Free-For-All Fridays
A Birthday Resolution
No, it’s not my birthday. That was last month. Did you miss it? That’s okay. I really don’t mind.
Fact is, it’s been years since I made a big deal of my birthday. I can’t remember the last time it was a big deal. Well, three years ago I brought an amazing friend with me on a birthday visit to my family. She made cakes, and the experience was pretty memorable.
 |
| Cake with Gaping Flesh Wound |
But really, we could have—and probably would have—done it without it being my birthday.
I’m not so different from a lot of other people. Birthdays remind me that I’m getting older. Then I delve into thoughts of, “Am I where I thought I’d be or wanted to be by this age?” In some ways, no. Cue disappointment, depression, and general malaise. In other ways, I’ve done some very positive things I never imagined five years ago.
Still. Birthdays. Meh.
At least, that’s how I felt until something made me think about it the other night.
I have pretty awesome students. You might have heard me mention it before. Even the ones who drive me bonkers find ways to make me glad I work with them now and then. Earlier this week, I attended an award ceremony for top seniors around the city, including one of my students, whom I’d nominated.
I’ve taught this student for the past five years, from Algebra 1 all the way to Calculus. I’ve chatted with her mom several times, and did again this particular night. This student has a few health issues, no surprise there, but her mom mentioned something I didn’t know before.
When she was born, no one expected her to make it. They came in and told her mom—a first-time mother—that her baby would not make it through the night.
As her mom says now, though, her daughter is a regular donkey with the stubbornness. And here we are, eighteen years later. Eighteen years longer than the doctors expected. Alive and lively.
I’m not going to gripe about my birthdays and getting older anymore.
Happy Birthday, Paige!
Speak up:
2 commentsWhat We Learned During MindyMania 2012
This week I’ve been discussing the weekend I spent with my critique partner, Mindy McGinnis. I’ve covered the wildlife and the writing, so today I’ll just sum up a few things we learned.
Thing We Learned #1: Mindy and I really are twins separated at birth.
(And Mom was in labor for about three weeks.) We already suspected. Our birthdays are very close, down to the year. Our opinions and tastes are often the same. We complete each other’s sentences. And now we know that we use the same shampoo.
Thing We Learned #2: Fast food employees can take the “twins” idea too far.
To the girl at Wendy’s who thought Mindy was me after I’d already ordered—really? Okay, we were both wearing glasses and both tend toward the chalk-white end of “pale.” But there’s a seven- or eight-inch difference in height. My hair is mega-short; hers is long. Beyond that, the differences are what make things interesting. Mindy was ready and raring to go for the school presentations. I was freaking out about having to introduce her each time for about thirty seconds.
Thing We Learned #3: Handprint petroglyphs are the best.
I mentioned earlier in the week that we visited Petroglyph National Monument. It was very cool hiking around one of the canyons, and right on the edge of the city. All the petroglyphs were fascinating, and we had a lot of fun wondering about the meanings of different symbols, but I particularly liked this set we saw right at the end of the canyon. Strange thing, too—a few hikers had been ahead of us, and the hike is an out-and-back, not really a loop, but we never saw them coming back. Maybe the hands were warning us … ?
 |
| “Turn back! Alien abductions beyond this point!” |
Thing We Learned #4: Going out of your way can really pay off.
I don’t know if any of you watch the series Breaking Bad. I don’t, but Mindy does. There’s a particular restaurant that figures prominently in one season, apparently, and we went to check out the actual restaurant that provided the front for the show. Bonus: The lot next door is where we saw the emu I posted about Monday. Double Bonus: The food was awesome.
 |
| If not for the glare, you might see the ostrich out the window. |
We learned several other things, but I’ll save those for another time. 🙂
Speak up:
2 commentsPeople on the Internet are Scary! (No, They’re Not)
You know how they say to be careful with people you meet on the internet? How they might not be who they say they are? Maybe they’re scary and strange?
Apparently I’m allowed to throw that advice out the window under the right circumstances.
The illustrious Mindy McGinnis safely arrived in the dusty, dirty, just-plain-BROWN southwest today. (Seriously. Mega-winds kicking up the dirt creating a cloud of brown over the city.) We’ve known each other (on the internet) for about two and a half years. We’ve been critique partners (on the internet) for about a year and a half. Today we met in person for the first time.
People knew this was happening. No one thought it was weird or scary.
Maybe it’s because of how ubiquitous the internet is now, how big social media has become, or maybe it’s just that Mindy and I have known each other in online arenas that are public enough to validate our identities. Or something.
At any rate …
Today she’s the guest author at my school’s second biannual Author Illustrator Competition. Not only is this her first visit anywhere in the west that isn’t Las Vegas, it’s also her first foray into Deaf-World.
Should be fun.
I’ll be sure to report back.
Speak up:
8 commentsThe Undefinable, Undeniable Teen
What are teenagers like?
Don’t answer that. No matter what you say, you’re wrong. Unless you say something like, “Depends on the teen,” or, “As varied as adults, toddlers, senior citizens, or anything else.” Those are cop-outs anyway.
Teens (like so many other groups) get a lot of generalizations applied to them. Like every other generalization or stereotype, you can point to textbook cases where they’re true, and often just as many where they’re utterly false.
Example: Teens are irresponsible.
