Licked by a Horse, among other Things

Well, this is awkward.
Sure, it's an awkward of my own choosing, but that doesn't make it any less awkward.
We're going to talk about being licked.
And I'm going to assume that everyone, at some point or other, has been licked by a dog. Yes, I'm sure there are people out there who have never been licked by a dog or who think it's gross or whatever, but it's a fairly normal thing, so we're going to go with that.

I, of course, have been licked by a dog. In fact, I am licked by a dog pretty much on a daily basis. This dog, in fact:

Isn't she the cutest.

Yes, that's a statement, not a question.

Along with the dog, however, I've been licked by quite a few other kinds of things.

There are, of course, humans. Anyone who spends any amount of time working with young children is, at some point or another, going to be licked. Usually because said kid finds it utterly hilarious. Especially if he catches you off guard and you suddenly have a smear of slime down your arm. Yeah, hilarious. Right?

But for most animals it's to show a kind of affection, not to be obnoxious. It's a "here, I care about you; I'm going to clean you," or whatever, kind of thing. Of course, some dogs love everyone. heh Or just aren't very discriminating.
Anyway...

So... other animals I've been licked by:

My cat. Being licked by a cat is not the most pleasant thing, but he means well. As well as a cat can, anyway. I've been injured more than once by the cat's tongue, though, so I've had to dissuade him from licking me when it looks like he's settling down to give me a grooming.

My rabbit. She's no longer with us, but she used to lick my hands and fingers when I would hold her. It's somewhat similar to being licked by a cat by softer and more tentatively. I did some research on the rabbit licking thing at one point because I'd never heard of that before, and it seems to be rather rare with them. They have to really like you.

A gerbil. When I was in high school, I had a pair of gerbils and the female would sometimes lick my fingers. It was a little weird, kinda of like being nosed by a fish. Sometimes, she would hold onto my fingertip while she was licking me.

A cow. When I as a kid, my grandfather had cows down on the farm, and one of the cows, a cow named Pig, would occasionally lick me. I don't know if she ever licked anyone else, but I'm sure it was all about getting food. At any rate, I don't recommend the experience. If you want to know what's like, go find a cat and get it to lick your arm, then imagine that on the magnitude of a cow's tongue, let's 100x more intense. Plus the slime and what it did to the hair on my arm. Let's just say that there's a reason a cowlick is called a cowlick.

And, now, a horse. Or a pony, as was the case. The pony's name was Lucy; I wish I had taken a picture of her, but it didn't occur to me until after the fact. We were at one of the local parks a couple of weekends ago, and they offer pony rides there. My niece and nephew wanted to ride the ponies, so I was hanging out near the fence where the waiting ponies were and one of the ponies, Lucy, started nudging at me, for scratches I guess. That's how I responded, at any rate, first up around her ears then her nose. It's not like a horse is able to scratch its own nose, right?

A surprising thing happened, then; Lucy licked my hand. Except it was more like a tongue press. She pressed her tongue against my hand. I want to say it was like being touched by a cloud, but I don't think that analogy really works. Let's just say it was soft, surprisingly so. Gentle, maybe. So I held my hand out to her like I would for a dog to smell, and she began licking my hand repeatedly. You know, pressing her tongue against my fingers over and over again.

My younger son was with me, so he held his hand over to her (he had been scratching her ears), but she turned her head away from his hand. She was definitely choosing to lick my hand, so it wasn't that I had tasty food on it or something (we had just finished eating), because my son had had the same lunch I had so would have had the same food on his hand.

After a few minutes, I had to go take care of something, but I went back over to see Lucy again a little while later, and she got all excited when she saw me walking up and greeted me by licking my hand again; she still wouldn't lick my son's hand. When they came to take her away a little while later, she got upset and didn't want to go.

I don't know how common it is for horses to lick people (and I'm not going to do any research about it, because I'm not curious enough to spend the time on it), but it's not a thing I'd ever heard of before. I seem to have a thing with animals, which, actually, is true enough.

Or, maybe, I just taste good.

Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 5b)

Note: Go back and read the last entry in this series before reading this one.

So...
There I was, all of 20 years old, officially the unofficial youth pastor (or unofficially the official youth pastor; it's hard to know which) at my first night of youth group, and I had two kids. Middle schoolers whom I didn't know from Adam.

Initially, I couldn't even find them, because they weren't where they were supposed to be. They were down in the game room. You might think, "well, what else would you expect from middle schoolers," but that they were middle schoolers wasn't the reason. The reason they were down in the game room was because it had been weeks, at least, since they'd had any kind of teaching or, even, a leader down in the youth area. Basically, they just came each week to hang out because it was better than being at home. [And, man, I don't even know how to feel about that. I didn't then, and I still don't now. Just... how horrible is that, to have a home life that is so unenjoyable that you would rather come and just be ignored at church with nothing to do than to stay at home (because, sometimes, it was only one of them there).]

Now... You might think that the problem here was that the youth group was practically non-existent (however, we did have a few more, maybe 10 (including the two from Wednesdays), that would come on Sunday mornings, kids who had to come because their parents made them), and that was a problem, but that wasn't the problem. No, the problem was that I didn't have any of the prejudices held by the church at large and didn't care about the "acceptability" of the teenagers who came.

So let me give you some history:
My church was started as a mission of another church around 1915. At the time it was founded, the neighborhood it was planted in was a fairly well-to-do, up-and-coming middle class neighborhood. Big Southern houses and all of that. I think it probably reached its peak in the 50s and, by the 70s, was on a steep decline. The "founding fathers" of my church had all lived in the area around the church when it started; by the 80s, all of their families (and, yes, there were old men in the church, deacons and such, who had grown up in it) had moved to the outskirts of town to get away from "urban blight." [The actual definition of that term has to do with buildings (and that was true: once stately homes in the area around the church were falling into disrepair), but, when they talked about it in my church, it had to do with people.]

As the members moved farther away from the church, fewer and fewer people from the actual neighborhood around the church attended it. So, where it had once been a church that people walked to on Sunday morning, it had become a church that people drove to. And, sure, that's how churches are now (and were in the 80s), but churches didn't start out that way. Protestant churches in the US, I mean. But I digress... The point is that the church was still a mostly upper middle class/lower upper class congregation when I walked down the steps to the youth room in 1990. The people in the mile or so radius around the church weren't welcome there, and they knew it. [Which isn't to say that anyone would have been turned away (despite the fact that we had "guards" at the doors), but no one from that area, having come to the church once, would have ever come back.]

The real problem, I suppose, was that the church hired the wrong guy when they hired me. I mean, they didn't hire someone who was going to play their game. I'm sure they thought they had, but they should have known; I'd given them plenty of clues. The biggest one was that I refused to be a ministerial student despite the fact that they tried to bribe me to do it then tried to extort me to do it. They were very disappointed that I was majoring in English (so was my college faculty, except for the English department, who had tried to coerce (force) me into math). But those are other stories. I think they forgot that, although I grew up in the church, I was not ever one of them. I was part of the "hired help," and my family was, at best, lower middle class (and I'm not sure we were always that).

However, with their stated desire of hiring someone to revitalize the youth group, they definitely hired the right guy, and that's what I set out to do. [The issue here is that their stated goal was incomplete. It should have been "to revitalize the youth group with 'our kind of people.'"] And I did it by focusing on the neighborhood around the church. Because why? They were kids, and that's what I was there to do: minister to kids. I didn't care if they were rich or poor or black or white or, probably, even if they had been Martian, but I never had a green-skinned kid show up, so I guess we'll never know about that.

To make a long story short, we'll just say that I succeeded. Within a year, I was running over 30 kids on Wednesday nights and, by the end of two years, more than 50. Most of those kids were from lower income homes, and more than a dozen of them were black. Almost none of these kids had parents who went to the church. Or any church. And, now, we arrive at the problem: I thought I was doing a good thing. The right thing. But I was causing some problems higher up the food chain; I just didn't know about them.
Yet.

