Look! Words!

Scene from my therapist’s office the other day: Me: So when I think about my career and all the genres I write in, like YA contemporary and YA romance and romance in general-- Her: Wait, you write romance? Me: Uh, yeah. (P.S. I write lots of different things under different names and I ghostwrite stuff…FYI I am super crazy talented.) Her: *Laughs nervously* I guess I’m just surprised…you don’t seem the type. Those books are so…I mean, I can’t believe you write things like that! Oh, stable boy, stable boy! Me: *Trying to wrap my head around the fact that my therapist just mocked my career* Um, I’ve never written about a stable boy…? I like writing romance. And reading it. All kinds of it. Her: Wow. I just can’t imagine you writing anything that shallow. Other people reading this might be shocked that this conversation occurred. I was not. When you write in the genres I tend to write across—young adult, young adult romance, middle grade, adult romance—you get used to people telling you that your work is somehow lesser-than all the stuff piling up in the “Literature & Fiction” section at Barnes and Noble. I remember one of my friends in college mocking me for reading Holes by Louis Sachar, the critically-acclaimed middle grade novel. “Why do you read all that junk anyway?” he asked. (Here I could go into a long rant about the unfair reasons why we judge certain genres of reading more harshly than others, but many other people have written on that topic far better than I ever will. I think I’ll just hold this rant to being annoyed by book snobbery in general.) There’s a reason e-readers took over the world, and that reason is book snobbery. Romance novels hit sales high points after the Kindle came out, and this wasn’t an accident: people were finally able to read whatever they wanted without anyone judging their covers. I’ve gotten so used to book-judging permeating the corners of my life that I just accept it these days. Honestly, I probably won’t even drop my therapist. She’s helped me make some important breakthroughs regarding my teeth grinding habit and also I already know where her office is. The process of Google mapping another therapist just sounds exhausting. Plus it’s not like what she said hasn’t already been said by at least five other people I still eat dinner with on a regular basis. Still, a message out there to all of you who think your books are better than the ones I choose to read and write: you’re ruining reading for the rest of us. Not for me, actually—I’ll keep reading whatever I like to read, thanks. I have no problem going between that MG novel on my bookshelf and the new title from the literature bestseller list and also a book filled with people who dare to fall in love and have a pre-determined happy ending (gasp). I have a Kindle to handle the likes of all of you. The real problem here is that you’re ruining reading for the people who need to read the most: CHILDREN. Book snobbery is no less pervasive in K-12 schools and the homes of children and teens than my therapist’s office. Actually, it’s ten times worse. “You let your students read graphic novels? But those aren’t real books, are they?” “My kid reads a lot, but mostly just Diary of a Wimpy Kid, so I’m worried.” “I hope my kid’s teacher starts teaching some real books next year. You know, classics. Maybe Dickens.” I hope no one tells Person #3 that Dickens wrote most of his stuff in serial form. Stephen King does that too, you know! For years we’ve been telling kids what not to read. What’s not hard enough or important enough or “smart” enough. Then we turn around and get angry when they don’t want to read at all and would rather play Minecraft or whatever game I am currently too uncool to know about. It’s a mixed message that’s definitely not doing us any favors. I don’t love to read today because someone handed me a steady diet of Truman Capote when I was seven. I love to read because someone gave me a Baby-Sitters Club book once and I didn’t stop until I’d read all of them. Then I just kept going. Basically, what I’m trying to say here is this: if you’re a book-judger, you crush my soul. But more importantly, you are probably crushing the soul of a smaller human out there who just wants to read their comic book without being treated like they have leprosy. Nobody owns reading, except possibly Hachette, and even they know that people’s reading tastes are wide and varied and should never be limited by what someone else seems to be “the right reading.” In fact, they’ve made about a bazillion dollars off the idea that people like to read different things. No one in that publishing house is afraid of a stable boy or five. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write a scene where some people kiss. And possibly find a new therapist.

vote vote vote VOTE vote vote vote and then when you are done (if you are interested) you can read about how much candy I have ingested since National Novel Writing Month began.