If we’re judging based on how some of them drive, then absolutely. On the other hand, I know teens who budget their money, make sure to take their car in for regular oil changes, and warn me two weeks in advance that they’ll be missing school and need their homework.
The whole essence of “teenager” is that it’s this amorphous time between childhood and adulthood where they have several traits of both stages at the same time … and those traits are often in flux from one moment to the next.
This is on my mind today because of a particular pet peeve of mine—talking to teens like they’re little kids.
I can’t fathom how common this is in schools. Not like all teachers do it, or even most, but enough to puzzle me. I’ve often wondered—but have never had the guts to ask one of the perpetrators—why they talk to students as they do. They’re not rude or anything. It’s just this tone and approach to interacting with students that I know would drive me bonkers if I were a teen.
Do they really regard teenagers as roughly the same as elementary students? I don’t know.
I can’t say I treat students exactly the same as I treat adults, or even talk to them exactly the same way. But it’s close. I try to acknowledge that they’re in that transition, which means they’re partway adult, but still in flux.
Maybe this attitude in teaching has informed my writing, because I try really hard to never talk down (write down?) to my audience.
And maybe that consciousness is why that “I’m talking like you’re nine years old” tone drives me nuts.
Speak up:
2 commentsDream Casting: Hiddles for Giggles
My sister is slightly (just a little) obsessed with the actor Tom Hiddleston, and if you don’t recognize him in his headshot, visualize him with darker, longer, straighter hair (Loki in Thor and The Avengers) or wearing an English WWI military uniform (a brief but memorable role in War Horse), or you might have seen him in a few other places.
This blog post is largely for her, and just having a little fun.
I know a lot of writers do it—come up with their dream cast for “if they made my novel a movie.” Or at least digging up photos of celebrities (or athletes, or models, or whatever else they can find online) who are a decent fit for their mental picture of various characters.
In this case, instead of casting a full novel, I’m going to find spots for Mr. Hiddleston in each of my completed manuscripts. It’ll be a little tricky, because he’s 31 years old, and I write YA. I refuse to ‘90210’ him and cast him as a teenager, so no lead roles for him. (Sorry, sis.) But let’s see what I can come up with.
Crossing the Helix trilogy (Fingerprints, Echoes, & Catalysts)
I have too many options for this one. Mr. Z, the very cool physics teacher in the regular world, or Wreiden, one of the Flecks in the alternate world. Either way, he’d be super-smart.
Or, if I want to make my sister really happy … Tayn, the twins’ father. He could pull off the flashbacks as he is now, and a little minor makeup work could age him up 5-10 years for later.
Fireweaver
Let’s just jump straight to him being at least in his late thirties by this point. Is he more Reagan (my MC’s uncle who raised her) or more Dexter (the teacher of her favorite subject)? I’m thinking more Reagan. (Hmm … now I’m wondering, who out there is more Dexter?)
Significantly Other
Ooh, this is a tough one. There aren’t a lot of options. I think he’d probably be best as the colonel who pulls my MC back into the military role she was created for.
Matters of Life and Deaf
How ambitious are you, Mr. Hiddleston? Ambitious enough to learn sign language and play a deaf person? Yes? Then Vince, the ASL specialist. No? Then I’ll change the name of the jerk pre-calculus teacher.
Stitching Snow
Again, we’ll say he’s a touch older, late thirties or early forties. Definitely Kip. But I can’t say anything about who that character is to the story just now. (Or wait, maybe Thad, at the age he is now! But I can’t say anything much about him, either.)
Like I said, all of this is just fun. But it also made me think about my characters, which of their attributes (ethnicity, age, etc.) are truly integral to the character, and which are less important and could easily be adjusted if I wanted to.
‘Fess up. Have you ever dream-cast the movie of your novel? What does the exercise do for you?
Speak up:
3 commentsIt’s Spring (Maybe?) and I Need a Break
After work today, Spring Break begins for my school. Not a moment too soon.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been through state testing, a last-gasp-of-winter snowstorm, a leaky classroom ceiling (still!), and the staff restrooms (adjacent to my classroom) requiring a massive toilet-removing plumbing-exploring procedure to return flushability to our lives. Oh, and other than the state testing, that was all in a matter of two days.
My nose needs a vacation more than anything.
My trusty laptop also croaked after over four years of working hard—fortunately not so badly that I couldn’t get all my files off, and everything important was backed up. (In honor of my five novel protagonists, the replacement laptop has been named Nezra.)
Despite all this, I’m actually in a pretty good mood. I finished the draft of my seventh novel Wednesday night. (Uh, that sounds like a lot. Three are a trilogy. One is last year’s NaNo.) My students handled the chaos in the classroom pretty well. We’re down to T-minus-three-weeks until Mindy McGinnis invades the southwest. And like I said, vacation starts tomorrow afternoon.
So, my plans for the break? As usual, head up to my folks’ place for a week. Do some editing. Critique Mindy’s sure-to-be-mega-awesome revision. Prepare for the aforementioned invasion.
And pray that my classroom isn’t soaked to the core when I get back.
But it occurs to me that I haven’t been on a vacation in so long, I have no idea what the last one was. Maybe the time in grad school I spent Easter weekend with a classmate’s family on the other side of New York state?
When Mindy and I get together, I suspect there will be some plotting about a future invasion, heading farther west … and involving another certain critique partner.
Anyone else have Spring Break coming up? Any exciting plans? Or are you looking ahead to summer?