Your Friday Recommendation #9
I’m a fan of great books at great prices, and if you’ve been in a B&M (”Brick & Mortar,” or physical store as-opposed to online store) Barnes & Noble lately, you’ve probably seen a stack of America (The Book) by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for under $10 a copy - a real steal.
I’m not going to go into the brilliant satire in this book, nor the way the writers of The Daily Show create a streamlined effort to link all of the information they present. The reason I love this book is its presentation.
If you’ve attended public schools in the last thirty years, chances are you will recognize America (The Book) as an amazing parody of a school textbook. The binding, the glossy cover, the library stamp in the front page, the page layout. Over and over, this book goes the extra mile in terms of creating a new level of parody and satire. Yes, they satirize American sensibilities, politics, and history, but to do it in a textbook format, to imply that the way American children learn and are being taught is what really brings this book’s message home.
What’s that? You’ve already read America (The Book)? Then look for America (The Book) Teacher’s Edition. This version has “hand-written” notes all over the place, both correcting the inaccuracies of the original - by inaccuracies, I mean the true parts that were changed so they would be funny - and a snarky running commentary on how the last book was presented. It’s a fun supplemental to the original, and you can likely find this on a close-out table for under $10 as well. Considering these hardcover books were both pushing $20 when they first came out, the price is surely right to those who’ve been waiting to pick up a copy.
-nm
(this post was added retro-actively to assist continuity.)
Technorati Tags: America the Book, satire, parody, textbook parody, public education, reading recommendation
Missing deadlines and justifying behavior.
So this is what happens when I miss a few deadlines.
This week, I missed four self-imposed deadlines, all having to do with this blog. I didn’t put up a Friday Recommendation last week, or a Monday Prompt this week, or the two promised Wednesday posts on reporter’s questions about your writing habits. The plan is to go back and put them in place so as to keep up with our consistent numbering system, though I’ll toss in a little “This post was retroactively placed here” sort of disclaimer to be fair. All of this does have me thinking about one question:
Who’s stopping me from blowing a self-imposed deadline?
Me. There are certain deadlines I have to meet. I have to pay rent on time. I have to have essays graded so students can revise them in time for their next due date. I have to finish a short story in time for a workshop if I want to be included in the next round of stories. These sorts of deadlines are put on me by other people, so I have a tendency to stick to them a lot easier than self-imposed deadlines. With those, it’s easier for me to justify behavior that doesn’t get things done. Oh, what’s one week’s worth of missing blogs? Oh, what’s one more day off the exercise bike? Oh, what’s one missing hour of ukulele rehearsal? Oh, what’s just one more double cheeseburger? Oh, what’s a measly ten dollars on another DVD?
I know the answer to those five hypothetical questions. It’s me not giving my readers what they deserve. It’s me not supporting myself like I deserve. It’s me not 100% preparing myself for a show. It’s me not embracing a lifestyle change. It’s me not saving money for my wedding. All of these self-imposed deadlines have one thing in common - they address a plethora of small, specific short-term goals which all feed into a handful of large, important long-term goals. I write the blog to better my writing - if I’m not writing it, I’m not helping myself. I work out and eat better for my health - if I don’t, things will stay on a downward slope. I practice ukulele because I have shows coming up - plus it’s fun, so I should make time for it. I save money because weddings cost money - it’s no longer in the distance; it’s practically just around the corner. Yet these points are often met with justified behavior. But you know what?
‘Justification’ will kill your creativity, if you let it.
To be fair to myself, this has been a really busy week for a variety of reasons: extra essays to grade, extra projects at work, a handful of improv shows after not doing shows for a while, my final comprehensive exam for my MFA is on Saturday morning, and so on. In a way, my life sort of interrupted my life. Don’t take this as justification, dear reader, rather think of it as me being honest with myself in a public setting. Everything I did and everything I missed is important to me - I just wasn’t able to give everything the time and attention they deserved in one overly-busy week.
My apologies to any reader who missed my intended posts this week; they’ll be up soon. Apologies to me for allowing justification to take over some of my recent decisions; I’m going to try to put justification aside for a while. Apologies to justification, but it’s just not working out. We’ve had a good run, and I know we’ll probably see each other again, sometime. But our relationship isn’t going to be the same. It’s not you, it’s me.