It’s that time of the year again…time to talk all things National Novel Writing Month. It feels strange to be writing a blog about NaNoWriMo while the world continues to fall apart around us. But as many wiser authors have said before me, one of the best ways to get ideas, conversations, and solutions out into the world is by writing books. So with that said: who’s in for NaNoWriMo this year? In case you don't live on Twitter, National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) is this strange time when a whole bunch of writers across the country all try to write a novel in a month. It happens in November. I imagine a good portion of the country stops sleeping. I’ve done NaNo before, and it’s an amazing experience. While it intermittently makes me want to stick needles in my eyes, it definitely pushes you to build your writing discipline and hold yourself to deadlines. I wasn’t going to do NaNo this year because I accidentally sort of just did my own NaNo in September…a muse attacked, which is basically the best thing that can happen to a writer, and I churned out more writing than I had in months. BUT THEN. This idea for the sequel came to me. So I think I’m going to try writing that sequel in November. Right now I’m in what I call “NaNo prep mode,” which is basically where I spend a few weeks obsessing about all the ways I can pre-plan my NaNo project in order to make the experience better. You know, so I can throw the whole plan out in the first week of November when I decide it isn’t working. Super productive, right? Anyway, in case you too are a writing masochist and are considering taking on NaNo this year, here are some things I like to have planned ahead of time. 1. Character sketches When one is trying to write 50,000 words in a month, one hardly wants to waste time figuring out what color hair their MC has. One’s time would be better spent figuring out why one is referring to oneself with such a ridiculous pronoun. 2. General plot outlines I’m not talking a detailed chapter-by-chapter summary here, unless that’s how your brain rolls. My brain works well in acts, so right now I’m just sketching out the general arc for the three acts of my novel. Obviously things will change as I go, but at least I’ll have some general directions to steer my characters in while I’m sobbing over my computer every morning. 3. A writing schedule and goals Writing 50k in a month can feel overwhelming if you haven’t broken down how you’re going to tackle that on a daily or weekly basis. Are you going to shoot for 2k a day every day? 13k every weekend? 5k three times a week? It helps me to plan what my smaller writing goals are and then block the days and times on the calendar when I will be doing nothing but frantically typing. Obviously I can’t stick to the same schedule every single week—Thanksgiving is the great interrupter of NaNo schedules everywhere—but if I know my word deadlines for each week, I know I can always adjust my writing times and days accordingly. 4. Ice cream deliveries I love NaNo, but it can be a rough go if the muses aren’t working in your favor. It definitely forces you to put your characters on paper when they just don’t want to be there. So stock up on whatever gets you through the rough times, and don't be afraid to up your calorie intake where necessary. 5. Accountability I am basically a non-functioning human if someone isn’t holding me accountable for my goals, so I know I need wider accountability when I launch projects like this. With some projects, I’ve sent my weekly writing to a friend on certain days. Some people join NaNo groups where everyone posts and shares their word counts on a regular basis. Between Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Insta, there is no shortage of places where you can publicly or privately share your writing goals with others and give yourself some accountability. This time, I’m trying out a different type of accountability: I’m holding myself accountable through this blog. A few times a week I’ll update here with my progress (or lack thereof). Because for some reason right now it seems like a great idea to add more writing on top of my NaNo goals themselves. We’ll see how long that feeling lasts. So, who’s in? Join the masochism and finally write that novel you've been talking about writing for months. Come NaNo with us, and in December we can all whine together about what a terrible idea it was.

Suddenly, you are more afraid than you have ever been.