The Truth About Kids and Dogs

Okay, I don't really have a truth... unless it's that kids and dogs are a lot of work. Sometimes more so than others. This is one of those times where they're being a lot of work.
And don't get me started on the cat. The cat that has decided that I'm not allowed to be in my bed past 4:00am. I can be asleep; I just can't be doing it in my bed. Yeah, I'm not going to explain that, right now.

So everything has changed this year.

My oldest, who is 18, graduated last spring and is taking classes at the local junior college. We're trying to allow him to be as adult as he can be... Um, no, wait. We're trying to teach him to fly, not that we're not letting him stay in the nest, but grown up birds fly. Which means he gets to make his own decisions, something he really doesn't like to do in a general sense. So far, the one he's mastered is "the decision to stay out late." And he wakes me every time he comes in. And over and over again for the half hour to hour after he comes in as he goes in and out of the bathroom and takes a shower and whatever else it is that's he's doing at 2:00am. Probably eating.

Yeah, between him and the cat, sleep is beginning to wonder why I don't hang out with it anymore.

The middle kid, my younger boy, has started high school. This is a big change for him, of course, which is compounded by the fact that he's only 13. He has to get up earlier than he ever has before which, I think, has turned out to be more difficult than he thought it would be. For me, too, because I'm not used to having to get him up. He's always been really good about that, but having to get up before 6:00am is proving to be impossible without my help. And that's okay. His brother was a junior before I stopped having to get him up.

Are you getting the time frame, here? For me, that is.
In bed and asleep some time around 11:00pm.
Awoken at 2:00am and repeatedly for the next 30 minutes to an hour.
Awoken again at 4:00am and repeatedly until I move to the couch where I sleep for about 30 minutes until I have to get up at 5:15am.
That's on a good night.

But, anyway...

My younger son is also taking the city bus to school, this year. This is also a big change for him, his first really big foray out into the world on his own, but his brother took the bus for four years, so it's his turn, now. At any rate, his mother and I were very trepidatious about him taking the bus in ways that we never were when his brother was a freshman. If you knew him, you'd understand. But he has done a great job with the bus; he hasn't missed it; and he hasn't done what his older brother did a few weeks into his freshman year and forgotten to get off at the right stop and ended up in a place that might as well have been the moon for all he knew. Except for the lack of cheese.

My daughter's now in middle school. The big thing for her is that she's biking to school this year. Alone. Because biking to school is not new to her (or any of my kids), but she's never biked alone. Probably, we would not have made that choice except that she was desperate to exercise some independence and go it alone. She hounded (mostly) my wife about it all summer and whittled pieces and chunks off of her until she broke and said yes. Yes, that's how my daughter does it. She has inexhaustible persistence.

She's also discovering homework. heh

All of this has changed our morning routine. My oldest used to get up first (well, before everyone other than me) and be out the door before anyone other than me was awake; now, he's the last out. Usually, he's not even up before everyone else (but me, and sometimes me) is gone. The younger boy and the girl used to go at the same time (with me), but, now, the younger boy is the first out, sometimes before anyone other than me is up, and the girl is last.

And this is where the dog comes in.

It used to be the younger boy's job to take the dog out in the morning before we left for school, but he doesn't have time for that anymore, especially with having difficulty at getting up before 6:00am. The oldest can't be roused due to his late nights. Actually, we're not sure he actually lives here anymore; we're more like a... flop house. Or something. So that just leaves my daughter.

Actually, my first idea was that I would do it; the only problem with that is that I can't do it until after everyone is gone (except for eldest son who isn't conscious) and, two mornings a week, I actually have to go into school to read, so I'm not home and able to take her out until 9:00am. She's been up for three hours by that point and, I don't know about you, but going to the bathroom is the first thing I do when I got up every morning. The dog has been handling it okay for the most part.

Until a few days ago.

