Writing on the Side

Yes, today is the last day of instruction.  Presentations are over, your final papers are turned in, and we will never meet all together in this room again.

I will actually miss many of you, particularly those of you who faithfully attended my 8:30 class.  Thank you for laughing at all of my jokes and paying attention.  I will also miss the really good students: yes, A students, this means you!  You don't get any good press and that's hardly fair, since you actually did work hard, come to office hours, and learn where to put the commas.  You guys rock!

Average students: you were--okay.  I've got nothin'.

As for the rest of you, you lonely few who whined and complained and made outrageous demands, I want you to know how tempted I am to staple McDonald's applications to your final grades.  'Cause you're going to need those where you're going.  Just to reiterate: no, you cannot "revise for a better grade" the essay that you never turned in, nor is it appropriate for you to come into my final office hours next week and go over every paper you've ever written in the course because you have just discovered that you "really need to pass."  You might recall the one and only conversation you and I ever had in my office, during which you asked me, AFTER I told you that you were not passing, if you could miss class to attend Greek Week festivities.  That might have been the time to feign at least a minimum of concern for your grade; instead, you merely pouted that you would have to miss the frat vs. frat basketball game.  Sorry to take away your birthday, but I'm not changing a semester's worth of poor grades on your assurance that you "can string a sentence together just fine."  Besides, I have hard evidence to the contrary.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to give a special shout-out to those few of you who kept coming to class with a smile long after you knew you weren't passing.  This was a new phenomenon this semester; never before have I experienced a bumper crop of students who attended so faithfully, yet never turned anything in.  Even after I told you that you didn't have anywhere near enough points to even scrape a D you continued to attend and participate.  Either you are really persistent, really stupid, or a real fan.  In any case, you win the Special Attendance award, and I hereby name you charter members of my fan club.  Use your powers for good.  If we're lucky, maybe we'll meet again in the Fall.

All in all, it was an interesting semester, full of outrageous student requests, bizarre turns of events, and a lot of really awful writing.  You learned a little; I learned a lot.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

Your Teacher


 

Things I have to do by Thursday:

- Kick the cooties that my daughter gave me 
- Grade 145 essays
- Catch up on crits for my group
- Try not to panic about how I'm going to get everything done by the end of the semester

Breathe.

 

It's been a hectic couple of months, and I'm fairly frazzled by it all.  I'll spare the gory details, but I did want to check in and let you all know that I haven't been hit by a bus.  Because I haven't.  Yet.

Due to my current state of frazzlement, I haven't done any writing at all, and I really miss it.  With any luck, I'll shuffle these 200 essays out the door within the next couple of weeks, take in and speed-grade the last assignment, turn in final grades, and get back into writing the eternal short story that has officially taken longer to write than my recently completed novel.  I have collected another couple of rejection letters (one very nice one from an agent to whom I had sent a partial, then completely forgot about) and another that actually gave a REASON for the rejection, which made it ROCK in my book!  Have yet to hear from my top choice agent, who has now had the full since Labor Day and has not responded to my first email inquiry, which is discouraging.  Fortunately, I just don't have time to dwell.

And that's pretty much all the news that's fit to post on the Internets.

So I'm here at my parents' house in Las Vegas on an R&R vacation with my girls, and it has occurred to me, on more than one occasion, that I really suck at doing nothing.  As much as I think, "wow, it would be SO GREAT just to lie around the pool!" this is not possible.  So I'm spending a whole lot of time trying to fill up the time by catching up on crits, working on a side project for a friend, and editing my to-do list so the withdrawal doesn't hurt so much.  I'm also eating.  A lot. 

On the up side, I think I'm finally to the point that I'm looking forward to writing again (after what feels like an incredibly long hiatus).  I even have IDEAS!  So this vacation thing may have some benefit after all.  

After a two-week grading and conferencing marathon that culminated in a personal record of grading 70ish in-class essays in (just) under 12 hours, I am happy to report that Spring Break has officially begun.

Let the fun commence!  Or at least the sleep.

