sure he knew the rules even though he didn't follow them
why do i know that?
because he broke the rule consistently in the same way
All of that to say:
Stop submitting your work to your "peers." By the definition of peers, these are people who are no more qualified than you to do the job that you are asking of them. Learn the rules for yourself, then you can know how and when to break them.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Road to Fiction (an IWM post)
I was asked an interesting question recently. I like interesting questions; they make you think. Well, they make me think. I don't actually know about you. I don't actually even know if you do think, because so many people don't, though I like to think that if you're reading this blog then you're a thinker, so we'll just go with that.
Anyway...
The question was, "How do you write fiction?" Let me clarify that. I get the question, "How do you write?" a lot, but I've never had the question, "How do you write fiction?" Her contention was that writing non-fiction is easy; it just requires a bit of research and putting it together in a way that's easy for the reader to take in. But she didn't know how to go about writing fiction.
Anyway...
The question was, "How do you write fiction?" Let me clarify that. I get the question, "How do you write?" a lot, but I've never had the question, "How do you write fiction?" Her contention was that writing non-fiction is easy; it just requires a bit of research and putting it together in a way that's easy for the reader to take in. But she didn't know how to go about writing fiction.
* * *
I'm sure at least some of you have guessed that you need to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly to find out where "The Road to Fiction" leads.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
A to Z Flashback: 2012 -- Fiction to Reality
This year, 2014, is my third "A to Z," which would make 2012 my first one. There are a lot of you around these days that weren't around back then, so I thought -- Okay, actually, my wife thought. She said to me, "Since everyone seems to really like your theme this year (which, again, was her idea),you should do a post highlighting your previous A to Z themes." Which, um, were also her ideas. Yeah, she throws ideas at me all the time; some of them stick. -- I would drop an extra (Sunday) post in case any of you are interested in seeing what I've done before. So start at the beginning, right?
Well, not that beginning... that's too far back. Just the beginning of my participation in "A to Z," which was this:
Well, not that beginning... that's too far back. Just the beginning of my participation in "A to Z," which was this:
See, there's a link there, so you can go read the intro post if you want to. And here's a list of the topics I covered of things that started out as fiction, started out in some author's mind, made its way onto some paper, worked its way into some reader's mind where it poked and nudged until that person made that thing, that thing that was just made up by someone, into something that is real, something that works, and, often, something that has changed the world. There're all linked, so, if you see one you think you want to know about, you can just go directly to that one without having to wade through all 26. But, you know, if you want to wade through, or swim in, all 26, feel free to do that, too. Oh, and don't be shy about commenting on any of the old posts if you feel so lead. It's not like commenting expires or anything.
C -- Cyborgs
D -- Driverless Cars
E -- Exo-suits
F -- Flying Cars
G -- Genetic Engineering
J -- Jekyll and Hyde
K -- Klingon
L -- Lasers
M -- Moon Landing
N -- Nanotechnology
O -- Opton
P -- Platforms
R -- Robots and Androids
U -- Ultraphone Ear-Disc
V -- Virtual Reality
W -- Wonka
X -- Xenobiology
NOTE: I did eventually read Snow Crash, prompted by how often it came up while doing research for this series, and I would never recommend it to anyone. You can read my review here.
Monday, October 29, 2012
NaNo: The Crazy Idea That Got Away
[Note: As I mentioned some time in the recent past (I don't feel like trying to figure out which post that was, right now), my wife is doing NaNo this year. It was kind of a spontaneous decision, but, then, that's how she often does things, and the best way to deal with that is to grab on and go along for the ride. To put it in writing terms, she would be the pantser of the family while I'm the plotter. Except that that's not quite true, but that's how it often feels and, probably, looks from the outside. At any rate, her decision to do NaNo was... well, I'll let her tell you about it in her own words.]
So I got a Kindle Fire for my birthday earlier this month. This was a
present from my most excellent husband (the owner of this blog) and our kids.
Some things to know about me and Andrew: We're not early adopters, ever; I'm
actually kind of a Luddite (despite being a data analyst for a large corporation
by trade); and we both grew up reading copious quantities of physical books.
Thus this gifting of an electronic device on which books can be read is a big
leap for us. But he made the leap, I think, because he's got a wife who does
love to read and he just thought it would be nifty; also because after 15 years
together he's still not really sure what kind of jewelry I like. [Actually, I wanted to get her something that she would use and enjoy on a continuous basis, and, as much as my wife likes the idea of jewelry, she rarely wears it. And she's always complaining about how the books I want to keep take up too much space, which is a valid argument for the size house we live in.]
I was both thrilled and intimidated by this gift. Thrilled because it's for
books! and intimidated because, it seems, you can do a lot of other stuff with
this device, like play games. Or surf the web. Or check email. Or...I'm not
sure, it may even have a ray gun inside it somewhere. And I sort of hate to
figure out new devices and how to use them (see Luddite, above) and determine
how much money they will cost me in an ongoing sense. (Though I admit that
having a portable ray gun would probably be really handy, but I bet the per-ray
charges are insane.)
After my initial moment of "whoa, what," I did do some exploring and found
out a fabulous fact: Our local library system does e-book lending, and it's
nearly as easy to do as just surfing Amazon and one-clicking on whatever you
like (after you physically visit the library, pay your late-book fines, renew
your card, and spend a couple hours surfing the library website looking for ANY
e-book that isn't already checked out).
So yeah, after one-clicking, I ended up with a book titled No Plot? No
Problem! by Chris Baty. There's very little explanation for why I checked this
book out, other than the fact that out of 1000 or so e-book titles in the
library this was almost the only thing that even remotely appealed to me and was
immediately available. (Seriously, I would have even checked out 50 Shades of
Gray, but it was checked out AND had a wait list of 40+.) I wanted some instant
gratification on my new e-book mechanism, and this was it.
Let me be very clear at this point: I did not check this book out because I
seriously thought I wanted to write a novel. Ever. Especially not during
NaNoWriMo this year.