I was busy trying to get everyone's stuff together. Okay, mostly, once my son is gone, that's my wife's stuff I'm getting together. At any rate, I was working on getting stuff together and pushing people out the door and all of that and the dog came up and poked me with her nose. That's dog for, "Hey, I need to go out." A moment later, she did it again. Since I was not at a point where I could take her out, including not being completely dresses. I hollered at the girl, who was completely ready to go except for her cereal (which takes her about two minutes to eat) and still had more than 20 minutes till she needed to leave, "Hey, come take the dog out to go pee."

Now, my daughter loves the dog. Probably not as much as son-the-younger, but she does love her and, actually, plays with her more than anyone else (plays with her more, not spends more time with her; that would be son-the-younger). However, when I asked her to take the dog out, the response I got was, "That's not my job!"

We are currently ignoring the fact that my daughter is currently the only one of the children who consistently asks for "help" with her chores. By "help," I mean she asks someone else to do it for her, basically, because she doesn't want to (and there's a whole other story involved in that that I'll consider for another time). So we argued about it, her contention being that I could just take the dog out after everyone was gone. So the dog peed.

When you have to go, you have to go, even if you're a dog.

And I got to clean it up, because, by that time, my daughter had to leave for school.

On the other hand, she didn't argue with me when I officially made it her job to take the dog out to pee before she leaves for school every morning.

But what I really want to know is, "Can I go back to sleep, now?"

Kids' Clothes Were Never This Cool

Have you seen the clothes they make for kids these days? They're amazing. Kids' clothes were never this cool when I was a kid. It was all like tiny grownup clothes. I mean, they didn't even have Star Wars t-shirts! Well, okay, they did, but it was only every once in a while. And they were made with those big iron decals, basically, so, once you wore it about three times, the image was all cracked and peeling off. Well, not when you wore it; once it was washed a few times, it looked like it really came from a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away. Of course, the answer to that was to never wash it. Right?

One of my friends... Hold on; let me really emphasize that: ONE of my friends had a Star Wars shirt with R2 and C-3PO on it. He was the envy of every boy in our class. I was in my 20s before I had my own Star Wars t-shirt. Unless you count Underoos. Yeah, that was about as cool as it got when I was a kid. You could get underwear with stuff on it but not actual clothes. I had the Boba Fett Underoos

which were cool if you wanted to run around the house pretending to be Boba Fett (a Boba Fett with no pants), but you couldn't really wear the shirt out in public without every other person asking you what was on your shirt. Saying "a chest plate" really didn't help. Yes, I know.
I also had the Yoda Underoos

which were better, because you could wear that shirt out in public. Even if someone didn't know who he was, you could just say, "He's Yoda. He's from Star Wars."

When I was a kid, you couldn't even get band t-shirts (not that I wanted any) unless you actually went to the concert and bought them! It wasn't really until the late 80s and U2 that you could actually go to a store and buy a band t-shirt. Other than Spencer's, I mean. You could get that stuff in there, but I wasn't allowed in that place. Regular department stores and clothing stores had regular clothes, and that was it. Cool was not allowed.

All of that has changed now. Pop culture is everywhere. Any brand of cool you can think of, you can find. And you can find it virtually anywhere.

So, yeah, I've been back-to-school shopping with my kids, and it's always envy-making. Well, clothes shopping in general with my kids is envy-making. Even with my daughter. Not that I want all the pink, sparkly stuff she has, but they have cool Star Wars clothes for her, too! She's got the one shirt with... wait, I'll show you!

I love that shirt! And she even picked it out. I'm not sure what that says about how she thinks about me, but I don't think I really care. And clothes shopping with my daughter always makes my wife depressed. She's always, "I want one of those," or, "I want those colors," but they don't make that kind of stuff for adults.

I just have to say: These days, kids have it good.

And it's not just with clothes; it's with books, too. When I was in middle school, there were no books being written for kids my age. Or, well, there were, but they were all romances aimed at girls. The "YA" section (or whatever they called it then) didn't even get a full-sized bookcase. The entire section was located on one side of a bookcase that was only waist high. And it was all romance like Sweet Valley High, which had just come out. Things like The Chronicles of Narnia were stocked in the sci-fi/fantasy section because Harry Potter was still more than a decade away and the idea that you could actually write mature(ish) books aimed at teens and young teens was still a foreign concept.

