Proper Credentials

Years ago I lucked into what I thought was one of the cushiest jobs of all time. What happened was I called the Gifted/Talented department at the local school board to ask a question, and two days later I was working as a part-time Gifted/Talented teacher for the district. I wasn’t exactly qualified for the job. I didn’t have the gifted endorsement certification required by the state, and I had never worked with elementary-aged kids (unless you counted a stray Sunday school class). But I had taught high school English for six years. And I had come in contact with some gifted students along the way. I guess I must’ve wowed the person on the phone with my vibrant personality.

Anyway, I ended up teaching gifted students, learning along the way, how. A lot of it was instinctual. I know how to talk to kids (and truly, there’s not a huge difference between surly sixteen year olds and bouncing off the wall ten year olds when it comes to classroom discipline. You need a sense of humor. You show them you actually like being around kids. And most of the rest will fall into place.) It helped that I read a lot about gifted kids and their particular needs, and how those needs weren’t always being met in the regular classroom. Also, I had great mentors in the G/T department and in the schools where I worked, who gave me ideas and shared strategies. Over time I felt I was doing a pretty good job and if you’d asked me, I would’ve told you that I knew what I was doing and it didn’t really matter that I didn’t have the proper credentials.

But it did matter to the state. A few years into my teaching stint, someone pulled me aside and suggested strongly that I do what I needed to do to get my certification. I whined a little about this (only in my head) but promised to look into it. Turned out, it wasn’t too difficult. And most of it could be done online. Three courses and a practicum that I finagled the university into letting me do at the school where I worked. It took me a year to get those proper credentials. The funny thing was that I ended up being glad I did. And not just because it made me legitimate on paper (although that was part of it). I learned a few new and useful things about teaching gifted kids, but mostly I found that the courses I took reinforced what I was already doing. Which gave me a sense of confidence that I didn’t have before, so when I worked with teachers and administrators and parents, I could say with some authority that what I was doing was a proven strategy, and not just some random lesson I pulled out of thin air. I liked that—having some outward proof (even if it was only a piece of paper with my name on it and the word “certified”).

I think about all of this because even though I have much more experience writing than I ever had teaching, I realize that in the eyes of the world I don’t have the proper credentials. In others words, I don’t have a published book. Sure, I can tell you that I have written a bunch of manuscripts, many several times over. I have a degree in writing. I’ve attended writing conferences and read books on the craft of writing and read probably a thousand more books, not just because I love to read but also because I’m interested in how books are put together. I feel like I do a pretty good job. I know what I’m doing.

But do I? Really? If I don’t have that book cover with my name on it?

Sigh.

It's too bad because I’d love to teach writing lessons at schools. Or go to conferences as a presenter and share with writers just starting out about the creative process and revision. If nothing else I could talk about writing for the sake of writing, since that seems to be as far as I’m ever going to go with it. I can picture the possible session topics:

Following a Dream or Chasing A Delusion: How to Write in the Face of Rejection

You Thought You Were on the Verge of Publication, but HAHA, You Were So Naive Back Then Weren’t You

Sitting Down and Writing 2000 Words a Day Even Though You Know No One Will Ever Read Said Words

The truth is no one really wants to hear a non-published writer give a talk about writing. There are stories about writers who have been slaving along for years, who’ve been rejected a million times before they finally hit it big. Those are the writers people want to hear. The years slaving and collection of rejections sound so much better in retrospect, after the book is published.

Still. It does seem a shame that all of my hard earned experience and knowledge is going to waste. Oh well. There’s always this blog.

That, and knowing that now I really do have the cushiest job of all time—sitting around in my pajamas all day writing.

Virtual Book Club

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I missed being in a book club. I liked finding books that I wouldn't have picked up on my own, and I liked the deadline idea--knowing that I had to finish a book by a certain time. Of course I also liked talking about books with others who'd read them too. Now that I think about it, that was probably my favorite thing about being an English teacher--talking about books. Not that my students always read the books assigned. But I could count on some of them. And there were usually several every year who really got into, say, The Great Gatsby or Fahrenheit 451. That almost made up for all the others who hated with a passion The Scarlet Letter. (A good book, by the way, and I feel like I can say that with confidence, considering I probably read it 25 times.)