See, this is a substantial difference between Andrew and me. He has always
wanted to write fiction, and I have always known that I do not and will not
write fiction. That's not to say that I'm not a writer and not a good one,
because I actually am. In college I could easily write a substantial paper
overnight, without revisions, and get a B or higher. (The fact that I could
usually get away with such terrible procrastination is why my overall GPA wasn't
generally great.) But nearly all my writing has been done in the service of
completing school and then being competent at my job. (You wouldn't think that
the job of data analyst requires good writing skills but it actually does. No
one's better at a bullet-pointed list than I am.) I've never taken a class in
creative writing, and I didn't study more literature in school than I was
strictly required to do.
I started to read the book and it turns out the story of NaNoWriMo--that
is, the history--really drew me in. Basically it started out as a ridiculous
thing for a group of friends to do. No one thought that works of great genius or
amazing craft would be turned out; rather, it was a crazy creative thing to do
for the hell of it, together. It sounded like a lot of fun. [It also wasn't originally in November, which I found interesting, and none of thought that it would become what it has. I mean, they weren't thinking about the future of it at all. It was a "let's do this right now kind of thing that became a tradition and then became a THING.]
After the history of NaNoWriMo, the rest of the book was mostly about
the hows of accomplishing such a ludicrous, wild goal in the space of a month.
Which, to boil it down, is "keep going and don't stop." (Now you don't have to
read the book, but it's actually a pretty entertaining and quick read and
possibly helpful to anyone who struggles with their Inner Editor or with writing
paralysis.) Chris Baty managed to make the task sound like something which
even I, the non-writer-of-fiction, am up to.
The upshot of it is that somewhere in the pages of the book I became
convinced that I might as well try to write a novel. I do have a lot of story
ideas in my head. I don't know whether they are good story ideas, but according
to Baty that doesn't really matter; it's OK to write un-original crapola and
it's OK to not care about "getting published." It's OK to write pulp fiction
with no redeeming social value or great-novel aspirations. It's even OK to suck
at spelling and grammar, at least for this first draft. (Spelling and grammar
are a couple of things I un-suck at with writing; however, I'm also aware that
they don't encompass fiction writing. And I managed to misspell grammar both
times I typed it just now, of course.)
So yeah, I haven't ever written any fiction, but I have these things going
for me:
-- I am a well-educated and thoughtful fan of sci-fi so I can probably not
hack it up too badly. That is to say, I can do better than Galaxy Quest levels
of science and there will be no chompy-crushy things in the middle of my space
ship.
-- I write extremely quickly.
-- Spelling and grammar are not an issue for me.
Oh, I guess I should say I'll be writing a sci-fi novel. I was planning on
writing something that could be described as "dystopian near-future sci-fi"
(nothing like Hunger Games, okay), but yesterday I decided to switch to
something different. A new idea, just because it feels more fun. And Baty's
advice in No Plot was to write something I'd enjoy writing, so I'll be going for
something more space-opera. I'm tentatively calling it All Suns Go Dark. (That
probably should have been "tentatively titling." I told you I'm no
author.)
Wish me luck. I'll update in the middle of the month if Andrew lets me and
I haven't thrown in the writing towel by then. Anyone else doing NaNo or
something equally ridiculous right now?
[I do want to say that I have been trying to get her to write something for years. She does have good stories, and I envy her ability to write quickly, a skill I do not have. Assuming she is still working on this, there will be an update in the middle of November sometime.]
Monday, August 6, 2012
Gender Shift in Reading
Over the last few decades, something has happened to the reading world. Some people probably think it's about time and, in some ways, that's true; however, that doesn't make it a good thing. Maybe it's a necessary thing; I don't know.
Historically, reading (and writing) has been a man's game. Like so many things, reading was for men and writing was done by men, and that's all there was to it. Part of that is because education was for men. Sure, girls got some basic education, but higher education was for men, and, therefore, writing was done by men. This is not to say that there were not exceptions, like the Bronte sisters, but, by and large, it was all for men by men. Even Frankenstein was somewhat of a fluke, because what Mary really did was manage Percy's career, so to speak. She was never trying to be a writer; she just ended up writing that one, excellent novel.
Then the 20th century came along and equal rights for women and everything began to change. Not noticeably at first, but most changes don't happen all at once; they happen by degrees, and you don't notice them until you've been boiled like a frog. Which is not to say that I think we have been boiled like frogs, except, maybe, men have been boiled like frogs with these current changes.
I'm not going to go tracing back through all of what I think brought us to where we are. There are really only two important things of note:
1. Women began to realize that they could write, so they did. Mostly under male sounding pen names, at first, or using their initials. This is still somewhat true today in the midst of our female-centric writing world. Note J.K. Rowling, because the publisher didn't want to scare away male readers.
2. Because women began writing (women like Judy Blume), girls began reading. Not that girls hadn't read prior to that, but the ones that did read read the same stuff aimed at male readers. When women began writing, they began, more and more, to gear their writing to female readers, so girls started reading more.
From that point on, it became a cycle rather in the same sort of way that a hurricane starts, and, so, now, we are in the midst of a storm of women writers and girl readers. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem at all with women writing and girls reading; I'm all for it, in fact. The problem, though, is that boys have quit reading because of all of this. In effect, reading has become a woman's game, and men don't want to play anymore.
Of course, culturally, we want to blame it on the boys. As if it has always been a problem getting boys to read, but that's just not true. I don't have any statistics for you (because, frankly, I couldn't find anything that appeared even remotely reliable (everything seemed geared toward proving whatever the author of whatever study wanted to prove with the study)), but there are a few things that were consistent among several reports:
1. Girls (traditionally and currently) begin reading fiction at an earlier age. In fact, girls begin reading by reading fiction.
2. Boys (traditionally and currently) begin reading non-fiction. (This was certainly true for me. I started out reading about things I was interested in: dinosaurs, astronomy, historical figures.)
3. Traditionally, girls' interest in reading would taper off as they got older and interested in whatever it used to be that got girls got interested in. That's where the stereotype of the nerdy girl that read all the time came from; it used to be weird for a teenage girl to be interested in reading. Not so anymore. It's rather expected, these days, for girls to be reading.