I just hit forty-five thousand words on a manuscript I started less than a month ago. I was so excited I treated myself to half a pound of homemade applesauce and then immediately started writing about how good writing feels today. Here is why: because writing is STRANGE. Just ninety days ago, I was moaning in front of my computer, wondering if I’d ever have a good idea again. I was throwing index cards full of plot ideas into the trash like good ideas would somehow emerge if I kept destroying all the bad ones. I was seriously considering ending my career as a writer and taking up something in cake decorating instead. Which is not a good idea at all because I actually hate decorating cakes. (I was probably watching too much Food Network. If there is such a thing.) Then, one day, something switched. It actually felt like someone flipped a switch somewhere inside me. It happened while I was staying in a hotel with my husband, who was on a business trip. I was riding an exercise bike, and I had an idea for a book, as you do. I got off the bike, went upstairs, and sat in the bathtub with a notebook, as you do. I wrote page after page, stopping to wipe off the ones that were smearing as I splashed them with water—again, as you do. I grabbed my laptop and started typing. And since then, I have been writing more words per week than I probably wrote the entire month before I climbed on that exercise bike.   Like I said before, writing is STRANGE. I’m trying to ride this wave of creative glory as long as possible. But like any decent wave, I know it won’t last forever. It will hit the shore eventually, as I will with it. Thus will commence weeks or months of self-doubt and growling at keyboards and probably plenty of rejections of this very same manuscript I so desperately love right now. I suppose that’s all likely the metaphorical equivalent of paddling back out and waiting for the next wave. (I’ve never surfed, by the way. All I have to go on here is lots of observation I did while camping out of the back of a van in California, so hopefully this isn’t the worse metaphor ever written in recorded history.) There are people who claim to have solved all the secrets of creative writing. Write every day. Write this exact number of words for this exact number of hours every day. Have a black cat circle your chair three times before turning on the computer every fifth Sunday. But we all know that no matter how many rules you follow, no matter how many writing practices you adopt—and we all have various practices that help us with  our writing productivity, there is no doubt of that—muses come when they come and go when they go. I’m going to ride this wave for as long as I can. And when I hit that metaphorical beach again and have to begin the task of paddling back out across difficult water, I want to remember how good this particular wave was. I want to remember how incredibly powerful and content I feel right now. How limitless the world can feel sometimes.

My friend's son, H, stayed with us last week. He’s obsessed with all things Marvel, and his mother gave us permission to watch some of Thor: Ragnarok with him. You know, special treat, stay up late, see Thor shake his hair out of his ponytail a lot and lose his hammer. At one point H looked up at us and asked, “But is Loki a good guy or a bad guy?” I was tempted to whip out some fanfiction and go through all the tomes of creative work that have tried to answer that question. But the poor kid is still in pre-school, so I kept things a bit simpler. “Sometimes he makes good choices, and sometimes he makes bad choices,” I told him. I waited for the follow-up, but H became engrossed with an action scene. The conversation died there. Then John McCain passed away yesterday, and the question of what makes someone a "good guy" or a "bad guy" is on my mind again. John McCain has always been, from my perspective, a heroic figure fraught with complication. He was a war hero who was far, far braver than I could ever have imagined being. He put forward bills and government policies that I often admired and supported. In a political era where so many people seem unable to put the good of the country above their own power, he was frequently willing to do so. And, possibly most importantly, he was almost always able to work with those of other parties and other beliefs. But there were also times when he seemed to make choices that were more in his own interest than the interest of the country. There were moments when he made choices that certainly hurt people, all in the name of supporting his own career or keeping his party in power. Here I could start waxing poetic about how there are no good guys or bad guys and it’s all a matter of perspective, but I don’t believe that for a second. That type of thinking has always brought dangerous consequences to humanity. There is objective, moral truth in the world. Some choices Loki makes are objectively good, and some choices are objectively bad. Some choices John McCain made were good, and some were bad. Some choices I make each day are good, and some are bad. None of us are all one or the other, and none of our choices are exempt from being held to objective, moral standards. Today I am very sad that John McCain is gone. I do believe he acted out of good intentions far more often than he acted out of bad or selfish intentions. When we look at the history of his record, that record reflects that he was a “good guy” more often than he was not. And I like to think that’s the measure we’re all judged on at the end. None of us will leave this world with perfect records. But what will our balance sheets look like? Which column will stack up higher? Loki will get to work on his balance sheet throughout the course of Marvel’s existence. (Unless Avengers: Infinity War never gets a sequel.) The rest of us only have a finite amount of time to work with. None of us will ever make all the right choices, and none of our heroes will either. But John McCain’s record shows, I think, that he was worthy of many of the capes people have placed on his memory. RIP, John McCain. Thank you for working across party lines. Thank you for fighting for this country in ways most of us can ever imagine doing. Thank you for reminding us that we all must grow out of the phase where we see “good guys” and “bad guys” so that we are able to see people for their individual choice and moments--for their actions taken and not taken. Thank you for all of the incredibly difficult actions you took on behalf of others during your life. ​ I hope John McCain, like Thor and Loki, gets his own sequel someday, somewhere. In fact, I hope all of us do.

Of the person in power.