But back to book clubs, specifically, a virtual book club. Since no one has thrown out any ideas for what we (and I use the term "we" loosely to describe the handful of my Facebook friends who happened to have clicked on this blog) should read, I'm going to throw out a few choices. These are books that happen to be sitting on my bedside table at the moment:

1. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. I've read several books by Patchett (Bel Canto was my favorite) and I've been meaning to read this one for a while. According to the blurb on the back of the book: "When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine--who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years--learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well." Hmm. Interesting...

2. Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Not sure when I picked up this novel, but I've heard that the writer is good. On the inside flap it says: "What are the truly beautiful things in life and how far will you go to get them?"

3. Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. Okay. The funny thing about this book is that my son had to read it last year for summer reading and he literally hated every minute of it. Really. He moaned and complained and read lines out loud disdainfully and I couldn't help being curious. How bad could it be? The better question might be, why was this lush-looking, literary novel assigned to 17 year old boys? Says the snippet of review on the cover: "One of the most suggestively original love stories in our current fiction..." Yeah. Someone didn't think this choice through.

So here are the rules for our online book club: Read one of these books. Or read all of them. Now that I've taken the time to actually look at them, that's what I'm going to do. Let's set a deadline for ourselves before we check back. Say, two months from now. Which should give us plenty of time. For the record, all of these should be easy to come by in paperback or at the library. Mid June, I'll post my response and anyone who wants to can chime in. Maybe someone can bring a bottle of virtual wine. Someone else can sign up to provide cheese and crackers.

Should be a blast. See you then.

Another Beginning

The way I work is I start, and then something starts to happen. In other words, I have to mechanically, intentionally, and willfully begin. –Kay Ryan, US poet laureate 2008-2010.

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way.—Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

I have started another book. It’s an exhilarating experience to have an idea, to begin putting words down, to watch the idea develop into a story that never existed in the world before. The past few days I’ve gotten back into my writing routine. I sit down each morning after sucking down several cups of coffee. I scroll through emails. I write in my journal. I talk on the phone to my writing friend. And then I begin. My goal is 1500 words.

I go easy on myself in the early days of a book. I let scenes unfold the way they want to unfold. I step back and let the characters say what they want. I’m curious. What are these little people going to do? Where are they going to go? What’s going to happen to them? I have a general idea at this point, but each day there are surprises. I don’t know the actual story yet. I don’t know the end. I’m writing the book to find out. It’s kind of scary.

Writers have a saying: Trust the process. I heard Printz Award winner Libba Bray say something like, “step off the cliff and know that the bridge will be there for you.”

I believe it. I’ve done it before and I trust that I can do it again. I know that I can write this book. I know that I will finish it. I know what my process will be along the way.

In the beginning I’ll be excited. I’ll have all these potentially cool ideas bubbling up out of my subconscious. I don’t necessarily have to know what the plot is or where it’s all going. I only have to write one scene at a time. The answers I need will come when I need them.

I know that inevitably I will write myself into corners. I’ll be trapped and think there is no way out, but then I’ll wake up one morning and it will all be clear. The answer was there all the time just out of reach, and I’ll marvel that it seems so simple and so right that I should’ve been able to see it.

Somewhere in the mushy middle of the book, I will lose steam and think the whole thing is crap. It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever written. No one will ever want to read it. It’s pointless what I’m doing. I will keep writing anyway. But it will be hard. There will be days when it’s excruciating to write one sentence. I’ll sit staring at the computer, bleary-eyed, unable to string two words together. Then I finally will string two words together and end up deleting them. There will be other days when it all flows effortlessly. Scenes scroll out like a movie. When I go back to read my work I won’t remember which parts were hard to write and which were easy.

I know that at some point toward the end, I will become manic, waking every morning with the day’s writing pressing down at me so I can hardly wait to start, to just get it out of me before my head explodes. I’ll want to do nothing but write, past dinner, past bed time. I’ll forget to change out of my pajamas. I won’t shower or make dinner or clean the bathrooms. I’ll go to bed with dialogue spinning and perfect lines popping up out of nowhere. I’ll be in the grocery store or driving carpool or sitting in a doctor’s office and I’ll have to scrounge around for a scrap of paper to jot down words that are writing themselves before my eyes. People will think I’m a lunatic. I know that when I finished the day’s writing I will feel like I’m stepping out of a trance. I shouldn’t operate heavy machinery during these times or have important conversations with my husband.