4. Traditionally, boys' interest in reading would morph from non-fiction to fiction and boys would continue to read. Not all, of course, just like not all girls continue to read these days, but it was normal for teenage boys to be interested in reading, i.e. not seen as weird. However, today, boys are no longer morphing to the fiction stage. Instead, they are losing interest in reading.
Let's focus on point 4 for a moment.
There are all sorts of arguments about why this is happening and they encompass everything from TV to video games to the fact that "boys are boys," as if that should be enough to explain it. But I really don't think any of that is what's at the root of the issue. Sure, there are many distractions to reading these days, but there have always been distractions to reading. I read a lot when I was a kid (as in I won the school reading contest in 4th grade and should have won it in 3rd grade, but that's another story (and I didn't win in 5th and 6th grade because I changed schools)), and it was still the last thing I did every day. I mean, I only read when I didn't have something more exciting to do, so distractions have always existed. Also, parents are no less likely these days to encourage reading than they've ever been, so that, also, is not a factor. So what's changed?
Books have changed. Yeah, yeah, I know. All of those older books still exist, but you also know that people don't naturally gravitate to what's older. I mean, you don't see anyone out there boasting about their Atari 2600 anymore, right? Or, even, their Wii. Generally speaking, people become invested in what's new before they begin to explore what's old. At least, if they're left to do it on their own, as most kids are with reading.
What this means is that you get books that are new and hot and geared toward... girls. Like The Hunger Games and Twilight, books that boys just aren't all that interested in. Not that no boys read them, but most boys do not. Most boys have no interest in those stories. We have a remarkably feminine market, and it doesn't have a lot of room for boys at the moment.
The writers are women. The agents are women. The publishers are... well, they're probably all old men, but they're just in it for the money and probably don't read anyway. And, so, if you're trying to sell a book through traditional publishing, as most people are still trying to do, you're writing to the market. Just recently, I was reading through the first couple of chapters of a book I was asked to critique by a male author. Good voice. No real grammar issues. Female main character. Why? Because that's what the market wants. At least, that's what we think the market wants. (And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with guys writing female leads, but, really, unless you have a specific need for that, why not write what you know?)
Oh, and before anyone says "Harry Potter!" at me, yes, I know. Harry was a male lead character, but, really, who was the backbone of that story? Who got Harry through all of his predicaments? Who was it that was talented and strong and smart? Let me just say, it wasn't Harry.
So what am I getting at here? You know, honestly, I don't know. This is all from a series of conversations I've had with my wife about how books today are not the same as books when we were kids. Honestly, when I was a kid, I didn't read anything aimed at my age group. I did read new stuff, but I shopped in the sci-fi/fantasy section of my book store, because there wasn't really a young adult section. Well, there was, but that's not what it was called, and it was full of teen romance books aimed at girls. Stuff I had no interest in. The books in the young adult section are not much different from that today. Mostly. They're still teen romance stories, they just have a bunch of paranormal stuff and killing thrown in to disguise them. So it's no wonder that boys aren't interested.
What we do know, as a society, is that we want kids to read. I mean, we say this, but we don't do much about it. Especially, right now, we want boys to read. This is not something that needs to be an either-or situation. It's not either girls read or boys read. There should be plenty of opportunity for both. Bringing boys back into the game is going to take two things:
1. Parents willing to invest the time to make their boys read. Yes, I said "make." Learning to read is like learning to ride a bike; it's hard at first, but it's easy once you get the hang of it. If you've ever taught a kid to ride a bike, you'll know that it's (generally) not a pleasant task. We used to enforce reading on all of our children just like we made our kids learn to ride bikes. It was never a fun thing making the kids sit and do reading, but, now, all of them do it because they want to do it.
2. Getting guys back into the writing game and getting them back into writing their own stories, not stories for the market. I think guys have it a bit rougher in the publishing world, right now, because of the whole thing from agents about needing to "be in love" with the story before they'll give you representation. Most agents are women. I'm not going to spell that out for you. You're smart people. I'm sure you can figure that out on your own. At any rate, what it means is that stories geared for boys just aren't making it out into the market.
I'm not preaching any kind of conspiracy here. That's not what I'm saying at all. There's nothing nefarious going on. What is going on is human nature. However, if we really want boys to start reading again, we have to start making the reading world a place that's more friendly toward boys than it currently is. And that doesn't mean pandering to them either. Boys aren't looking for books about action and mindless violence. When they want that, there are plenty of video games that do that better than a book ever will. Boys want books that speak to them, about the kinds of issues that they face, just like girls want books that speak to them. They want something deeper and more meaningful than a video game. They want something real.
Maybe it's time we start giving it to them...
Historically, reading (and writing) has been a man's game. Like so many things, reading was for men and writing was done by men, and that's all there was to it. Part of that is because education was for men. Sure, girls got some basic education, but higher education was for men, and, therefore, writing was done by men. This is not to say that there were not exceptions, like the Bronte sisters, but, by and large, it was all for men by men. Even Frankenstein was somewhat of a fluke, because what Mary really did was manage Percy's career, so to speak. She was never trying to be a writer; she just ended up writing that one, excellent novel.
Then the 20th century came along and equal rights for women and everything began to change. Not noticeably at first, but most changes don't happen all at once; they happen by degrees, and you don't notice them until you've been boiled like a frog. Which is not to say that I think we have been boiled like frogs, except, maybe, men have been boiled like frogs with these current changes.
I'm not going to go tracing back through all of what I think brought us to where we are. There are really only two important things of note:
1. Women began to realize that they could write, so they did. Mostly under male sounding pen names, at first, or using their initials. This is still somewhat true today in the midst of our female-centric writing world. Note J.K. Rowling, because the publisher didn't want to scare away male readers.
2. Because women began writing (women like Judy Blume), girls began reading. Not that girls hadn't read prior to that, but the ones that did read read the same stuff aimed at male readers. When women began writing, they began, more and more, to gear their writing to female readers, so girls started reading more.
