Here I Go

Just printed off my first VERY rough draft of the novel I wrote in November during National Novel Writing Month. Keeping in mind it's a very rough draft, here's a tidbit from page...hmm... oh, 11. How about that?

“So that’s how it is. I get it. See you tomorrow.” And he left, but he turned to take one more look before he walked out the door, as though he knew my eyes would be following his straight broad back, shaping the hollow between those long muscles under his shirt with my eyes. He was too conceited for me, I knew, and far too beautiful. But it had been a long time since anyone had looked at me the way he did, whether his looks were genuine or not.
At home, I sat in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal, crunching away while I watched my boyfriend Ross chase Rachel behind the dusty curved glass. My life was pitiful, I knew. Something about Ross attracted me, though, and had ever since the first season of Friends, back when I was still in junior high. Something about his geeky brainy-ness was appealing. Maybe the fact that he didn’t know how cute he was, and that he was awkward and shy in unfamiliar social situations, just like me. Nothing like Paul, but maybe I was growing up now, no longer interested in a nerd like Ross. Paul was my adult fantasy, and indulging that fantasy was harmless, especially when I was sitting on my ratty Ikea couch with an empty cereal bowl balanced on my knee.

I don't know...what do you think?

Rex Goliath

I've realized that when I go to the store to buy a bottle of wine, I am very open to the persuasion of a good label. If I could find FAT BASTARD in a Cabernet Sauvignon instead of just the Chardonnay and Merlot I've seen at Meijer, I'd buy it. It's funny and it reminds me of Thad's amazing capacity for mimicry.
And Five Friends, that's a good label for a night with some girlfriends. Winking Owl just sounds like it will make me wise if I drink it, and I love Left Foot Charley, which happens to be the brew company of Bryan Ulbrich, a friend I made one summer at Camp Arcadia. Great wine.
So today, as I polished off a bottle of Rex Goliath that I opened last night at Dave and Ilona's always great New Year's Party, I thought about labels and covers, and how I tend to judge books and wine and people by them. We talk about how we shouldn't, we know we shouldn't, but we do. I am beginning to think it's human nature. I remember the first time I saw Clint: the late afternoon sun beat on his hair that was so blond it was almost blinding. And his smile spread across his tanned face as he entertained a toddler with a Mickey Mouse impression. He was the perfect mix of gorgeous and childish and I knew I wanted to marry him. It was that simple.
Maybe first impressions aren't that bad.
And as for the Rex Goliath, I think I made a good choice. After two glasses, I'm feeling pretty lugubrious, and ready for whatever the evening may bring, whether it be a rousing game of Scrabble, popcorn and a movie, or lazy chatting with the fam. Maybe I'll help polish off the rest of the Left Foot Charley too, while I'm at it.

Teacherly Advice

A great thing about talking to another English teacher is the ideas we generate when we're together. I suppose other people talk about work when they meet up with someone in a similar field, and I wonder if other doctors, lawyers, engineers, artists, etc. talk about their jobs with as much enthusiasm as teachers do. At least the teachers I hang out with. Or maybe it's just me, and they're all humoring me.
Anyway, when I met E for coffee yesterday, we came up with some great brainstorms. I've been complaining loudly lately to anyone who will listen about the horrible cloud high stakes tests have created over my head--and the head of any teacher who likes to ENGAGE students' minds and interests, and not just "teach to the test." Complaining about how I don't want to just push multiple choice tests and worksheets at my students but get them to think creatively and write creatively and interact with literature instead of just spew content and analysis. But the MAN keeps saying we need to prepare students for the ACT and nothing else matters (we've even been told students don't need to care about what they write because they won't ever write after high school) (can that be true? I'm not naive enough to think all my students will WRITE all the time, but surely everyone writes, in some fashion, right?)
Enough ranting.
E gave me some great ideas I can't wait to try to get my students to produce meaningful, authentic writing--writing that has a purpose and an audience.
1) for my Creative Writing Club kids: have a writing marathon some Saturday, where we travel to 3-4 local spots, sit and write in each one for 30 minutes, then get together at the end to share what we've written. Pick one to polish and publish (local newspaper, maybe?)
2) do a collaborative project with my Creative Writing (class) students and her 7-8 grade writing students. Pair them up and have them write a poem together; I will try to visit her classroom and she will try to visit mine; we may try to get the students together to share at the end.
3) send my English 10 students out into the community to get corporate sponsors so we can raise money to publish a class anthology, for which each student will submit one piece of writing.

Are these not great ideas? I can't wait to put them into action.