I commemorated the eventful day by pulling a "you kids get off my lawn!" when a group of young boys broke a glass bottle in the street right in front of my house and then tried to walk away.  I made them clean it up.  Bad enough there's a friggin' SHOPPING CART in the jungle that passes for a lawn in front of the foreclosure across the street, I'm drawing a line at broken glass.  Even if it is a Snapple bottle.

Apparently, I've become an adult.

Anyway, I get to sleep!  Go me! 

I've thoroughly enjoyed conferencing with you for the past two weeks. It's heartening to see that, for the most part, your writing is improving. It makes me feel like my standing up in front of the whiteboard twice a week has some greater purpose than offering you a sly opportunity to check out your classmates and take a much-needed nap.  Nevertheless, our conferences have brought up a couple of important points that I'd like to share.

First of all, I love the fact that my class is your favorite, even though you really hate English and always have. I am okay with being far more fabulous and interesting than the subject matter. I am just happy that you, like all 77 students who came before you, genuinely appreciate all of the effort I put into making the class fun. And yes, I know that you're not just "sucking up," that you really mean it. Why would I think otherwise? After all, how can 78 separate successive assurances of my fabulousness be wrong? 

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'd like to remind a select few of you that, as much as you enjoy my company, you will actually be earning a grade in this course. Therefore, you must turn in all of your essays. On time. And ideally, they will be well-written, with a minimum of errors (see previous post).  The fact that you may have neglected to turn in one-- maybe even two-- essays (out of the two thus far assigned) will, in fact, hurt your grade. No, you cannot make them up. Why? Because there are only five weeks left in the semester. If students were expected to turn four out-of-class essays in within a five week period, we would only have five week semesters.

Sometimes, we do have five week semesters. We call them "summer school."  Familiarize yourself with this concept, as you are SO not passing my class this semester.

Sincerely,

Your Instructor

PS- I love it when you tell me stories about your ex-girlfriend (who also happens to be in our class), your job as a barrista, how much cooler and smarter I am than your previous English teachers, and how you're handling 32 units at two different colleges.  This is a perfectly acceptable diversion from what we are supposed to be talking about, as long as the story doesn't exceed your 15-minute time slot.  Then, regrettably, I have to boot you so I can repeat the process with the next student.

Via

e_underwood, a haiku:  

 

Haiku2 for writerknv
expect to be in a row so i rewarded myself by writing
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

Here's another one I really liked:

 

Haiku2 for writerknv
pile of paper i lovingly refer to as book one revise
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

It's like a little ode to my first book.  Fun!

Okay, my short story writing friends!  I need motivation to finish up and/ or revise three short stories lying neglected in my documents file.  I'm thinking about entering some contests.

One short story is fantasy, one is sci-fi/ space fantasy, one leans toward horror/ gen. literary fiction.  So far, I'm looking at the Tom Howard Contest and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Contest.  Know anything about these?  Do you have suggestions for other contests?  Warnings?  General advice?

Thanks!

I appreciate your efforts, I really do.  I know it's hard to go to school full time and work at Abercrombie in the evenings.  Sororities and fraternities make so many demands on your time that I feel grateful you turned in anything at all.  And your friends calling at all hours of the day and night to discuss various and sundry crises makes it difficult to focus on the helpful tips I try to convey in the classroom.

But here's the deal-- reading and correcting your third grade grammar takes hours.  Do us both a favor and at least learn the difference between "their" and "there."  It's "you," not "u", and neither is appropriate in formal writing anyway.  Spell check would catch the latter if you bothered to run the program, although you would still need to reference a dictionary (you can even do it online!) to help sort out some of the other problems I see.  In fact, some common sense might even help.  For instance, you can't kick someone in the crouch, nor do women wear heals.  He's not your bother, he's your brother, despite what you may think.  And I've never actually met anyone who worked in pubic relations-- have you?

When you're not plopping them into your essay "everywhere you breathe" or "wherever they look good," commas are actually a useful punctuation mark.  They define sentence boundaries quite nicely, and, when used properly, allow you to do such lovely things as link together dependent and independent clauses, insert additional information into a sentence, or introduce dialogue.  In short, they will free you to incorporate more sentence variety into your writing.  You will no longer be confined to simple sentences that chop your writing into little broken bits.  And no, you cannot take the same "hands-off" approach to commas that you use with the possessive apostrophe: if you don't have one single comma in the essay, your instructor will notice.  I promise.