From that point on, it became a cycle rather in the same sort of way that a hurricane starts, and, so, now, we are in the midst of a storm of women writers and girl readers. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem at all with women writing and girls reading; I'm all for it, in fact. The problem, though, is that boys have quit reading because of all of this. In effect, reading has become a woman's game, and men don't want to play anymore.
Of course, culturally, we want to blame it on the boys. As if it has always been a problem getting boys to read, but that's just not true. I don't have any statistics for you (because, frankly, I couldn't find anything that appeared even remotely reliable (everything seemed geared toward proving whatever the author of whatever study wanted to prove with the study)), but there are a few things that were consistent among several reports:
1. Girls (traditionally and currently) begin reading fiction at an earlier age. In fact, girls begin reading by reading fiction.
2. Boys (traditionally and currently) begin reading non-fiction. (This was certainly true for me. I started out reading about things I was interested in: dinosaurs, astronomy, historical figures.)
3. Traditionally, girls' interest in reading would taper off as they got older and interested in whatever it used to be that got girls got interested in. That's where the stereotype of the nerdy girl that read all the time came from; it used to be weird for a teenage girl to be interested in reading. Not so anymore. It's rather expected, these days, for girls to be reading.
4. Traditionally, boys' interest in reading would morph from non-fiction to fiction and boys would continue to read. Not all, of course, just like not all girls continue to read these days, but it was normal for teenage boys to be interested in reading, i.e. not seen as weird. However, today, boys are no longer morphing to the fiction stage. Instead, they are losing interest in reading.
Let's focus on point 4 for a moment.
There are all sorts of arguments about why this is happening and they encompass everything from TV to video games to the fact that "boys are boys," as if that should be enough to explain it. But I really don't think any of that is what's at the root of the issue. Sure, there are many distractions to reading these days, but there have always been distractions to reading. I read a lot when I was a kid (as in I won the school reading contest in 4th grade and should have won it in 3rd grade, but that's another story (and I didn't win in 5th and 6th grade because I changed schools)), and it was still the last thing I did every day. I mean, I only read when I didn't have something more exciting to do, so distractions have always existed. Also, parents are no less likely these days to encourage reading than they've ever been, so that, also, is not a factor. So what's changed?
Books have changed. Yeah, yeah, I know. All of those older books still exist, but you also know that people don't naturally gravitate to what's older. I mean, you don't see anyone out there boasting about their Atari 2600 anymore, right? Or, even, their Wii. Generally speaking, people become invested in what's new before they begin to explore what's old. At least, if they're left to do it on their own, as most kids are with reading.
What this means is that you get books that are new and hot and geared toward... girls. Like The Hunger Games and Twilight, books that boys just aren't all that interested in. Not that no boys read them, but most boys do not. Most boys have no interest in those stories. We have a remarkably feminine market, and it doesn't have a lot of room for boys at the moment.
The writers are women. The agents are women. The publishers are... well, they're probably all old men, but they're just in it for the money and probably don't read anyway. And, so, if you're trying to sell a book through traditional publishing, as most people are still trying to do, you're writing to the market. Just recently, I was reading through the first couple of chapters of a book I was asked to critique by a male author. Good voice. No real grammar issues. Female main character. Why? Because that's what the market wants. At least, that's what we think the market wants. (And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with guys writing female leads, but, really, unless you have a specific need for that, why not write what you know?)
Oh, and before anyone says "Harry Potter!" at me, yes, I know. Harry was a male lead character, but, really, who was the backbone of that story? Who got Harry through all of his predicaments? Who was it that was talented and strong and smart? Let me just say, it wasn't Harry.
So what am I getting at here? You know, honestly, I don't know. This is all from a series of conversations I've had with my wife about how books today are not the same as books when we were kids. Honestly, when I was a kid, I didn't read anything aimed at my age group. I did read new stuff, but I shopped in the sci-fi/fantasy section of my book store, because there wasn't really a young adult section. Well, there was, but that's not what it was called, and it was full of teen romance books aimed at girls. Stuff I had no interest in. The books in the young adult section are not much different from that today. Mostly. They're still teen romance stories, they just have a bunch of paranormal stuff and killing thrown in to disguise them. So it's no wonder that boys aren't interested.
What we do know, as a society, is that we want kids to read. I mean, we say this, but we don't do much about it. Especially, right now, we want boys to read. This is not something that needs to be an either-or situation. It's not either girls read or boys read. There should be plenty of opportunity for both. Bringing boys back into the game is going to take two things:
1. Parents willing to invest the time to make their boys read. Yes, I said "make." Learning to read is like learning to ride a bike; it's hard at first, but it's easy once you get the hang of it. If you've ever taught a kid to ride a bike, you'll know that it's (generally) not a pleasant task. We used to enforce reading on all of our children just like we made our kids learn to ride bikes. It was never a fun thing making the kids sit and do reading, but, now, all of them do it because they want to do it.
2. Getting guys back into the writing game and getting them back into writing their own stories, not stories for the market. I think guys have it a bit rougher in the publishing world, right now, because of the whole thing from agents about needing to "be in love" with the story before they'll give you representation. Most agents are women. I'm not going to spell that out for you. You're smart people. I'm sure you can figure that out on your own. At any rate, what it means is that stories geared for boys just aren't making it out into the market.
I'm not preaching any kind of conspiracy here. That's not what I'm saying at all. There's nothing nefarious going on. What is going on is human nature. However, if we really want boys to start reading again, we have to start making the reading world a place that's more friendly toward boys than it currently is. And that doesn't mean pandering to them either. Boys aren't looking for books about action and mindless violence. When they want that, there are plenty of video games that do that better than a book ever will. Boys want books that speak to them, about the kinds of issues that they face, just like girls want books that speak to them. They want something deeper and more meaningful than a video game. They want something real.
Maybe it's time we start giving it to them...
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Things I've Forgotten To Say
Over the past little while, there have been things I've forgotten to say or include in posts. Frequently, this has to do with getting interrupted while I'm writing and losing whatever I was thinking about. Probably, most of these things were of no great import, but, sometimes, they are.