I'm not even going to talk about Lego. Because, oh my gosh, THAT is just so unfair.

Anyway...
Kids have it good. And they don't appreciate it.
But, then, what kids ever do?

I Can Spell Better Than My Brain

"What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?"

Apparently, incorrectly spelling words, the same as every night.

I think we tend to give our brains too much credit. I mean, we rely on them to do stuff for us, stuff like thinking and spelling words correctly and remembering stuff. Yeah, I expect my brain to remember stuff, and I used to think it was pretty good at it, but I'm coming to believe that was just me and not my brain.

My brain does things like this:
My kids and I are leaving for school in the morning. My daughter is always the first one out the door. By a lot. I'm not really sure if she thinks that makes her brother (or me) go faster,  but it doesn't. At any rate, she'll ask me to unlock the car for her (which I can do from inside the house, thank to modern technology (AWESOME)), and go sit in it while her brother is still doing things like packing his lunch (which is already made, he just has to put it in his lunchbox), so, sometimes she's out there for a while. I'm frequently standing around in my jacket and my hat trying hard not to say, "We're going to leave without you," because he would just come back with "Okay!" and go back to his DS or whatever it was he was doing before he had to get ready to go. Anyway, we finally get out the door and I'm dreading getting into the car and having to listen to my daughter complain about how it's already 7:53 and she wanted to leave at 7:50, and the boy and I get in the car and she starts in on why it took so long and I start the car and say, "Did I lock the front door?"

One might think at that point that I'm asking Chompyhead (that's what we'll call the boy for reasons I may explain sometime), but I'm not, because I know he wasn't paying any attention. No, I'm asking my brain. Because, see, probably, my brain did tell my hands somewhere in the getting-out-of-the-house part to lock the front door, but I wasn't paying any attention to that part, because I just wanted Chompyhead to get out the door and into the car. And what does my brain say? "I don't remember."
"Seriously? That was, like, 30 seconds ago!"
My brain shrugs at me, "I don't remember."
That, of course, makes me angry, and I have to say, "What's the point of you, then?!" and climb back out of the car to check the door which is, of course, locked.
And I can't tell if my brain is laughing at me and chuckling "got you again" or if it really didn't remember, but, if it's going to go to the trouble of locking the door, it could at least let me know that it's done it. If I have to go back and check, what's the point?

And, so, when I'm writing, I don't want to have to think about how to spell words. Theoretically, my brain should know how to spell all of those words, right? Well, evidently not. And I'm not talking about obvious finger mistakes like "teh" instead of "the," I'm talking about words that my brain misspells over and over again. Especially homophones. Come on, Brain! You should know the difference between "peek" and "peak" and "steak" and "stake" and you shouldn't be "oblivious" by typing "obvious" and it shouldn't be "necessary" for me to stop you from typing "neccesary" every freaking time! I mean, come on! You've been doing this for a long time, why am I still having to remind you that it's only one "c"? Especially when I'm willing to give you a pass on "occasionally;" that one's totally on me.

All I want, and I don't really think that this is too much to ask for after all of this time, is that you get it write the first time. See! There you go again. I bet you thought I didn't see that. And it's that kind of thing that makes me wonder if you're doing all of this on purpose just to see if I'm paying attention. Well, I am! And I don't  much appreciate having to go back and fix your "mistakes," if that's what they are. You can be replaced, you know.

yeah, yeah I hear you laughing, "Science can't do brain transplants, yet." How do you know? Just because it's not being advertised, doesn't mean it's not going on somewhere. Besides, I have a Brain sitting right here next to my computer just waiting for the chance to take over the world!

(My Brain with his pet Yoda.)

Okay, so that taking over the world stuff is why it's still sitting on the computer, because I don't want that kind of trouble, but...

Your job, Brain, is to do the spelling. That's what I have you for. You're supposed to be the one stopping me and saying, "hold on there, buddy; 'necessary' only has one 'c'," not the other way around. If I have to do all the spelling and checking and all of that, what do I even have you for?