I’m a teacher. I teach part-time in a community college and part-time in an elementary/middle school. This means I spend a lot of time practicing lockdown drills and watching safety videos. During our most recent video viewing, my college students decided the filing cabinet awkwardly placed in the middle of our classroom would be what they’d use to block to door should a shooter ever come through the school. Whenever someone in one of my classes says something like this, I imagine we’re all thinking the same thing: I know they’re joking, but let’s all make sure to remember that suggestion, okay? Then another school shooting happens. And the next day we all look real hard at that filing cabinet in the corner of the room. Every time another school shooting happens—and I can’t believe I even have to type out that phrase—people start talking about how teachers need to start carrying guns. But after the Florida shooting this past week, that suggestion seems to be coming up more than I’ve ever heard it before. Suddenly the whole internet wants me to bring my own AR-15 into my fifth grade reading class. I guess I’ll just keep it next to our copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. More than ever this sentiment—that I should be expected to arm myself in my own classrooms—is ratcheting up my blood pressure. I’ve written before about how I’m not anti-gun. Neither is my husband, an army vet and gun owner who now works in the same community college I do. Neither of us think the second amendment needs to be struck down. But both of us want reasonable gun control measures in place that would keep our students and our schools safe. Neither one of us understands why this country thinks that arming our teachers is somehow a better solution than keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists like the Parkland shooter. Neither of us understands why, instead, everyone wants to talk about how teachers should carry semi-automatic weapons around with us while we try to teach things like Aristotelian appeals. Here are just a few of the reasons my blood pressure is so high right now.   First. I am not a person you want carrying a loaded weapon around your children. I can spot a comma splice from a mile away, but I can barely tie my shoes without falling over. This plan likely won’t end well for any of us.   Second. There was an armed guard at Parkland. It didn’t make any difference. Every teacher in that school followed protocol and did everything right. They, like the rest of us teachers and students, have gone through hours of lockdown and shooter drills. They knew exactly what to do. But that shooter knew what their drills were, and like the terrorist that he was, he destroyed all their protocols and used them against his victims—because that’s what terrorists with deadly weapons do. That’s why we need to make it hard for terrorists to get access to deadly weapons. Third. Don’t I get a say in this? You keep shouting about how I need to be armed and you’ve never even asked me if I want to be. I didn’t join the military or the police force, and neither of those decisions were by accident. And even my husband, who is trained in tactical maneuvers and very good with a weapon, wants nothing to do with bringing a gun into his classroom. YOU DIDN’T EVEN ASK US. Every day we go into classrooms and get paid basically in Monopoly money to potentially throw ourselves in front of your children should a shooter barge into a classroom—and a lot of us would probably do it in a heartbeat. But what the hell am I being asked to make that sacrifice for? What are you honestly asking me to die for here? My students and I are supposed to lay down our lives so that you can keep complete and total access to weapons that no hunter or sportsperson ever actually needs to own? So that you can pretend you have a means of fighting back against a government that has nuclear weapons? So that gun manufacturers can continue to disgustingly twist the second amendment in order to make as much money as possible? Or are you just asking us to sacrifice our lives so that you can keep your hobby? Nope. Please stop asking me to die for that. Please stop asking my husband to die for that. Please stop asking my students to die for that. Stop telling me I need a weapon in my classroom. I don’t. I need fellow Americans who care more about my students than they do about themselves and their gun collections. I need fellow Americans who will stop putting this problem onto me and put it back where it belongs: on the people in Washington, who are so bought and paid for by the NRA that they can’t even talk about gun violence without sounding like hostages. I need fellow Americans who aren’t so enchanted by gun manufacturers that they honestly think the solution here is putting a gun in the hands of an English teacher and asking her to train for days and weeks and months on how and when to use it as opposed to training on, I dunno, teaching reading. And if you disagree with me, please don’t even comment on this. I’m done with conversations on this topic, and I’m done with debate. I’m the one walking into my classroom every day, so I get the final say here. And you know what my answer is? NO. I will not arm myself in my classroom. And the day I’m forced to is the day I leave this profession for good. You can find someone else to teach your kid how to read. I hope they’re willing to die for your love of that high-capacity magazine.