One of the things I forgot was supposed to go into my A to Z posts. When my wife brought this to my attention, I was already past where it would have logically fit within the letters, so I had planned to work it in at another spot. But I forgot. And, then, I was going to work it in at the end, but I forgot. And, then, I was going to put it into my reflections post, but I saw that article about the bionic eyes and got all excited about that, and, guess what, I forgot. This is why when I go to the grocery store only needing three things, I come back with only two of them. Actually, often that's because of the "Can I haves" from my daughter. Having to say "no" 30 times during a 15 minute trip into the store can make you forget anything.
But I digress...
Every year at Christmas, we watch Scrooged. That may be my wife's favorite movie. I'm sure that's not what she would say, but we've seen that more than anything else my wife would claim as her favorite, so I'm just declaring it her favorite. So! My wife's favorite movie is Scrooged, and we watch that every year at Christmas. [Aren't you glad we got that all cleared up? Boy, I am!]
In the movie there's this bit where the out-of-touch president of the TV station is telling Bill Murray's character that they need to have television for cats and dogs. They also need to work things into regular programming to get those same cats and dogs hooked on TV. You know, like a detective show where the cop dangles a piece of string as his "thing." This whole thing, to put into a modern perspective, is meant to show how ludicrous and absurd the 1% can be with their time and money. This guy was into cats, so he wanted television for his cats, and, since he owned the TV station, he was gonna make that happen. No matter how stupid the idea.
And, see, that's the thing: it is a stupid idea.
It's a stupid idea that has, now, become a reality. I give you DogTV! Seriously. I don't care how much science has been put into it, and they claim there has been a lot of science put into it, it's insane. I mean, I love my dog (you remember her, right?),
I even let her lick my face (was that too much?), but she's a dog! Dogs are supposed to lick faces. They are not supposed to watch TV. If dogs were supposed to watch TV, they would have grown thumbs and invented it for themselves. Heck, we did invent TV, and I don't even think we should be watching it. Which is why we just get static on ours.
Anyway... just another example of fiction being turned into reality. Even if it is a dumb one.
The other big thing I meant to mention is something that leads into something else. Not that it was supposed to, originally, but it's going to now.
I just did a review on A Thread of Grace and, really, Mary Doria Russel in general. Okay, really, it was about The Sparrow, which I'm still looking for so that I can re-read it (and that's a big deal as some of you may have picked up), but I didn't just read that one. The Sparrow, aside from winning a bunch of awards (like the Arthur C. Clarke Award), was Russel's first novel. Yes, it was her first novel. I don't mean first published, just her first.
Modern, conventional wisdom tells us that first novels are no good. First novels are for practice. First novels are to get your foot in the door and all that other... stuff that they say. Modern, conventional wisdom is often just wrong. Say it with me: it's wrong!
I'm not saying that that means that a first novel is one's best novel, I'm just saying that, often, the first is the best. Orson Welles knew it. He made Citizen Kane and said everything he did after that would be downhill. He wasn't wrong. In fact, some people have written just the one and stopped. But the one was great. Gone With the Wind. To Kill a Mockingbird (and Harper Lee was somewhat pressured to write more books, but she refused, because she knew she could never surpass the one she did write). And, even though Richard Adams has continued to write, he's never done anything better than Watership Down.
Okay, what I'm really saying is that you shouldn't listen too hard to what "conventional wisdom" tells you. Conventional wisdom is not, usually, wisdom; usually, it's just dumb things people say to each other to make each other feel better. What I am saying is that you should believe in yourself and your work and do the best you can.
Don't listen to agents. Don't listen to publishers. Don't listen to your crit partners. Only you know the story you want to write. No one else, just you. You work on it, mold it, smash it, cut it, build it, believe in it, until you, only you, after having read it 20 times or 45 times or however many times that you've read it until you're sick of it, can read it and say, "Hey, I like this. This is good. I would read this." When you have something that you would read, that you would flip through at the bookstore and think, "hey, this sounds interesting," that you would pick up and buy, well... don't worry about the rest.
You want to know a secret? Agents don't know. Publishers don't even know. Heck, the public doesn't even know. You just do the best you can. You figure out what you want, what you need, from writing, and you work toward that. Sure, I know for a lot of you that means the validation of being traditionally published, so that means working with agents and publishers and jumping through hoops and all of that, but like I said way back in this post, you have to figure out what you want. If what you want doesn't require traditional publishing, then don't go that route (really, go back and read that post (you can even still comment on it, if you want to) if you want the full discussion).
>steps off of soapbox< (who put that there, anyway?)
Look, all I'm trying to say is don't let people get you down by telling you things that aren't necessarily true. Things like "it's only your first novel, so it can't be any good." Go look at a list of first novels by many famous authors (or only novels), and you'll often find that those first novels stand out among their work. You'll find just as many who had awful first novels and kept getting better and better. Just don't think that because it's your first it can't be any good.
Personally, I like my first novel, The House on the Corner (which I reviewed here). It's good. I've read it... many times, now, and I still enjoy it (and I had a whole class of 6th graders (and the teacher) laughing during chapter 19 this morning). But it's not The Sparrow, or Neormancer, or Citizen Kane (although it has been compared with The Sorcerer's Stone by more than one person), and I hope I get better. In fact, I plan to.
I suppose what all of this boils down to is this:
Believe in yourself.
Not in any New Age way or belief that believing in yourself will bring you everything you could hope for. It won't. Don't let anyone fool you. However, believing in yourself, that you can do it, is the only way that you will keep working at it. No one else can give that to you, but plenty of people can take it away. If you let them. So don't. Believe in yourself, believe that you can make it happen, work to make that come true.
One of the things I forgot was supposed to go into my A to Z posts. When my wife brought this to my attention, I was already past where it would have logically fit within the letters, so I had planned to work it in at another spot. But I forgot. And, then, I was going to work it in at the end, but I forgot. And, then, I was going to put it into my reflections post, but I saw that article about the bionic eyes and got all excited about that, and, guess what, I forgot. This is why when I go to the grocery store only needing three things, I come back with only two of them. Actually, often that's because of the "Can I haves" from my daughter. Having to say "no" 30 times during a 15 minute trip into the store can make you forget anything.