Help a writer know he’s not alone in the fight against justifying behavior - have you faced this abusive lover, too?
-nm
Technorati Tags: missing deadlines, justify behavior, lifestyle change, ukulele, improv, killing your creativity, what’s important to me
Your Monday Prompt #17
Write about a character looking back at their childhood. The voice should clearly be that of an adult, and they should examine moments in their childhood with all the experience and perspective that comes with distance and time. The “occasion for the utterance” should be clear, too, meaning let the reader understand why the character has decided to reflect on a particular childhood experience. Perhaps the adult sees a lone monarch butterfly in a sea of green plant life and remembers when he was four and ate a butterfly. Maybe the adult is on jury duty for someone accused of robbery and she remembers being a little girl and swiping money from her mother’s purse.
Whatever the situation, keep the voice adult and draw parallels between the past and present. Give this exercise at least fifteen minutes of your time, though this is the sort of exercise that might demand more of your time to really get the story rolling.
Write it up and see what happens.
-nm
(this post was added retro-actively to assist continuity.)
Technorati Tags: writing prompt, writing exercise, surprise yourself
Your Friday Recommendation #8
Today’s recommendation is to take a look at how you get news online and decide if you can streamline it any more than the system you currently use.
I used to check MSNBC.com every morning for the news. Sometimes, I would listen to a streaming audio presentation from Minnesota Public Radio. That was the extent of how I used the internet for the news. Call me late to the bandwagon, but I had no idea what RSS feeds were or how they worked until last year. Now, I have “Really Simple Syndication” feeds for MSNBC.com, TheGuardian.co.uk, and MinnesotaPublicRadio.org, which has many text-based news stories besides its streaming audio. That may not seem like a big leap, and I know there are a lot more news sources out there, but I’m starting small, and frankly I’m just excited I understand how to use another piece of web 2.0 technology.
There’s also room for fun news, too. For example, my news tab also features feeds for WiiFanboy - a blog dedicated to Nintendo Wii-centric news and gossip, Ain’t-It-Cool-News.com - a news and rumor website for films and all things geeky, and WhatWouldTylerDurdenDo.com - a (not-always-safe-for-work) blog lambasting celebrities for their latest “news” in the “infotainment” world.
Take a look at the way you read the news online. If you aren’t using RSS feeds yet, give it a shot. Information is being delivered faster than ever, so make sure you’re receiving it as fast as you can.
-nm
(this post was added retro-actively to assist continuity.)
Technorati Tags: rss feed, online news, reading recommendation, improve your bookmarks
Your Monday Prompt #16
Minimal directions today…
Write and don’t stop for fifteen minutes.
Set a timer, create an alarm, whatever. Don’t look at a clock and don’t hesitate - just write anything for fifteen minutes solid. See where it takes you. Even if it doesn’t make sense, don’t w0rry about it, just keep going no matter what.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing prompt, writing exercise, surprise yourself
Grant a child your Compassion.
The youth group I work with is currently in the process of selecting a new child to sponsor through Compassion International, a child’s rights advocacy group who provide opportunities for education and safe play, better health care and nutrition, and faith-building. We’ve sponsored a child in the past, and we’re choosing a new child to give this fresh young group more personal ownership of the responsibility. We began the process the day before Valentine’s Day to help our teenagers consider love beyond romantic “eros” love and look more at brotherly “philia” love and undying “agape” love (leave it to the Greeks to have several words for love). The group has taken to this task with amazing seriousness and interest. We hope to choose a child by the end of this week and begin sponsoring them with a weekly donation collection during youth group activities.
Why mention this on a blog about writing and creativity? Because it’s time to get creative with how we help others. Because our group hopes to help a child without a voice be heard, to be able to write or tell their story untold. Because by writing about the need for help, it spreads awareness - the first step toward helping someone. Call me sappy or overly dramatic, but I will in turn call you to check out the Compassion website and not be touched by the poverty children all over the world could simply use a break. We hope to give a child a break, and that’s why I’m filing this post under “inspiration.” Get inspired, and do something.
If you decide to work with Compassion or another organization helping children, I encourage you to let me know in the comments. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted once the youth group has chosen a child.