I know that several months from now, it will all come together. I will write the final words and feel wrung out and exhausted. I will think it is the best thing I’ve ever written. I will send it out to friends. I will eagerly await their responses. While I scrub my neglected toilets, I’ll imagine six figure book-deals and movie rights and awards and critical acclaim.

None of that will happen. But it will be okay. I will take a rest. Then I will start to write another book.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.” --Goethe

Acceptance

Lately I’ve been consumed by the college application process. (My son is a junior and our family just got back from a spring break college tour trip.) I am by no means an expert on the "getting into college" game, but I’m starting to figure it out, and I’m alternating between hope and despair about my son’s chances of acceptance into a top-notch school (which for our family includes some kind of financial aid package. The average price for a private college these days is considerable. Fifty-five thousand dollars a year at many schools. Cue horrified scream.

What’s interesting to me is how much this process is like the publishing business. Recently on NPR there was a report on the admissions process at Amherst. The way it works is admission counselors (in the writing business we call them first readers) cull through the thousands of applications (manuscripts in the slush pile). They come up with strongest candidates and present them to the admissions board (editorial department) and make their case. So much of it is arbitrary. One counselor presented an applicant who sounded phenomenal. The boy was the valedictorian of his class, had taken AP classes since he was a freshman, and had done tons of community service work. Yet he was rejected. Sometimes it comes down to a phrase in the personal essay (query letter). One student admitted he wasn’t passionate about anything. Well, forget him, they all agreed. Another kid mentioned something about chicken nuggets, which got a laugh from everyone and a place in the Yes pile. But later that Yes pile grew too big and the counselors ended up pulling some applications out randomly.

Yes. College admissions is sometimes like a lottery. These kids had already made it through the first round and the second and they still got cut. A counselor admitted the school had rejected students who ended up being Rhodes Scholars. He said it truly wasn’t a personal rejection, that Amherst had over 8000 applicants and could only take 1000. (For the record, Harvard has something like 35,000 applicants and will only accept 3000) In the end so much of the process is out of the student’s control.

Control is the key word here. Or rather the lack therof. You can have top SAT scores, a stellar academic record, and extra curricular activities up the wazoo, but there may be some other white boy from Missouri who juggles and plays the jazz sax and climbed Mount Everest last year too, so sorry, kiddo, you’re out of luck. It’s like this in the publishing business. There is a certain presumed standard of competence and talent and the rest comes down to praying your manuscript sounds like nothing else out there.

So why bother? I had this discussion with my best writing friend. She’s going through a crisis of faith and I’ve been emailing her inspirational messages and trying to talk her down from the ledge. I’ve been there before on that what’s the point ledge and it’s a discouraging place to be. Eventually, every writer has to come to terms with the reality that her dream may not come true. Seven thousand kids are not getting into Amherst this year. Oh well. They’re going to go to college somewhere. And I have a feeling they’re going to be just fine.

As for me (and I truly hope my dear writing friend too) I am going to keep writing. I have learned this lesson over the years: I feel better when I write. That’s really all there is to it. Yeah, it’d be nice to have some outside validation, an acceptance letter from my first choice publishing house in my mailbox. But like all those rejected Amherst applicants, in the end, oh well.

There’s always community college.

From Book Club to Bunco

This is the first place I’ve lived that I haven’t been in a book club.

Almost twenty years ago I started one with my roommate from college. It was a small group, a handful of women newly married and just starting families. The only rule was the book had to be easily obtainable in paperback or at the library. Each month we met at a different restaurant, nothing fancy, but it was a welcome break from our regular busy lives. We rarely talked about the book for more than a few minutes, but we still called what we were doing a book club. Maybe it made our outings seem more legitimate. (It sounds better to say to your husband, “Hey, honey I’m off to my book club,” rather than, “You watch our one-year-old tonight, I’m going out to eat with my girlfriends.) When my husband’s job was transferred out of state, one of my first orders of business was to join another book club.