But I digress...
Every year at Christmas, we watch Scrooged. That may be my wife's favorite movie. I'm sure that's not what she would say, but we've seen that more than anything else my wife would claim as her favorite, so I'm just declaring it her favorite. So! My wife's favorite movie is Scrooged, and we watch that every year at Christmas. [Aren't you glad we got that all cleared up? Boy, I am!]
In the movie there's this bit where the out-of-touch president of the TV station is telling Bill Murray's character that they need to have television for cats and dogs. They also need to work things into regular programming to get those same cats and dogs hooked on TV. You know, like a detective show where the cop dangles a piece of string as his "thing." This whole thing, to put into a modern perspective, is meant to show how ludicrous and absurd the 1% can be with their time and money. This guy was into cats, so he wanted television for his cats, and, since he owned the TV station, he was gonna make that happen. No matter how stupid the idea.
And, see, that's the thing: it is a stupid idea.
It's a stupid idea that has, now, become a reality. I give you DogTV! Seriously. I don't care how much science has been put into it, and they claim there has been a lot of science put into it, it's insane. I mean, I love my dog (you remember her, right?),
Anyway... just another example of fiction being turned into reality. Even if it is a dumb one.
The other big thing I meant to mention is something that leads into something else. Not that it was supposed to, originally, but it's going to now.
I just did a review on A Thread of Grace and, really, Mary Doria Russel in general. Okay, really, it was about The Sparrow, which I'm still looking for so that I can re-read it (and that's a big deal as some of you may have picked up), but I didn't just read that one. The Sparrow, aside from winning a bunch of awards (like the Arthur C. Clarke Award), was Russel's first novel. Yes, it was her first novel. I don't mean first published, just her first.
Modern, conventional wisdom tells us that first novels are no good. First novels are for practice. First novels are to get your foot in the door and all that other... stuff that they say. Modern, conventional wisdom is often just wrong. Say it with me: it's wrong!
I'm not saying that that means that a first novel is one's best novel, I'm just saying that, often, the first is the best. Orson Welles knew it. He made Citizen Kane and said everything he did after that would be downhill. He wasn't wrong. In fact, some people have written just the one and stopped. But the one was great. Gone With the Wind. To Kill a Mockingbird (and Harper Lee was somewhat pressured to write more books, but she refused, because she knew she could never surpass the one she did write). And, even though Richard Adams has continued to write, he's never done anything better than Watership Down.
Okay, what I'm really saying is that you shouldn't listen too hard to what "conventional wisdom" tells you. Conventional wisdom is not, usually, wisdom; usually, it's just dumb things people say to each other to make each other feel better. What I am saying is that you should believe in yourself and your work and do the best you can.
Don't listen to agents. Don't listen to publishers. Don't listen to your crit partners. Only you know the story you want to write. No one else, just you. You work on it, mold it, smash it, cut it, build it, believe in it, until you, only you, after having read it 20 times or 45 times or however many times that you've read it until you're sick of it, can read it and say, "Hey, I like this. This is good. I would read this." When you have something that you would read, that you would flip through at the bookstore and think, "hey, this sounds interesting," that you would pick up and buy, well... don't worry about the rest.
You want to know a secret? Agents don't know. Publishers don't even know. Heck, the public doesn't even know. You just do the best you can. You figure out what you want, what you need, from writing, and you work toward that. Sure, I know for a lot of you that means the validation of being traditionally published, so that means working with agents and publishers and jumping through hoops and all of that, but like I said way back in this post, you have to figure out what you want. If what you want doesn't require traditional publishing, then don't go that route (really, go back and read that post (you can even still comment on it, if you want to) if you want the full discussion).
>steps off of soapbox< (who put that there, anyway?)
Look, all I'm trying to say is don't let people get you down by telling you things that aren't necessarily true. Things like "it's only your first novel, so it can't be any good." Go look at a list of first novels by many famous authors (or only novels), and you'll often find that those first novels stand out among their work. You'll find just as many who had awful first novels and kept getting better and better. Just don't think that because it's your first it can't be any good.
Personally, I like my first novel, The House on the Corner (which I reviewed here). It's good. I've read it... many times, now, and I still enjoy it (and I had a whole class of 6th graders (and the teacher) laughing during chapter 19 this morning). But it's not The Sparrow, or Neormancer, or Citizen Kane (although it has been compared with The Sorcerer's Stone by more than one person), and I hope I get better. In fact, I plan to.
I suppose what all of this boils down to is this:
Believe in yourself.
Not in any New Age way or belief that believing in yourself will bring you everything you could hope for. It won't. Don't let anyone fool you. However, believing in yourself, that you can do it, is the only way that you will keep working at it. No one else can give that to you, but plenty of people can take it away. If you let them. So don't. Believe in yourself, believe that you can make it happen, work to make that come true.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Blogging A to Z: The A to Z of Fiction to Reality
A year ago, when the A to Z thing was going on, I had just started blogging. I hadn't even been at it two months when I found out about the challenge, and I only found out about it a couple of weeks before it started. I knew there was no way that I would be able to do that, post every day, in any kind of way that I would be happy with. I didn't want to be staring at my own posts thinking "how lame..." Save that for other people's posts, right? I knew that if I was going to ever do the A to Z challenge, it would have to be about something.
But that was a year ago, and, mostly, I just didn't think about it again. Well, that is until everyone started talking about it for this year. There's a certain amount of peer pressure involved in this whole thing which makes me want to avoid it. Everyone saying you should be involved and all of that. I'm fairly immune to peer pressure, so that didn't really sway me. And I knew that trying to post every day would, well, be impossible. That would mean a lot of planning. That would mean I would need something for my posts to be about. Not just a theme. Something they could be about.