Tomorrow my reading class plays Unwrap Your Next Read! And clearly I had lots of Christmas wrapping paper left over. 😂 #teacherlife #teachersofinstagram #books #reading #bookloversforlife

Author visit today at the school where I used to work! Packing up some swag. :) #authorsofinstagram #bookstagram #books

My favorite New Year's quote. May we all surprise ourselves in 2018. #happynewyear

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of pieces from moms expressing how frustrated they are with being “judged” by other mothers and the mom community at large. You know the essays: please just let me parent in the way that works best for me is usually the general gist. I find myself oddly drawn to these pieces. I nod a lot as I read them…which is slightly strange because I have no children. Just the one cat, and the only time I ever feel judged in my pet ownership is when he doesn’t behave himself at the vet. And even then they’re usually fairly understanding. So I’ve been trying to figure this out: why do I feel this kinship with moms who’ve decided to boycott the blogosphere? Then I spent the past week watching teachers have arguments on Twitter and Facebook about whether or not Accelerated Reader is the best thing ever invented or the Destruction of Childhood Reading as we know it. The conversation has frequently gone something like this: All teachers who use AR are doing terrible things to students. and it must be DESTROYED! He/she is right! AR once attacked my dog and then peed in my Cheerios! Everyone who uses it should be judged on social media IMMEDIATELY. Wait, I sort of like AR and my students tell me they love it and want me to keep using it… GASP! How dare you like a teaching tool I have deemed unworthy! You are ruining children! All of the sudden, it became quite clear why I find myself nodding along with those “don’t judge my parenting” articles. I should note here that I actually have no super strong feelings for or against Accelerated Reader. I find AR to be like most teaching tools out there on the market: either incredibly useful or incredibly damaging depending on how it’s used and the context in which it’s used. As we teachers know best, no classroom and no two students are the same. One size rarely fits all, and what works well in one context can actually be a very poor teaching tool in another context. Which brings up an important question: why are teachers jumping on the internet and telling each other all the things we’ve decided everyone else is during wrong? And full disclosure, I’m sure I’ve done this too. Probably somewhere on this blog, in fact. We teachers tend to be incredibly protective of our teaching practices. While this is often a good thing, it also can make us far more likely to vilely detest things we’ve had bad experiences with and to also be extremely protective of those tools we love. But there’s danger in that type of thinking. Sometimes at night when I'm feeling particularly self-destructive I try to imagine what my first year of teaching would have been like if social media had been around in a big way back then. I usually come to one conclusion: thank goodness it wasn’t. Your first year of teaching is dangerous and scary and filled with self-doubt. Now imagine having several million voices screaming you’re doing this wrong every day and adding onto that self-doubt. These days I’m secure enough in my own teaching practice (mostly) to agree or disagree when someone tells me I’m doing something I shouldn’t be, but back then? I probably would have just been in tears every single night. Even more than I already was. I appreciate that the teaching community is a place where people want to teach others and mentor and share ideas. That’s what makes our community strong. And we certainly shouldn’t be shy about expressing what’s worked and not worked for our students in the context of our classrooms. But when we start shouting down ideas, tools, and practices with the level of judgement I’ve seen this week? All we end up doing is sounding like those horrifying mom blogs everyone seems to have run away from. Maybe we could just curb our language a bit. Rather than using 140 characters to say “AR is the worst thing ever and we all need to back away from it” we could say something like “I’ve found AR doesn’t build a love of reading; others will diff experiences?” Or instead of “Remember what a terrible teacher I was when I gave timed math tests” we could say “Here’s some research on neg effects of timed tests.” Or whatever fits into 140 characters that won’t terrify the brand-new teacher who is trying their darned best and has a lot of other people telling them why timed math tests are important. If there’s one thing most teachers I know hate, it’s the idea that “research proven” is a real thing in education. Because we all know that what research shows in a public middle school in Woodland Park, CO is likely not the same thing research will show in a private middle school in New York City, New York. We generally dislike when companies and politicians shove “this is research proven” down our throats. So why do we do the same thing to each other? Just because it’s our own research doesn’t make context any less important.   To the mommies out there: I applaud you for ignoring the judgement. I could never do what you do; I like sleep way too much. To the teachers out there who promote conversation and mentorship: I applaud and appreciate you. Let’s just try to tone down the judgement a notch. I’ll try to do my part.  

That which we do not condemn, we accept and encourage. I'm sure I didn't speak loudly enough, vehemently enough, against all the moments of hatred--or acceptance of it--I've seen in my life. But I want to do better. I hope we all do. Our country has never been post-racial, but we must make it clear that these people do not represent our future.