Finding My Strength

Today I met a good friend for coffee, and amidst our talk about Christmas and kids and teacherly things, she told me something that really made me think.
She said she's been reading this book by Marcus Buckingham about finding your strengths. According to the book, so many of us focus on our weaknesses and try to work on them instead of focusing on our strengths and building them. Seems silly, right? But how many times have I looked in the mirror and seen the new red spot that will probably erupt into a pimple instead of my cute round cheeks? When I look at my hair, why do I see the gray hairs instead of the blondish--okay, mostly brown hairs? When I listen to myself sing, why do I focus on the missed notes intead of all the good ones?
And I know I do this when I grade students' papers: I write maybe one sentence or even just half a sentence about what the student did well on his or her paper, and then I spend the next four sentences dissecting his or her mistakes. Why do we do this?
My friend said the book claims that if we dwell on our strengths and praise ourselves for what we do well--and if we try to do MORE of those things we're good at, we'll be well--physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.
So what are you good at? What am I good at? How can we improve ourselves by focusing on our strenghts. Good thoughts for New Year's Eve-Eve.

The Sicko

So what's up with getting sick on Christmas day (head cold) and still not being over it? Today, I slept in until 9:13, letting Clint get up with Jared, and snuggled back under the cozy blankets until that decadent hour. And after lunch, when Jared went down for his nap, guess what I did? Yup, I took a nap too. And now, at 6:40, I'm feeling tired enough to go to bed already. How am I going to accomplish my list of good intentions for the Christmas holiday if I can't get enough energy to change out of my pajamas?
I have done a few things: I finished grading my Creative Writing students' papers; I baked a ton of cookies (on 12/24, the day before I got sick), I read a few books, and I've sat around. Oh, and I've probably posted more regularly to this blog than I have in the last 2 months. But other than that, nothing.
So my revised resolution for tomorrow: get up early, meet E for breakfast, and keep non-lounge clothes on all day. Sit up in chair (no slouching or reclining), get up and move around, and try to speak with normal voice. Sounds doable. We'll see how it turns out.

Oh, and that essay I mentioned a week or so ago? The one I submitted to Miranda Magazine? It's on their website. Follow the link and read it, if you want to.

Question of the day

What movie is this from?

"Everyone I know has a big but. What's your big but, Simone?"

Book Review: Beauty

You know how you can read a book once, set it down, and come back to it a few years later and enjoy it all over again? That's what this book is like. I find that most of the books I buy are books I will read multiple times, and there is a unique sort of pleasure to be found in a second, third, ninth read of a treasured book.

Beauty is the almost-sixteen year old daughter of the Duke of Westfaire, a man whose two favorite passions appear to be fathering children and visiting holy relics. Beauty's three closest friends are Father Raymond, the priest who teaches her Latin and the classics and who sees far too much for Beauty's comfort; Giles, her father's handsome man-at-arms, who is both honorable and socially inferior to her; and Beloved, her half-sister who could be her twin, who was born the same day as Beauty.

There is a mystery about Beauty, one her seven spinster aunts (who live at the castle) refuse to share with her, but Beauty knows it has something to do with her mother, who disappeared shortly after her birth.

When a woman comes to visit, a woman whom her father has pledged himself to marry, Beauty is ousted from her bedroom and takes refuge in the Dove Tower, which had been her mother's favorite room when she was still at Westfaire. There Beauty finds a letter left for her by her mother, a note revealing that her mother Elladine is Lady of Ylles, a land in Faery, and Beauty is therefore half-fairy. The note further says that an evil enchantment was laid on Beauty at her christening: that on her sixteenth birthday, the Duke's beautiful daughter would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into an enchanted slumber.

(Is this story beginning to sound familiar?)

Beauty convinces Beloved to take her place for the birthday party so she can escape the fancy clothes and admiring eyes, and it is Beloved who falls prey to the curse. By the time Beauty realizes what has happened, all in the castle have fallen into an unwakable slumber, and a hedge of thorny roses has begun to climb about the castle. Beauty escapes and stands outside her home, weeping in dismay. There is but one spot of hope in her dim outlook: Giles had been sent away on a mission by Father Raymond after the priest observed the two young people exchanging a love-charged glance, so Giles has been spared from the enchantment.

As she wanders the countryside, blinded by tears, Beauty stumbles upon something completely foreign to her: a crew of time-travelling filmmakers from the twenty-first century, arrived in the fourteenth to record a bit of magic. They seize Beauty and take her back to their time, a world that is horrifying in its absence of magic and hope and beauty.

From there the story becomes a romp through space and time as Beauty tries to find her way back home and figure out her destiny. Along the way, stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and the Frog Prince get worked in, plus numerous visits to the land of Faery, which is peopled with a myriad of fantastical creatures.

Although the narrative becomes preachy at times, when Tepper rants about the fate of the world if modern people do not conserve resources, appreciate nature, stop deforestation, and allow abortion, there is enough magic and humor in the majority of the novel to give the sermons just a hint of bitterness that is quickly swallowed and forgotten.

In all, I highly recommend this book, especially if you like a mix of fantasy and humor, but please don't assume that I espouse all of Tepper's views.