You know what, I can, too, get along just fine without you. I think you're really more trouble than you're worth. And, no, they don't check for brains before they give you a driver's license. That's dumb? Well, yeah, I know, but have you seen the other people out there driving around? You, of all brains, ought to be able to recognize brainless driving when you see it, so you can't hold that one over my head. I'll just drive like everyone else; they seem to get along just fine. Oh, I'll be dead within a week? We'll just see about that!

fklg l;jhghh ;zufhkl ;ljsdhg ;zhghg ;[ioghdfs lasdjgiou ;';kzjg ;pjfo ;lajlkhui aldhi0rt ...

Alone in the Silence

Have you ever looked forward to reading a book? I mean, really looked forward to a particular book. For whatever reason, you've decided this book is going to be good. Maybe it's the author. Maybe you've been told repeatedly that it's the best book ever. Maybe it's about your favorite thing (like a book all about chocolate or Star Wars or coffee or whatever). Whatever it is, though, you finally read the book, and wow such disappointment.

For a variety of reasons, I was really looking forward to Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. It sounded interesting. It had really good reviews. But, mostly, being an introvert and constantly being annoyed by people listening to stupid things from people that are loud and more assertive, I wanted to know what this book had to say. And people were saying it had a lot to say. I think what I expected was something along the lines of (and, yes, I know I mention this book a lot, but, really, most of you ought to read it) Bright-sided. Something that was like a science experiment. I have a question, and, now, I'm going to do the research and find the answer. And Quiet was sooo close.

As I read through "Part One: The Extrovert Ideal," I thought I had a winner. I thought I had a book that I was going to be able to say to all of you out there that are introverts and writers (because most actual writers are introverts (and I say it that way to exclude people (celebrities) who "write" books but don't really do the actual writing)), "You need to read this book!" But, as it turns out, I was wrong.

So what happened? Well, Susan Cain (the author) did. As it turns out, she wasn't really interested in introversion, she was actually interested in why she was afraid of public speaking. As many people do, she tied the fear of public speaking to her introversion. It's a great stereotype, right? Introverts are scared to speak in public? Except that it's wrong. Numerous studies have shown that the fear of public speaking has nothing to do with introversion. Extroverts have the same fear of public speaking that introverts have. Meaning, if you're scared of getting up in front of people and giving a speech, you are just as likely to be an extrovert as an introvert (possibly more likely, because we think extroverts make up a larger portion of society). The initial section, the research about extroverts and the rise of our extroverted society is quite good and interesting (but it's not worth buying the whole book for it). It's where the actual, objective research happened.

After that, though... well, it begins an exploration of why she's still scared of public speaking even though she's been doing it for years.

She starts with biology and how much of introversion may be nature and how much nurture. Some of that is also interesting, especially the newer child-focused studie that are trying to differentiate the nature/nurture debate. However, as she went on, she relied more and more on "maybe"s and "might"s rather than actual data. Because there was no solid data to back up any of the claims she wanted to make, so she relied on speculation to make her points. Sometimes, it was her own speculation. And I don't have a problem with speculating, but I do have an issue with speculation being presented as evidence.

The other thing she did was to rely heavily on anecdotal evidence, "I heard a story once...," to prove her points. That's just as bad as speculation. I mean, it's the same as me saying "one time, this friend of mine found a dead cow in the woods with all of its organs removed" to prove that aliens exist. Or that aliens target cows because they like cheese (yes, Briane, that was for you). At one point, she even uses a story Mark Twain told. Really? Because he was know for his non-fiction?

The worst part, though, is that she over-generalized her own brand of introversion as being what all introverts are like, and that's just not true. The introvert/extrovert thing is not something that's cut and dried like that. It's known as the introvert/extrovert spectrum, and it's called that for a reason. But she very happily lumped all introverts into her specific type of introversion, and my own introversion is nothing like hers. For one thing, I don't have a problem with public speaking. At all. I spent years and years getting up in front of people and talking, and the only time I ever had an issue with it was 5th grade, the first time I had to give an oral book report. She also equates introversion with shyness, which is also not true. Shyness, like fear of public speaking, is not something that only introverts lay claim to. Again, shyness is something that falls across the introvert/extrovert spectrum. [At one point, she does, kind of, say this, but, then, she goes on talking about it and discussing it as if it was a purely introvert issue.] But she was a shy child; therefore, all introverts must be shy.