We're only halfway through the semester, so there's time yet to discuss your propensity to "drag and drop" information from the internet into your essay.  Yes, that is called plagiarism, despite your claim that your writing style "may reflect that of other writers."  You didn't need to use sources for this essay anyway, as it was supposed to be about you.  Unless you are an entry in Wikipedia (which, by the way, is NOT an appropriate academic source) you had no reason to pull any information from the internet into the essay in the first place.

Ah, but there's so much more I could tell you, if only I had more time.  However, I've just picked up your next magnum opus of the semester, and I've got to get busy.  If you have any specific questions, feel free to come and discuss them during my office hours.  It's lonely in here at the moment, as students don't wander in until the last week of the semester, though I fear that by then it will be far too late.

Sincerely,

Your Instructor

Lest you all wonder if I've been hit by a bus....

The essays, it appears, will not disappear.  I have about six of the 101 pile left (must... finish...) not counting the five who didn't follow directions and will be getting papers returned with big fat zeros as of tomorrow (because I'm tired of waiting for them to listen.  They have been warned).  Still have about  60 301  essays though, which will become This Weekend's Problem.

Let's not discuss the fact that the 101s will hand in 75 shiny new essays tomorrow, shall we?

Meanwhile, life keeps pitching Major Obstacles in my path that keep me leaping, and I seem to be largely confined to the car as the young'uns always have somewhere pressing to go.  This means that I have no life of my own to speak of and huge piles of laundry that are going to attack in the night.

Whatever.

When I finish these six essays tonight, I'm going to rejoice, then figure out how long I can procrastinate on the rest so I can get the web project done.  Then, maybe, some writing.

Spring Break: 3 weeks.  But who's counting? 

I'm going on a self-imposed restriction from the internets for-- as long as it takes to catch up on the heaping piles of work around here.  Still buried in essays that I need to get out by Tuesday (and more to come in on Thursday!  Fabulous!), crits (from last month!  I suck!) and a web content project due March 10th.  Not to mention the fact that I am smack in the middle of the hiring and training process to teach for an Online University, so I am beset with pedantic tasks to complete every two days, always with the note, "Please complete in the next 24 to 48 hours."  I won't even bore you with the Major Life Shit that conspires to thwart my ability to function at every turn.

GAH!

I will get it all done.  My goal is to finish crits and at least 20 essays today, with an afternoon break to attend the memorial service of someone really important to me who passed away in January.  I should be able to get the last 20 essays (that are well overdue for return-- by no means ALL the grading) out tomorrow so I can get the web project started by tomorrow night.  

I'll be back when I'm caught up.  Until then, farewell!

Found this via jeffsoesbe, and... well, the results are interesting.  Probably skewed because I actually write fantasy, but it was fun to play. 

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

 

I finished grading one class set of papers (30), so I rewarded myself by writing another 451  words on Thief.  I'm not thrilled with this scene, though.  This story is going to be the death of me.  Writing short stories is hard!  Isn't this supposed to be fun?  Whine, whine, whine....

At least I've got words on the page.  I'm setting aside some time tomorrow morning to write some more, so maybe those words won't suck in the sunlight.  Meanwhile, I'm going to bed so I can rest up for the busy week I've got ahead of me.  If I don't hit the ground running tomorrow, I'm not going to make it.

384 words today on Thief, which brings it to just under 2,000.  More importantly, I figured out some very important story questions that have been nagging at me for quite some time.  I'm looking forward to getting back into the story this weekend, although I don't think I'll be back up to 500 words a day-- or even daily writing goals, for that matter-- until I get some serious work done on the pile of essays that I haven't really dented yet.  

Nor will I have a chance to get real work done on the essay problem until Sunday, as tomorrow is Opening Day for softball and Girl Scout cookie pickup (naturally, both at the same time and across town).  I've already taken to carrying little batches of essays with me like baby albatross that suck up room in my purse and make my shoulder hurt.  Essay season sucks.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping to finish a draft of Thief by... let's say the end of February.  Ambitious, no?  We'll find out.