And, still, there was everyone talking about it and talking about how they were going to do it and saying how everyone should do it and if everyone ate rocks, would you? Seriously? Because I think you would. And if everyone jumped off of a cliff, would you? Well, you probably would, because, really, you don't have a choice when everyone jumps off a cliff, because the ones at the front that can see the cliff coming can't stop because they're being pushed by the swarm of lemmings behind them, and the ones at the back can't see the cliff at all, so everyone goes over. It's just better not to get involved at all, wouldn't you say?
But, see, here's the thing. When everyone else goes and jumps off a cliff, you're left all alone, and, when you're talking about blogs, that's one thing you don't want to be. All alone. I kind of learned that last year. Everyone's busy with all the A to Z posts, and no one has time for anything else, so did I really want my blog to spend a month hibernating. Or, maybe, I should just take the month off? That didn't seem unreasonable.
Then... well, then, I opened my mouth. Sometimes, I say things that I don't intend to say. Okay, well, that's not exactly true. I never say anything I don't intend to say, but, sometimes, the things I say have effects that I don't anticipate. And so it was that I said something to my wife, just in passing, I thought, along the lines of, "hey, there's this big blog thing coming that lasts the whole month of April, and I'd kind of like to do it, but I'd need something really good for my posts to be about, and I'm not thinking of anything really good, so I'm thinking about, maybe, just taking the month off." Something like that, at any rate.
And here are the ideas that I'd already discarded when I said that to my wife:
1. Favorite words. That could be fun, right? Like for "A" I have adamant... and a whole bunch of others. And for "B" I have belligerent. But the idea didn't really grab me, and, for some letters, I'd have a lot of words and, for some letters, I'd only have one, so I really didn't like it for the whole inequality thing.
2. Star Wars. As many people can attest, there may be no better topic for me. I'm good at talking about Star Wars. I mean, I'm so good at talking about Star Wars that Briane Pagel is busy trying to think of ever more and more ways to make me lose points in his big Star Wars blogfest. Well, not lose points so much as let other people gain more points than me. Okay, well, he has, actually, come up with a way for me to lose points, too. Wow... So far, I've managed to keep my lead, but it is shortening. And that is why you should all go sign up for the blogfest. Because, if you do, you'll get 50 points, and I will, too, and, right now, I could use the point cushion! But, anyway... I thought about doing Star Wars, but, in the end, the topic was just too broad. Yeah, I know, that sounds weird, but I couldn't just talk about random things from Star Wars, so there'd have to be some way to decide between talking about, say, an A-wing fighter and Alderaan or, even, Admiral Akbar (and he's a double "A" topic!). Basically, I couldn't pick out a sub-theme I was interested in going with, so I had to discard Star Wars, too.
3. Well, there were any number of other ideas that flitted through this spot, but none of them took hold long enough to even stick as a third option. However, when you make a list, you must have 3 items for it to be considered a list, so #3 is for all of those other topics. The ones that weren't even good enough to be topics.
And that's where I was when I made that comment to my wife. Of course, she liked the idea of me taking a month off from blogging, because she thinks I spend too much time on the blog and not enough time on actual writing. Well, that doesn't sound right... Okay, more time on my actual book. How's that? She also thinks I spend too much time on Farmville, but that's a topic for another time. ANYWAY! (geez! would you people stop sidetracking me?) I think we were talking about the idea of taking a month off, but, then, she had an idea. Not an idea, the idea. Because my wife is good at ideas. And she said I must give her full credit for the idea or she would take it back. I'm not sure how that would work since I've written a bunch of posts already, but I suspect they would all poof out of existence, and I might well poof out of existence, too, for all I know. What I do know is that, at the very least, I'd be signed up for this crazy thing, and I'd have no posts to go with it, and that would really suck.
But the IDEA... and it's a really great idea, too. See, most of what I do on this blog is related to writing. Even the pop culture stuff, because the movies and all of that have to do with writing. And most of the other stuff I talk about I relate to writing in some way, too. Having a theme related to writing is, kind of, a no-brainer. Most of the A to Z blogs I saw last year that had a theme had some sort of theme that was related to writing in some way or another. And, well, I don't want to do some thing that everyone else is doing even if I'm participating in a big blogfest that everyone else is participating in. So it all has to go a step beyond. And that's what my wife's idea did.
So here you go... my more than a theme... it's more than a theme, because it's about how we are all affected by writers. And I don't mean we all as in us people that are writers being affected by other writers, because, of course, we are. No, I mean how we, all of us people everywhere, are affected by writers. Not just in what we read or watch or whatever but how writers affect our lives. But what does that mean?
Well, in my research for my individual topics, I discovered that there's this TV show by some physicist that is an ongoing exploration of current science fiction that could be reality some day. He has a book, too. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is, because you don't need to go look at that until May. But that's not what I'm going to talk about anyway. Not current science fiction. No, I'm going to talk about the ways that past fiction (not just science fiction) has become real and, to some extent, what that means to us. Okay, well, I'm not going to talk about that part so much, because, really, there's just not time to do it within the confines of the blogfest, but I'm sure you'll be able to see how some of these things have changed our lives or will, soon, change our lives.
So... Starting on Sunday, what you'll be getting is 26 things that started out as fiction and are now real. That doesn't mean they're a part of everyday life, yet, but that the things work. Someone, somewhere, has these things now or is very close to producing them. Others are part of everyday life. But all of these things started out in the imagination of a writer. And, maybe, we'd have them anyway, but, maybe, we wouldn't. It's hard to say. The point is, though, is that writers are important. They have IDEAS, and ideas are... well, they are essential. Imagination is essential. And it's so often so easily dismissed.
And, if you've read my book, The House on the Corner, you might have an idea of how important I think imagination is.
At any rate, sit back, relax, and prepare to discover 26 things that you might not realize came from the pages of a book before it was something you could pick up and touch.
But that was a year ago, and, mostly, I just didn't think about it again. Well, that is until everyone started talking about it for this year. There's a certain amount of peer pressure involved in this whole thing which makes me want to avoid it. Everyone saying you should be involved and all of that. I'm fairly immune to peer pressure, so that didn't really sway me. And I knew that trying to post every day would, well, be impossible. That would mean a lot of planning. That would mean I would need something for my posts to be about. Not just a theme. Something they could be about.