This turned out to be harder than I thought. Apparently, some book clubs are a little chummy and hard to break into. One group I discovered had a certain number of members, twelve, and basically, one of those people had to die or move away before the group would accept another. I was allowed to attend one of their meetings and it was hardcore. They met at a coffee house. One woman presented research she’d done on the book. I, a former high school English teacher, was a little intimidated by the seriousness of the probing discussion questions. Sheesh. Couldn’t we just chat about what we liked and didn’t? Then gorge ourselves on pastries? No matter. No member died or moved away. I had no chance at membership.

A few years later I stumbled on a great group. Some women I worked with were talking about an upcoming meeting and the book they’d just read. It was something I had just read too and I mentioned it shyly. Could I possibly come to the next meeting? Were there any rules about new members joining? The ladies looked at me like I was nuts. Of course I was welcome. The more the merrier was their motto. We met at each other’s houses for dinner every other month. It was very laid back. The hostess chose the book (again, something easily obtainable). Our book list over the years was a good mix of popular fiction and literary, non-fiction and short stories. Many of the members happened to be writers, which led to interesting discussions about character development and plot choices. The Christmas meetings everyone read a different book and gave a brief book talk. One year it was a children’s book. Another year it was a classic we were embarrassed never to have read. I read Great Expectations. Not sure how as an English major I had missed this along the way.

When my husband got transferred again, finding a book club was one of my priorities, but complications ensued. My first lead was another one of those Member Must Die Before We Accept Anyone New groups. There were two other possibilities, but neither panned out. I quit looking.

I still read a lot, but I’ve found that I don’t branch out as much from my comfort zone. That’s one of the cool things about being in a book club—you have to read stuff you wouldn’t normally pick up. And you have a reason to get out of the house and socialize. Sure, I get that with my bunco group—(for those of you unfamiliar with bunco, it’s a dice game that makes Yahtzee look complicated. It’s strangely fun and there’s wine)—but it’s just not the same. Sigh.

I’m thinking about starting a virtual book club on this blog. I’ll keep it very low key. One of us will suggest a book. We’ll “get together” next month to discuss. For the three or four of you who are reading this, what do you say?

Imaginary Spaces

A million years ago I heard Louis Sachar, Newbery author of one of my favorite books, Holes, speak at a conference. He started his talk by asking the audience what they thought was the most important aspect to consider when writing a book. People around me shouted out: “Characters, plot, theme!” But Sachar surprised us (or me, at least) by saying it was setting. At the time I thought of setting as background stuff, potentially boring description. Who cares where the characters are? What's important is what they're saying and doing. But Sachar went on to explain that setting is everything. In fact, in all of his books the setting is practically a character itself. Holes, for example, can’t take place anywhere except at Camp Green Lake. And his middle school series Sideways Stories at Wayside School can only happen in that bizarrely constructed school building.

I don’t know if I totally agree that setting is THE most important aspect of a book, but I definitely think it’s right up there with the other elements. Your characters can’t be floating around unmoored. They must move through a physical space somewhere. And done right a setting can come alive. Carolyn See in her writing manual Making a Literary Life talks about how certain people in our lives—the people we love or feel conflicted about or maybe even hate—family members, friends from childhood, the teacher who humiliated you in front of class in ninth grade—these people become our characters. At least variations of these people tend to show up in some form or another in the characters we create.

I think it’s the same with setting. Many of my Cicada stories take place at a college suspiciously like the one I attended. It’s the typical college campus in my head, with stone buildings and slate roofs. Sidewalks crisscrossing green lawns. An old pub in the center where they used to serve beer. The neighborhoods where my characters live are lined with the streets I walked when I was ten. There’s the park with the pond where we used to skate in the winter. There’s the patch of woods across the street I used to cut through to get to my piano lessons. The houses where my characters live are old. The kitchens are small. The bedrooms look out over the backyard. There is always an entryway where a mirror hangs on the wall.

I’m glad I’ve lived in several places over the years. And I’m glad I’ve moved away from them. Somehow you can see a place more clearly after you’ve left it. I’m not sure I could write about a place I’ve never been.