-nm
Technorati Tags: Compassion International, Compassion, child advocacy
Your Friday Recommendation #7
Today’s recommendation is of an author I was first introduced to in high school and had the opportunity to examine once again in grad school:
Black Boy by Richard Wright
This is a book about more than race relations, growing up prior to the Civil Rights Movement, and black experience in America. It’s also a coming-of-age tale of which most any reader can relate. Themes of isolation and desolation in childhood run throughout the novel, and the thoughts running through the mind of young Wright (it’s his autobiography, often considered “fictionalized autobiography” - a fancy term for “creative nonfiction,” which itself is a fancy term for “I’m making solid craft choices to tell the truth, so back off and enjoy the story”) are the same thoughts of uncertainty, fear, and general desire to be understood which many have experienced, particularly in their teenage years. For these reasons, this is a novel adults can read with a broad understanding of all the stakes involved, while younger readers can still appreciate Wright’s emotional journey into manhood.
Here’s a brief excerpt in which Wright is chastised by his Uncle Tom (there couldn’t possibly be any hidden meaning in a name like that…). Note that while the predicament Wright creates for himself may be unique, his reflection on what just transpired is universal:
“Where’s Uncle Tom?” I asked.“He’s sleeping,” she said.I ran into his room, went to his bed and shook him.“Uncle Tom, Granny says to come at once. Grandpa’s dead,” I panted.He stared at me a long time.“You certainly are a prize fool,” he said quietly. “Don’t you know that that’s no way to tell a person that his father’s dead?”I stared at him, baffled, panting.“I ran all the way out here,” I gasped. “I’m out of breath. I’m sorry.”He rose slowly and began to dress, ignoring me; he did not utter a word for five minutes.“What’re you waiting for?” he asked me.“Nothing,” I said.I walked home slowly, asking myself what on earth was the matter with me, why it was I never seemed to do things as people expected them to be done. Every word and gesture I made seemed to provoke hostility. I had never been able to talk to others, and I had to guess at their meanings and motives. I had not intentionally tried to shock Uncle Tom, and yet his anger at me seemed to outweigh his sorrow for his father. Finding no answer, I told myself that I was a fool to worry about it, that no matter what I did I would be wrong somehow as far as my family was concerned.
Wow. Now what teenage boy can’t relate to that on some level, no matter the color of their skin?
Aside from theme, the novel is just plain well-written in terms of craft. The most prominent craft choice I picked up on reading Black Boy is Wright’s use of language depicting heat. References to the hot are everywhere:
- Granny rose slowly and lifted the wet towel high above her head and brought it down across my naked back with all the outraged fury of her sixty-odd-year-old body, leaving an aching streak of fire burning and quivering on my skin.
- The long hot idle summer days palled on me.
- I burned at my studies.
- The church grew suddenly hot.
- As the first week of school drew to a close, the conflict that smoldered between Aunt Addie and me flared openly.
- The boy had no doubt conveyed to her my words of blasphemy, for she talked with me for hours, warning me I would forever burn in the lake of fire.
- I had whirled and and was staring at her with an open mouth and blazing eyes.
- I lit a cigarette and I heard a song floating out over the sunlit air.
That last example may seem like a stretch, but it comes toward the end of the novel, when Wright is taking control of his life and thus, controlling the heat, controlling the fire. He’s becoming a man, and in a novel that shows a boy at the mercy of so much figurative fire, to take control of literal fire is an important step in his coming-of-age. Plus, the novel begins with young Wright nearly burning down the family home - right away, he’s telling us that fire, and how to control it or be controlled by it, is going to play an important role in the story.
It’s been a long since I read Wright’s fiction novel Native Son in Mr. Marwitz’s high school English classroom, but my recollection is it was fascinating (I especially remember Bigger Thomas’s time spent as an elevator boy and the racial indignation he had to endure) and it’s likely worth another look. For now, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy Black Boy and give Richard Wright’s work a try.
-nm
Technorati Tags: richard wright, black boy, writing craft, language choice, character reflection
When do you write?