If the book had continued to focus on society (as in the first section) and how introverts can make a place for themselves in a society that holds up extroversion as the ideal (by the way, the US is one of the most extroverted societies on the planet), as the full title suggests, it would have been a good read. However, it goes offtrack and explores how introverts can get over their fear of public speaking (because, you know, that's the assumption, that all introverts are scared of this). In short, it becomes a self help book, and I really wasn't looking for a self help book (nor was it marketed as one). I mean, really, she spends probably 1/3 of the book dealing with strategies and studies and plans about how to get over the fear of public speaking. It was like a big bait-and-switch.

Oh, and also how introverts can act more extroverted. There are strategies for that, too. My issue with this is that she spends the entire first section of the book talking about how we shouldn't have to act like extroverts to get along in our society, and I fully support this. [Introverts should not have to pretend to be extroverts to get along. That's just wrong.] But, then, a huge portion of the book is about how to set aside blocks of time to be extroverted and for no other real reason than that people expect  it. Like I said, I wasn't looking for a self help book, especially one I don't consider a "help."

At the very end (for, maybe, 5 pages), she did talk about the issue of children that are introverts in classrooms designed for extroverts, and that was interesting, but it's the kind of thing that really could have benefited from a closer look. It has to do with how, as a society, we mess up our kids by trying to get them to be one way (an extrovert) when they're not. It's the equivalent of forcing left-handed kids to write with their right hands [my example]; it's just not so visual. [And this issue of the extrovert designed class is pretty much everywhere I guess. Desks arranged in "pods" so that students can work together instead of individually. That's prevalent at my kids' school, too, so that was an eye opener that that's what that's about.]

Anyway, unless you have a fear of public speaking and need to do it, I would just skip this book. I wish I had. I dislike finishing a book frustrated at the lack of information the author actually gave.


As you might expect, I have my own take on the whole introvert/extrovert controversy and how it applies to writing, because, yes, the "extrovert ideal" has been encroaching even upon a field that is populated predominantly by introverts.

Prevailing wisdom says that better, more quality work is done by groups of people rather than people working individually. The problem with that "wisdom" is that virtually every study out there shows that this isn't true. Basically, the more people you have involved, the more muddled the work gets and the longer it takes to complete. Group work also produces an inferior product. Let me say this again, virtually every study done on this subject shows it to be true. But it doesn't "feel" like it ought to be true and some very loud and assertive people speak loudly and assertively about how beneficial it is for everyone to work together, so that's the model that businesses are using. And schools. And, yes, writers.

And you know it's true. Everyone says you need your pack of betas and CPs or you just can't write a novel. You'll get better work if you have more and more feedback. It seems so sensible. And it's hogwash. You can't write a book by committee. Not a good one, anyway. As a writer, you need a vision of what it is you want to write, and you need to pursue that vision in solitude. You need to be alone in the silence of your mind until you can hear whatever it is you need to say. I'm not prescribing a particular method here other than that you need to not let other people muddle your story and destroy your vision.

You need to find that for yourself. Find your vision and pursue it wherever it takes you. Don't get sidetracked by others. Don't let their ideas invade your space. Other people can't see your vision and can't help you to fulfill it.

This doesn't mean don't get feedback when you're finished; you certainly should. People that can see inconsistencies or grammar errors or whatever, but don't spend your time writing by trying to fit other people's ideas into your story. They need to take their ideas and go write their own stories.

Anyway, if you're a writer and an introvert, embrace the introvert within! Go lock yourself in a closet or go down in the cave (or, even, the cafe, if that's how you do it) and write your book. Don't try to conform to the prevailing "wisdom" of the extrovert ideal.