Calls For Repair

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At school we were talking about how things are going and what we expect next year. Things aren't going well and aren't likely to get better. The school feels overcrowded, the staff is stretched too thin, and next year will probably be worse.

Right after that talk I mentioned the copier wasn't working well and we should call for repair. My colleague made the call. We went back to work without much in the way of expectations.

Not an hour later a guy was at the front door and we let him in. "Hey, it's the copier guy!" my colleague said. I may have cheered. He said, "I don't usually get this kind of enthusiasm" and smiled. We said it was just a surprise to see him so soon after we had called. "It's only been an hour," my colleague said as if such things were beyond belief. The copier guy shrugged, gave a confused look, and said like it was a question, "that's my job?" I thought about that for a second. His job is to respond quickly to our problem? Go figure.

I showed him my latest copies, a grey smudge along the middle of the page obscured a line of text. He nodded and named the problem. Something thermal. "I just got to run out to my car," he said. I went back to my classroom to do a few things. I wrote up a new sheet for one of my classes, printed it and then went back to the office to see how the copier was coming along. The copier guy had gone. I put my page into the feeder, tapped in the number of copies I needed, and pushed the green button. The copies were perfect. I was holding them in my hands, staring and smiling, when my colleague came upon me.

I said, "will you look at that? The copier is fixed." My colleague, looking surprised, asked, "Is he gone already?" We looked at the copies. Not a smudge anywhere. Clean, clear text. I said, "isn't that something?"

"Isn't what something?" my colleague asked.

"We had a problem, called someone, they appeared in no time, and, get this, they fixed it." I smiled. I laughed a little. The whole thing struck me as almost too funny. "We asked and someone responded by fixing it," I said.

"Instead of doing nothing?"

"Yeah!"

We both laughed at that, but it wasn't as joyous so much as rueful now. We've been calling about problems much more important than the copier. We've done everything but send up flares or flash the Bat Signal. Yet the problems continue, the smudges growing larger and obscuring everything we do. We've just about given up on asking for any help or expecting things to get any better.

"Think the copier guy can fix the rest of this place?" I asked.

My colleague didn't think so and left the office. Standing alone there next to the fixed copier I looked up at the clock. "Quitting time," I said and walked away.

Positive Reinforcement

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My writing group meets about once a month. D is busy with teaching and family. L is busy schedule with children, jobs, and other gigs. I have my family and the writing I'm doing. The three of us make time for our writing group for one simple reason: it is good.

We meet at D's empty church at eight on Saturday mornings. Public spaces with any people in them aren't good because I'm too easily distracted. We gab for the first few minutes catching up on our adventures, then one of us reads.

We each come with a piece to share. L is working on historical fiction. D is deep into a literary memoir. I bring an essay or story. Today D told us his concerns about his piece and read it. We talked back about what we liked. He read a second piece I told him would be perfect for The Sun Magazine. L and I loved both pieces.

Then L shared a piece about visiting the New York Public Library. I told her all I could think was how much I wanted to be in the space she described. She had made it real for me. Her pieces are all journeys, kinds of travelogues, and they take us places.

I read a rough draft in which I'm combining five things into one essay. They talked back to me about what they heard and told me things they loved.

There are a lot of ways writing groups can work. Some write together. Others exchange and read drafts before the meeting. We meet and read aloud then talk about what's good, what we liked, what worked. We almost never say what's wrong or how we would change it. We might suggest some idea to pull the piece further along, but we don't tell anyone how to write their piece.

This may like everyone gets a participation trophy, but it's more interesting than that.

We come together as a writing group because we want to learn the craft. None of us learn well by hearing what we do wrong. We aren't trying to avoid mistakes. We are learning by creating and sharing. And though we stick to the positives, there is real pressure.

D's work is exquisitely crafted and lyrical, poetic really. L's is passionate and meticulously researched. Mine has a clipped style that might be better read aloud than on the page. There's pressure to impress one another that comes from so respecting the work each of us brings to the table. I'm not alone in wanting to give them their money's worth.

I don't need them to tell me what's wrong. They tell me what's right and then I know what's wrong. We are positive and supportive, but it isn't a free ride in which anything goes. L and D are too smart, thoughtful, and talented for me to read any old tripe. It's not that they would ever say my stuff sucked, but I can't stand to even imagine bringing less than my best.

I brought a draft about which I was unsure. It worked in my head but it has to work for others. L and D told me what they liked, what they loved, and what they remembered. I heard gaps that confirmed my suspicions about some holes in the piece. I'll work on them tomorrow as I move into another draft.

Note that last bit: "I'll work on them tomorrow as I move into another draft." L and D encouraged me. That's enough for me to know it is good enough to continue. They gave me positive reactions and now I'm ready to write and already a better writer.

Find your group. You don't have to meet often. Once a month will do as long as you have the right people. Make sure they are kind and want to build you up. But don't come asking for L or D. They're mind, damn it. Get your own people and get writing.

Two Books In My Bag

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This morning before I left the house I remembered that I am sixty pages from finishing the book I'm reading. I was in the living room and went over to the windowsill where I keep the books I'm hoping to read soon. I grabbed one and tucked it in my bag with the other. Then I was ready to leave the house for my job.

Stephen King says this in On Writing:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around those two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

In that book he talks about how he carries a book with him everywhere. I bet a lot of those books are on his phone or an e-reader, but I prefer to think of him with an actual book in his hand, held loosely as he walks, open on his lap in waiting rooms, and on the car seat when he drives because that's how it is with me.

Yesterday just before three my daughter texted that she would be done with rehearsal at three-thirty. I texted back "On my way." She wrote, "I've still got at least half an hour???" I said, "No worries. I've got my book." I drove to the school, parked, and opened my book. I read seventy pages before she came out and I couldn't have been happier. I read my book and then saw her smiling face. My life is good.

Teaching school, I schedule time for kids to read books of their choosing. There's all sorts of pedagogy behind that decision and thankfully the data from a silly reading test the school makes me give backs up what we're doing, but let's face the fact that we do reading time so I can read my book too. Call it a win-win and leave it at that.

One of my great fears in life is that I will find myself somewhere without a book to read. That this is the extent of my fears as opposed to sudden death, sickness, cancer, or another Coldplay album means I'm living well. Still, being without a book to read is fearsome enough that I remember to tuck a second book in my bag.

However comforting that second book in my bag might be, there is of course a downside beyond the added weight and overdue fees at the library. It's that now I want to finish the first book so I can dig into the second. I'm ready to abandon all other responsibilities and sit still turning page. Getting fired has nothing on not finishing the book. That's a problem too. Yet another problem I'm not too upset about having.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to reading.