Those who write...

David Gessner, in the New York Times, writes about his experience as both a writer and a teacher of writing. He loves teaching, but he worries on the effect it has on his writing, which he had previously done full-time. Teaching, he says, 

provides a safety net above the abyss of facing the difficulty of creating every day, making an irrational thing feel more rational.

Yet no matter how much support you have, how many schedules you make or how many books you’ve written before, there remains the basic irrationality of the task: you are sitting by yourself trying to make something out of nothing, and you rarely know where you’re going next. Creating your own world is an invitation to solipsism, if not narcissism, and as well as being alone when we work, we are left, for the most part, to judge by ourselves if we have succeeded or failed in our tasks. (Three guesses in which direction we most often lean.)

I think many of us have this push/pull relationship with art, whether it's drawing, painting, writing, or performing, especially when that art is created in isolation for some imagined audience. And while a part of me is extremely attracted to the idea of shifting my life around to make room for "art," the other part of me notices that Mr. Gessner shifted point of view in that paragraph I quoted and that I'd really like to show that to my students.

Seriously.

Anne Frank wrote, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

I tend to agree with her, rationalizing the irrational, excusing the inexcuseable.

Is it November 4th yet?

Seriously.

Nowadays...

This task we all have of figuring out our lives is a difficult one. Without certain structures in place -- religion, marriage, etc. -- deciding how to make choices, let alone making those choices, becomes that much more challenging.

Two things do I know for sure: 1. I have the most incredible family, ever; and 2. Obama's going to be a wonderful leader for this country.

Everything else is a twisting narrative strand.

Two truths and a lie

I took my first creative writing course freshman year of college, and it was there that I first learned about the best ice breaker ever.

"Two truths and a lie" is a game in which each person says three things about him- or herself; two are true and one is a lie. Everyone else has to figure out which is which. By now, I'm a master at this game. I've played it so many times that I can spot the lie mid-sentence and can craft the best truths and lies.

Unfortunately, when I was 18, I didn't get it. Anything. I was very self-serious. While all the other students had anecdotes about Greek serenades, drinking misadventures, and curious rashes, I told of crashing cars, running away, and therapy. (The class quickly guessed my lie because one of its details was "five miles," and "five" is a fake-sounding number, apparently.)

Anyway, my winning combination a couple months ago:

• I've never had a pet for longer than 6 months
• I was born at home.
• I've never gone out of the country.

(Everyone guessed the last one; they obviously hadn't read this blog!)

Why I couldn't work behind a computer all day

Sudoku addicts halt drug trial:

Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra cancelled the trial of two men on drugs conspiracy charges after the jury foreperson admitted that four to five jurors had been playing the addictive number sequence game, local media reported. The judge was alerted after some of the jurors were observed writing their notes vertically, rather than horizontally.

The jury members claimed that it helped them pay attention. Sure it did.

I remember constantly doodling when I was in school. But I didn't draw cartoon characters or scenes. Instead I drew tight spirals, zooming closer and farther away. I drew 3d boxes and lines converging and diverging. Doodling didn't help me pay attention to the teacher, but it sure did help keep me from falling asleep!

First person singular, first person plural, or third person singular?

If we listened better to our past selves, our current selves might have an easier time of things. I don't mean "past selves" in the I-was-a-seventeenth-century-slave-girl-Shirley-McClain sense; I mean, THAT GIRL we were yesterday, THAT GIRL ten years ago, or THAT GIRL in 1988. THAT GIRL had life experiences that should inform her current decision-making process.


We picked up cicadas, we swam in oceans without fearing sharks , and we dared to think we might become an architect, a paleontologist, or an inventor when we grew up. We fell, and we got back up; we tried things, we failed, and we tried more things. But we forget about our former selves. We let her ideas and dreams become pieces of nostalgia, and her lessons become quaint. Oh look, remember when... But that girl was brave, more than she realized then and more than we realize now.


Two years ago at this time, I was figuring out how to quit my job. Depressed, unsure of myself and any of the decisions I'd made (after all, my decisions had led me there), it was only after I gave myself permission to fail - to have failed - that I finally found some peace. Leaving that job was one of the hardest and best things I'd ever had to do. It's a lesson that I have to remind myself to carry with me: next time, I'll remember, the world doesn't end, and life won't crash to a halt.

We owe that girl to talk to her every once in a while. See what she has to say about our current state of affairs.

Restrictive clauses vs. Nonrestrictive clauses

I am a person who chooses her words carefully to avoid difficult conversations.

I, who choose my words carefully, avoid difficult conversations.

Even better, I could use an "-ing modifier":

Choosing my words carefully, I avoid difficult conversations.