But maybe that’s not true. Just as the characters I’ve created are not totally based on people I’ve known, the settings I’ve plopped them into aren’t actually places where I’ve lived either. True, there might be a patch of woods across the street, but my pretend woods stretch on for miles. There’s a cave like the one I stumbled through near the Natural Bridge in Kentucky, the one where I almost had a panic attack in total darkness worrying that my kids would fall into an unseen crevice. There’s a stream that rushes along like the one that borders the town where I live now, but it’s also shallow in spots, like the one I tromped through at girl scout camp when I was twelve.

I just read a great YA novel that takes place in Paris, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.

It’s a sweet, angsty romance about a girl who’s sent to finish her senior year at an American boarding school in Paris. The girl is funny and clever, a want-to-be film critic who’s floundering at first with the language and culture and missing the goings on at home. The boy is half British and cute and afraid of heights. But it’s Paris that is the third character in this story. I heard that the author never visited the city before she wrote the book, which is just amazing to me. Of course, I’ve never been to Paris, so maybe she got some details wrong. Somehow I don’t think so.

That’s one of the cool things about being a writer. You get to use your imagination to create a world. Whether it is a real place or one that just feels like it should be.

Striving to be OKAY

The best advice I ever heard about how to handle criticism came from a talk given by Newbery author Linda Su Park several years ago at the Highlights Chautauqua conference. She said that while it’s difficult and painful for a writer to hear criticism, it’s also essential. If you don’t listen to criticism, you’re never going to improve your writing. But how do you respond when someone tells you your book is boring or your plot makes no sense?

The answer is to nod and say, OKAY. You can say this with your teeth grinding together and a sick smile plastered on your face, but just say OKAY. Let the person talk. Listen to what she has to say. Take notes. Say okay then give yourself a chance to think about it. Nine times out of ten, it’s valid criticism. At the very least, it’s worth considering.

Here. Let’s practice (using real comments first readers have given me):

Reader: The beginning is slow and clunky and confusing.
Me (What I’m thinking): Are you freaking kidding me? I wrote that section like fifteen times! It’s completely necessary to the set up of the entire novel. I’m not changing one damn thing about it.
Me (What I say): Uh. Okay.

Reader: I don’t like your main character. He’s kind of a jerk.
Me (What I’m thinking): You’re kind of a jerk.
Me (What I say): Okay.

You get my point. If you ever want this person to read your work again and honestly give you feedback, you must listen to what she’s saying and thank her kindly for taking the time to think about it and relay it to you.

Something I’ve learned over the years, too, and I’m not sure if Linda Su Park said this or not, is that a good reader will be able to tell you what isn’t working, but she won’t necessarily be able to tell you why it doesn’t work or what you can do to fix it. That’s YOUR job as the writer.

Now say you’re the first reader for someone else. How can you be a helpful critic without destroying the writer’s delicate ego? Well, it goes without saying that you must be kind. The writer likely spent months (maybe years) toiling over this manuscript. Even if it’s a giant mess it represents her hard work, never mind her blood, sweat and tears. But that doesn’t mean you should sugarcoat your response. Telling someone I liked it or it’s good isn’t very helpful. If you really did like it, be specific about what you liked. It’s a good idea to start with the positive no matter what. If there are issues, be specific here too. Is there a section that’s confusing? Does a character do something that doesn’t make sense? Is there a part with too much description or not enough? Or maybe there are more rudimentary issues. The tense changes, for example, or there are confusing shifts in point-of-view.

The best case scenario is to have a give and take relationship with your first readers—where you read and critique each other’s work. It’s taken me years to find people like this and I take my role as their first readers just as seriously as I take my role as a writer.

I’m thinking about all of this because today I’m off to have coffee with one of my first readers. She just finished reading my manuscript and she’s gearing up to tell me what she thinks about it. I’m gearing up too. I’ve got a notebook to record what she says. I’ve done my yoga this morning so my chakras are balanced. I’m in the proper state of mind—a zen-like oneness with the universe. I’m also chanting my all-purpose word:

Okay Okay Okay Okay.