Today is

jeffsoesbe's birthday!  Have a wonderful birthday and do everything you want to do!

And in other good news, jenwritesmade the final Nebula ballot!  Hooray!

Have a happy, happy day, friends!

 

 

 

I made it to cycling and didn't die, though I discovered that the trick isn't in the actual motion-- it's in the dismount.  I give myself a 9.0 on a 10 point scale for neither falling nor walking like a cowboy.  After dinner, I parlayed my newly discovered manic energy into completing my steaming pile of academic bullshit application materials and printing them out on lovely linen paper, then finishing various other necessary tasks.  

Now, however, the hurt and exhaustion are finally starting to settle in.  Hopefully I'll be able to move tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I will enjoy the sensation of rock hard quads, however fleeting.

So it's been 8 whole days since I finished my novel, and I'm finally starting to feel like a slacker (despite graded essays to the contrary).  I think I need to start writing every day again.  The hard part is deciding what to work on.  I keep dismissing my short stories by telling myself that they'll be done in such a short time that I'll find myself in the "what next?" phase again.  The reality is, writing short stories IS HARD and I don't wanna!  Even if they are half-finished!  Even though it would be nice to have three completed short stories sitting in slush piles all at the same time!  Even though I can practically hear jeffsoesbe cheering me on!

But first, I have an application due tomorrow for a Real Job at a Community College that needs editing and printing.  I have a few papers to grade ASAP.  And-- here's the kicker-- I'm taking a cycling class for the first time tonight.  I fully expect to be in a wheelchair by morning.

So if all of those stars align and I get everything done, then Project Short Story begins tonight.  Otherwise, I'm back in the saddle on Friday.   

No, I don't have all those papers graded, nor do I have

topayz4's crit finished yet.  But my friend Eric finished his book today, and that's news worth shouting to the internet!  Eric's book, Beta Test, ROCKS.  I'm calling it now: this is going to be a blockbuster movie.  Just remember you heard it here first.

Congrats! 

 

 

Essays!  Piles and piles of 'em.  Who was the stoopidhead who scheduled 100+ essays to come in all on the same day?

Oh.

First off, thanks so much to everyone for your congratulations and support!  I don't think writing really is as solitary an exercise as we like to believe.  I know I really value my community of writing friends, and I couldn't have gotten through this novel without all of the pushing, prodding, nagging and cheering of all of you every step of the way!

But now that the time-suck that was this novel is done (at least until I begin the revision), I am trying to come up with a list of other ways to fill that time.  For I find that I spent much of yesterday and this morning following the lead of Mr. Earbrass (as 

jeffsoesbe most excellently suggested in yesterday's comments):   

"The next day Mr. Earbrass is conscious but very little more. He wanders through the house, leaving doors open and empty tea cups on the floor. From time to time the thought occurs to him that he really ought to go and dress, and he gets up several minutes later, only to sit down again in the first chair he comes to. The better part of a week will have elapsed before he has recovered enough to do anything more helpful."
 
This is good enough for now, but I would go nuts if I spent the better part of a week wandering aimlessly through my house.  Instead, these are the projects I've got on the to-do list so far:

- finish "The Thief of Names," a short story I started approximately 100 years ago that still isn't finished.
- finish "Under the Leaves of Orpheus," the short story I started at VP last October (hello, my homework STILL isn't done!  I suck!)
- finish Book Two (aka The Northern Queen), the as-now approximately 26,000 word sequel to the pile of paper I lovingly refer to as Book One.
- revise (and retitle) The Rat's Tale (but it's not time yet-- needs to sit).
- begin my as-yet-untitled PTA novel (yeah, baby!  It's cooking in my brain-oven as we speak!)

My main writing goals this year were to finish two books (Rat and Queen) and finish and send out my two short stories.  My marketing goals are to continue pimping out Book One to agents first, then a couple of editors, and begin marketing Rat.  I don't have any firm plans to attend writer's conferences this year at this point, although I am looking into attending Worldcon and perhaps Baycon.  I may also hit Comic-Con, because it's practically in my backyard.

Wow, look at that really intimidating list of things I could be working on!  And hey, time for lunch. . . maybe a nap. . . does that cat need waxing. . . ?