Writing on Writing: More Writing!

I have been inspired by Hightouch to try to blog...at least a little bit.....
But, alas, what to say?
Firstly I have to say that this semester is a motherfucker. (Pardon my swearing! I like to swear!). What is the nature of this M-Fness? Hard to say.
Mother Fucker Nature, let me list you:

1. Teaching a New Class: This is not as hard as it sounds, but harder than it should be. For some reason, I have these little over achievers submitting writing to me constantly. CON-STANT-fucking-LY. Whose idea was this? Mine, apparently.
2. Working on Committees. If there is a BANE to any existence it is the creation and subsequent meeting of this and or that committee. One may actually love some of their compatriots on this committee but that does nothing to dull the mind-numbingness of just the sheer fucking actuality of BEING on a committee. Enough said.
3. Writing. Am I writing? Hells no. But I have forced myself to write for fifteen minutes each night for say the last week. So I have done _some_ writing. (If I could make the font of the word "writing" smaller so as to indicate how little I do, I would). 
4. Anxiety. This, friends, is the hobgoblin of little minds. Namely, mine. I worry the shit out of everything. This, however, does not prevent me from watching more TV than is perhaps advisable, and, somehow I manage NOT to worry while actually watching TV (and maybe drinking wine, I won't lie...) but watching TV does not make the anxiety go away. It just distracts it for a bit. What is this anxiety about? Not working on my novel. But, hey, whatever.
5. TV: I watch some/bit/a lot of TV. To wit: Brooklyn 99 (Andy Samberg, what what?); New Girl (not as good as it used to be, but Schmidt! He does Crossfit!); The Mindy Project (um, hello?? hilarious, also Morgan!); Modern Family (tight suit!); Parks and Rec (please don't talk to me about the small number of episodes before I have to wait until January....); Continuum (netflix). I think that's it....

And so, friends, my fifteen minutes comes to a close. If you want to know what else I am up to, re: thinking, I will just say sonnets, earthquakes, Pangaea. You're going to have to do the rest of the work yourself. 

(Did I mention my neck is fucked up? My neck is fucked up! Tomorrow: massage!!)

On The First Day of School

My first day of teaching is over. Yeah!
I have to say that as far as first days of school go, it was pretty good. It went so fast that I didn't have time to feel hungry or lament my lack of coffee.
This year my first day of teaching coincided with Son's first day of school. I had time to snap the obligatory First Day photo, but little else. Middlebrow was charged with dropping him off and picking him up after. Pretty anti-climactic. There have been no reports, yet, but Son is busy establishing some kind of elaborate Lego culture, complete with Lego economy, in his room with his Friend. I expect that I'll get some kind of off-handed but revelatory comments later, like, "Oh, yeah, but then after Whatshisname puked, Alex told us we were going to compose a rock opera using Garage Band." And this will involve some supply that I'm supposed to bring, or some email I'm supposed to have sent or received, and maybe some costumes that I'm supposed to construct using t-shirts and duct tape. I look forward to it.
So far, the year is off to a good start. Son's class rocks, and is possibly the best ever. Ever! I'm hoping that the insane stacking of my classes in the morning (1-2-3!) will eliminate the time I spend fretting and over planning.
I'm looking forward to teaching the Novel Writing class tomorrow night.

Teaching the Night/Novel Class

Good evening. I will now, in so many words, tell you all about the kinds of novels I hope you're NOT writing. That is, the novel about (of course!) vampires, the novel about a world that seems suspiciously like the world of Harry Potter/Stephen King/Shannon Hale/Twilight/The Lord of the Rings/all the science fiction books you've ever read.
You want to write witty banter? Hurrah! You like Kilgore Trout? Even better! Your favorite novel is Lolita? Huzzah! (Okay, yes, there are at least three readers in the class. Out of 28).
Yes, we all want to marry Mr. Darcy. But he doesn't exist. So now what?
No, that doesn't mean we move to Mars and write about unicorns. Absolutely not.
What? Your novel is about a teenage girl who kills with her mind? You are dismissed.
Please do not talk about Twilight. Or werewolves. Zombies are acceptable.
Yes, I like Luna Lovegood too.
What? You can't name a novel you like? Only a movie? I will close my eyes and make you disappear.
What? Does the novel have to be made up? You mean, fiction? Is a novel fiction? Is that really your question?
Excuse me. Class is now over.