Over the next six Wednesdays, I’ll be posing a classic reporter’s question about the ways one approaches writing. Today we begin by asking ourselves “when”…
It’s an honest question, can you give an honest answer? I try to write in the morning, though I often fall prey to writing at night. Which is not to say, my worse writing occurs at night; writing past twilight has served me well over the years, especially in my time as an undergrad, but as I move into a more day-centric, frankly more “adult” world, I’ve tried to move my creative time to the morning. Some mornings it’s a breeze, a real treat. I get loads of writing done and have a great sense of accomplishment to kick off my day. And other mornings… Well, it doesn’t go so well. You get the picture. Still, I could have the same problem if I stuck with my night owl writing slot, yes? It’s not like any time will be the magical moment everything goes well without fail, but one can set oneself up for an acceptable success rate.
If you’re stuck on when to write, or you’re open to change, try these tips:
Try writing at different times of the day.
You should always use what works best for you, but being open to trying something new may allow you to surprise yourself. If you’re a night owl, see what happens if you try the early riser route. If your mornings are packed, see if an afternoon of writing serves you better than spoiling yourself with coveted naps. Change is never easy, but the results have the potential to take you somewhere new and exciting.
Choose a time to write and stick with it for two weeks.
Writing should be an every day activity (if you’re not doing that, better make it happen), and you won’t know if a new writing time is working for you unless you give it a chance. A few days or even a week isn’t enough time to try something new because a variety of outside factors might have an impact; for example, the week you decide to become an early riser writer is also the week you have a dentist appointment, a job interview, and your car breaks down. Two weeks is a solid time period to let you get a feel for how your new writing time works or doesn’t work.
If your writing time isn’t working, change it.
Don’t take it personally if the time you set up for yourself to write isn’t for you - that leads to depression, and there can only be so many Hemingways per century (the rule of thumb is one). Instead, acknowledge you tried a writing time and it wasn’t for you. At that point, you have two choices: give up on writing, or find a better time to write. I’m hopeful you choose the latter, dear reader, because the former represents the sort of defeatist attitude you were likely trying to stifle by switching up your writing time in the first place.
As I said before, no specific time is guaranteed to work for you all of the time, but if you can embrace that, if you can say that even if it doesn’t work for my every time it’s still the best time that works for me, then you’ve really got something. Remember that in baseball, batting .400 is considered an amazing feat. How often do you expect the time you take to sit down and write to produce a homerun?
-nm
Technorati Tags: when do you write, writing time, time to write, write, time, writing tips, baseball analogy, surprise yourself
The Scrawl is now at TheScrawl.com
The Scrawl has officially snatched its own domain - TheScrawl.com - for all of you URL purists out there. And unlike most domain names in which greedy little companies who snatched the domain before you make you pay $4,000 and wrestle a bear, we were able to snatch it up with relative ease. Does our own domain name make us more legitimate, perhaps more professional? In some circles, perhaps, and I think that at the very least, it’s going to be easier for me (and you, dear reader) to point people to TheScrawl.com than to scrawlers.com/blog. To this end, with web 2.0 pushing simplicity and efficiency, I guess this move does make us more professional.
Readers should still be able to find us at http://www.scrawlers.com/blog or http://blog.scrawlers.com. The ability to subscribe to this blog remains the same, too.
-nm
Technorati Tags: the scrawl, scrawlers, writing blog
Your Monday Prompt #15.
Write a story in which the main character is an expert on a topic or process. Let the character take the readers through their area of expertise in vivid detail. Perhaps she knows the best way to clean and fillet a fish. Maybe he can take meticulous care of houseplants so they last years and years. Or it’s possible she can set up that magical combination of ten peripheral devices to one TV. There’s even a more fantastical route - he’s an expert dragon slayer or she can reprogram a robot not to destroy all humans.
Whatever their area of expertise, let the personality of the character guide how they tell the story. Their topic may be fascinating, but it should take a back seat to the way the character’s personality; concentrate on how they tell the story. Give this exercise fifteen minutes of your time.
Write it up and see what happens.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing prompt, writing exercise, surprise yourself
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About
Brought together by mutual interest in creative arts and web development, Minnesota duo Barry Hess and Nathan Melcher founded Scrawlers.com in 2006. Scrawlers marries creativity with a web-based outlet for aspiring writers and The Scrawl blog seeks to add fuel your creative fire.
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