And, still, there was everyone talking about it and talking about how they were going to do it and saying how everyone should do it and if everyone ate rocks, would you? Seriously? Because I think you would. And if everyone jumped off of a cliff, would you? Well, you probably would, because, really, you don't have a choice when everyone jumps off a cliff, because the ones at the front that can see the cliff coming can't stop because they're being pushed by the swarm of lemmings behind them, and the ones at the back can't see the cliff at all, so everyone goes over. It's just better not to get involved at all, wouldn't you say?
But, see, here's the thing. When everyone else goes and jumps off a cliff, you're left all alone, and, when you're talking about blogs, that's one thing you don't want to be. All alone. I kind of learned that last year. Everyone's busy with all the A to Z posts, and no one has time for anything else, so did I really want my blog to spend a month hibernating. Or, maybe, I should just take the month off? That didn't seem unreasonable.
Then... well, then, I opened my mouth. Sometimes, I say things that I don't intend to say. Okay, well, that's not exactly true. I never say anything I don't intend to say, but, sometimes, the things I say have effects that I don't anticipate. And so it was that I said something to my wife, just in passing, I thought, along the lines of, "hey, there's this big blog thing coming that lasts the whole month of April, and I'd kind of like to do it, but I'd need something really good for my posts to be about, and I'm not thinking of anything really good, so I'm thinking about, maybe, just taking the month off." Something like that, at any rate.
And here are the ideas that I'd already discarded when I said that to my wife:
1. Favorite words. That could be fun, right? Like for "A" I have adamant... and a whole bunch of others. And for "B" I have belligerent. But the idea didn't really grab me, and, for some letters, I'd have a lot of words and, for some letters, I'd only have one, so I really didn't like it for the whole inequality thing.
2. Star Wars. As many people can attest, there may be no better topic for me. I'm good at talking about Star Wars. I mean, I'm so good at talking about Star Wars that Briane Pagel is busy trying to think of ever more and more ways to make me lose points in his big Star Wars blogfest. Well, not lose points so much as let other people gain more points than me. Okay, well, he has, actually, come up with a way for me to lose points, too. Wow... So far, I've managed to keep my lead, but it is shortening. And that is why you should all go sign up for the blogfest. Because, if you do, you'll get 50 points, and I will, too, and, right now, I could use the point cushion! But, anyway... I thought about doing Star Wars, but, in the end, the topic was just too broad. Yeah, I know, that sounds weird, but I couldn't just talk about random things from Star Wars, so there'd have to be some way to decide between talking about, say, an A-wing fighter and Alderaan or, even, Admiral Akbar (and he's a double "A" topic!). Basically, I couldn't pick out a sub-theme I was interested in going with, so I had to discard Star Wars, too.
3. Well, there were any number of other ideas that flitted through this spot, but none of them took hold long enough to even stick as a third option. However, when you make a list, you must have 3 items for it to be considered a list, so #3 is for all of those other topics. The ones that weren't even good enough to be topics.
And that's where I was when I made that comment to my wife. Of course, she liked the idea of me taking a month off from blogging, because she thinks I spend too much time on the blog and not enough time on actual writing. Well, that doesn't sound right... Okay, more time on my actual book. How's that? She also thinks I spend too much time on Farmville, but that's a topic for another time. ANYWAY! (geez! would you people stop sidetracking me?) I think we were talking about the idea of taking a month off, but, then, she had an idea. Not an idea, the idea. Because my wife is good at ideas. And she said I must give her full credit for the idea or she would take it back. I'm not sure how that would work since I've written a bunch of posts already, but I suspect they would all poof out of existence, and I might well poof out of existence, too, for all I know. What I do know is that, at the very least, I'd be signed up for this crazy thing, and I'd have no posts to go with it, and that would really suck.
But the IDEA... and it's a really great idea, too. See, most of what I do on this blog is related to writing. Even the pop culture stuff, because the movies and all of that have to do with writing. And most of the other stuff I talk about I relate to writing in some way, too. Having a theme related to writing is, kind of, a no-brainer. Most of the A to Z blogs I saw last year that had a theme had some sort of theme that was related to writing in some way or another. And, well, I don't want to do some thing that everyone else is doing even if I'm participating in a big blogfest that everyone else is participating in. So it all has to go a step beyond. And that's what my wife's idea did.
So here you go... my more than a theme... it's more than a theme, because it's about how we are all affected by writers. And I don't mean we all as in us people that are writers being affected by other writers, because, of course, we are. No, I mean how we, all of us people everywhere, are affected by writers. Not just in what we read or watch or whatever but how writers affect our lives. But what does that mean?
Well, in my research for my individual topics, I discovered that there's this TV show by some physicist that is an ongoing exploration of current science fiction that could be reality some day. He has a book, too. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is, because you don't need to go look at that until May. But that's not what I'm going to talk about anyway. Not current science fiction. No, I'm going to talk about the ways that past fiction (not just science fiction) has become real and, to some extent, what that means to us. Okay, well, I'm not going to talk about that part so much, because, really, there's just not time to do it within the confines of the blogfest, but I'm sure you'll be able to see how some of these things have changed our lives or will, soon, change our lives.
So... Starting on Sunday, what you'll be getting is 26 things that started out as fiction and are now real. That doesn't mean they're a part of everyday life, yet, but that the things work. Someone, somewhere, has these things now or is very close to producing them. Others are part of everyday life. But all of these things started out in the imagination of a writer. And, maybe, we'd have them anyway, but, maybe, we wouldn't. It's hard to say. The point is, though, is that writers are important. They have IDEAS, and ideas are... well, they are essential. Imagination is essential. And it's so often so easily dismissed.
And, if you've read my book, The House on the Corner, you might have an idea of how important I think imagination is.
At any rate, sit back, relax, and prepare to discover 26 things that you might not realize came from the pages of a book before it was something you could pick up and touch.
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