Book Project In The School

At school I'm asking kids to think of the book they would write. I sketched out the project in four parts:

• Chapter Titles (6, 8, or 10)
• Chapter Descriptions (1, 2, 3, or more sentences)
• A Blurb (1, 2, 3, or more paragraphs)
• 3rd Person Author Bio (2, 5, 10, or more sentences)

"Yo, I ain't writing no whole book," one kid said in the first class. Another, her arms crossed and head shaking back and forth so her braids whacked against the chair, asked, "Mister, is you saying we gots to write a book?" They figured I would say yes but I described how books usually take years to write and we don't want to be together that long. (Stephen King writes more than two books a year, an alarming pace, but only because he's Stephen Freaking King.) I told the kids, "we're just writing about the books we would write if we were to write a book. We're making a plan to get an idea of what it might look like to be a writer and to see what we can do." There was a forty-sixty mix of relief and suspicion. That's better than my usual batting average.

"That said," I told them, "if you decide to write a chapter after we're done, no problem. I'll move onto the next project but you might blow me off to write your chapter."

This appeals to them, the idea of blowing me off and doing what they want to do. Only one or two will choose to take the thing as far as a chapter. Some won't even make it through the outlining project described above. Most will finish the project to some degree or another and move on with me to whatever comes next. (I should really think about that and figure something out.) I accept that this is how it works at this school and I get better results with acceptance than with vinegar. Or something like that.

This project appeals to me because I would love to blow off school and write a book. Best case scenario I would keep getting paid and have healthcare but write the whole day through. It's a lovely dream, one that grows more and more attractive as I become more and more burned out and feeling like I just can't face the classroom anymore. The other day a kid spat on a teacher. Another kid threatened another teacher. They'll both likely be back to school next week. Anything goes.

I could write a book about that... Instead I typed this as my students watched the television to which I had hooked my Chromebook:

I try to be a student in the class and as much as I can. I'm composing this paragraph in class while some students watch. These students don't know how to begin, don't know what to do with the blank page. They're good people (who are reading these words as I type them so I kind of have to say that) but they can't see the point of writing or maybe have had such bad experiences with writing in school that they are blocked. (Shit, yeah, one just said.) I say, "begin with whatever is happening." One said, "nothing's happening." I said, "well, there's this book idea thing. Let's start there and see where it goes."

Just writing like I'm doing might not help us with the book outline (or maybe it might) but it will get us writing. The first key to writing is to write, not to think. All the thinking and worrying and planning can come later. We need to get words on the page. It doesn't matter much what those words are (though if you could refrain from swearing or threatening I might be able to get a good night's sleep for once). We just need to feel the rhythm of writing and let it carry us.

It has carried me here, to the place in which I most want to be. The book outline I'm doing for our project is about how to be a writer in the schools and make more students into writers. Who knows, maybe it might turn into a real book proposal and from there maybe into a book. I've still got teaching to do and a paycheck to earn. I'll find the time to write early mornings before school, brief bursts in class, over lunch, and in the afternoons and evenings at home. That might not be enough to write a book but it might be. I might as well find out.

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Fun fact about the pictured assignment atop this entry: Notice the copyright symbol? Management passed a rule that anything teachers produce at school belongs to the school. They own my ass for 7-1/4 hours over 183 days a year for the time being, but that's all they get. My ideas remain my own. But you should feel free to use it as you like.

Two Books In My Bag

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.

Stephen King, Elevation

It's one of those books you can read in a day, in a single sitting if you like. At 146 small pages it just goes by like a long short story or a novella, whatever you like to call it. And it's a good Stephen King, especially for someone like me who is too dainty for horror stories and doesn't enjoy gore. Like Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption or The Body, this is just good storytelling, a yarn, something I followed from beginning to end gladly, hungrily.

If Stephen King isn't one of our best writers he is most certainly one of our best storytellers. Writing that down, I have to say that I think King a very good writer and I admire how prolific he is, how successful he has been, and how generous he seems to other writers and people like me who wish to become writers. I bet I would like talking with him. Actually, I'd prefer to just listen to him. Yeah, I should just listen and learn. He'd have plenty to teach me.

Elevation is the story of a man who is losing weight but not getting any smaller. It's a weird tale, almost comic book in nature but maybe more like those great old science fiction movies of the fifties. And here's what King does: he makes it all seem normal and he gets at what it might be like to be that character. Where those old movies couldn't be bothered with character because they were too stuck on their gimmick (a fifty-foot tall woman or a giant blob for instance), King allows the character to make the whole thing feel real.

There were times in the last forty pages when I felt like he was trying too hard and at least once a piece of dialogue landed like bird shit on my head, but these are small things and this was a small book that I imagine came together fast. (As did this review.) Yarns aren't perfect. This isn't trying to be Literature (said with a musty accent). It's a story. A damn good one. And told by someone who is a master of the craft.

Just go read it. You'll have a good time. It's a light tale that won't take long to get through. I feel lighter already.