Bulletin from Conferences with Creative Nonfiction Students

I felt a little bad because I'm not conferencing with my composition students this week like Middlebrow and Assertively Unhip. But then I remembered, I am conferencing with my students from Creative Nonfiction.
I had a day of conferences last week, and they were okay. My least favorite was with the student who needs the most help. He turned in a draft that he had clearly written just before emailing it to me. "What's the heart of this essay?" I asked. He looked at me blankly. I'd forgotten about this kind of student. He doesn't have an idea, he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't even know how to ask me a question so I can help him. "Okay," I said and sent him on his way. I'm accustomed to this student in beginning writing, but in an elective? I'm not sure why he's in this class. He is an okay writer, and I think he might even be creative, if he just wrote some stuff and loosened up.
In contrast with this conference were the majority of the conferences I had today. First, a student who wants to be an English major. I gave her a handbook. She's great at description and terrible with grammar.
Later a guy who's been quiet most of the semester. He's a good writer, but he clearly hadn't found his subject, until now. He had told me he was going to write about random conversations on public transportation. Okay, fine. But he sent me an essay about how his family moved to the woods, essentially, and how his mom came out of her depression for awhile. Because he wrote about it before I know that his mom eventually committed suicide. What was interesting was that in this essay he shifted from the third person (referring to himself by name and to his parents by their names) to the first person. He clearly was dealing with some tough emotional territory. In the final section, he began posing some questions that he hadn't quite addressed in the rest of the essay. I pointed to this section in our conference and said, "This is the section that can change this from a good essay into a great essay. But you have to decide for yourself, are you doing this essay just for this class, or are you a writer?" Like a good lawyer, I didn't ask a question I didn't know the answer to. Obviously he wouldn't have started this essay if he wasn't a writer. It's that kind of essay. It's messy, it's not done, but it's what he really needs to write about. I hate it when creative writing classes become therapy, but I see some real potential in him as a writer, and in this essay in particular. He said he saw this project extending beyond the end of the class. What greater compliment is there for a teacher than for a student to finally confront the subject matter he most needs to write about and to pursue a project beyond the end of a class? It's those quiet ones. You never can tell.
There was also another student who told me that she wants to turn her essay into a book. She's writing about her father and Viet Nam. He wrote a remembrance book that she is going to include in her essay. She had some great lines that began, "The story I want to tell is..." I referred her to "How to Tell A True War Story."
A few of these students told me that they are signing up for my Fiction class in the Spring. One, a great writer and a student from last semester, is working out a special deal with me, as he can't fit it in his schedule because he finally got into the nursing program.
Just when I had almost given up: hope.

I'm Not Gone, Physically

Though I have been absent, I am here. Wednesdays just kill me man!
It all begins way too f*ing early at 6 when I get up, drive to the park, and, today, did "speed work" with my running partner Scorpion's Tail. Then I dash home, shower, eat breakfast and make lunches, pick-up another kid and co-op at son's school.
If anything makes me love college teaching, it's spending three hours with 20 first and second graders. Things I've learned so far:

1. Second grade boys are an entirely different animal than first grade boys.
2. Boys without front teeth are cute.
3. Some kids will. not. focus.
4. Saying "don't do that" really isn't effective either with first and second graders or with students in English 1010. Saying it repeatedly really doesn't help either.
5. If you give the kids tools, they will use them for any other thing except for what they were intended. Example, tape is for making and covering a cardboard wallet, NOT for affixing pictures to the walls. Chips are not for counting, but for playing tiddly winks.
6. There is nothing cuter than a four-year old boy with glasses.

These are the life lessons for now. I'm sure I'll be learning more about pedagogy from the six and seven year olds as the semester continues.
Oh, the other thing I learned: a combination of first/second graders and English 1010 is a sure recipe for needing a cocktail by 4 p.m. This is a well established Truth. Trust me. I know.