Why Good Books Should be Read Twice (or more)

I fell in love with reading when I was in first grade and have spent hours reading ever since. Whether I was on road trips, in my room, or later outside on the college quad, I always had a book with me, and I would usually read every chance I got. Some of my favorite books I’ve read over a dozen times. I went into English in undergrad and grad schools because I wanted to be a writer, and because I liked to read. I went on to teach writing and literature at the college level for eight years.

That said, I now realize that I never learned to read, at least not in an organized way.

When I was in junior high, I met a professor who had been born in Belgium, educated at the University of Chicago, and was now teaching at a college where my parents had gone to school. He challenged me to read Shakespeare when I was in 7^th grade. A few pages into The Merchant of Venice, I felt like I was reading a foreign language and quit. It would be another 3-4 years until I tackled Shakespeare again, and even then it would take seeing it on stage before I actually felt like I could gain entry into that world.

Over the years, though, I’ve bought a number of books this professor had previously read. I noticed the pages were thickly highlighted and theme words would be indexed at the back of the book with page numbers. I knew that he read differently, but it still didn’t connect that I could do so. It took a moment a few days ago, poring over a number of sample answers on a study guide website, to see how to read on a whole different level. Here’s what I learned:

The First Reading

Typically, when I’ve read a book in the past, I’ve let the story “wash over me.” I just want to enjoy the story, and I feel like I’m along for the ride. Sometimes I’m trying to figure out what’s happening, who the characters are, but that sometimes distracts me from the story itself. I am only focused on the characters and plot specifically when it’s complex, slow building, or poorly written. Some books I only read once, or don’t manage to get through. Some of them are poorly written, others either don’t grab my attention or I’m not ready for them yet. Regardless, they don’t stick.

The good books, however, stay with me for days, weeks, months, even years. I want to return to that world, think more about the characters, or imagine what other scenarios outside of the story would look like. I even find them making their way into my dreams. The “classics” and good books should be worth reading again. They say something significant about life or circumstances, or about the world that resonates and sticks with us. These are the books that should be read again.

The Second Reading

The second reading is the systematic read. Here’s where you highlight passages in the text and index them in the white spaces at the end of a book, or keep a notebook or journal, or separate pieces of paper that can go neatly inside the jacket of your book. If you’re reading a book (novel) for class, are teaching it, or want to go more in depth, here are some things to take note of:

1. Characters

First of all, the characters are the people or things that move the story. Characters don’t even have to be people (rabbits in Watership Down; Frog, Toad, etc. in The Wind in the Willows), but they are who the story is about. You have main characters who are with you for most of the story and supporting (minor) characters who only appear in a few scenes or quickly make an exit (sometimes as cannon fodder). You also have a main character whose eyes you’re often seeing the story through (the protagonist) who has a goal or desire he or she (or it) is wanting to accomplish. You also have a person, people, circumstances, or things (antagonists) that are trying to prevent your main character(s) from reaching the goal.

2. Setting

Setting is the where and when of the story. Why does the setting matter? Even though this is the “backdrop” to the events of the story, the setting still matters. It shapes or limits the possibilities of what can happen. For example, when a story begins in a small country village and then raiders come through, burning everything down, this communicates a sense of loss, that something good has been destroyed, far more deeply than if it took place in a war zone. A battle in a larger war, while no less devastating, is almost expected. A battle in a peaceful village that was unprepared is not expected and is therefore shocking.

3. Plot

Plot, in essence, is what drives the story forward, the what’s happening. The plot is driven by the goal or desire of the main character(s). What do they want to accomplish? How are they going to get there? This desire, while it moves the plot forward, also tells about the characters (and later themes) we’re following. For Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, after a tornado rips her from her home in Kansas, she embarks on a single-minded quest to get back; for Frodo in Lord of the Rings, he has to destroy the Ring of Power so Middle earth can be safe again; for Luke Skywalker, he longs for an adventure (significance) and gets caught up in saving a princess and fighting the Empire. For Oedipus, he wants to find out why a plague has fallen on Thebes.

4. Point of View (POV)

The point of view is important, because it creates our relationship as the reader with the characters in the story. If the point of view is first person, we essentially are inside the main character, intimately aware of their thoughts and feelings. What happens to them is vicariously happening to us. In a third person omniscient (all knowing) perspective, we’re above the story, looking down on the events unfolding, playing the role of “gods” who are observing an event unfold, but not taking part in it. One perspective is intimate and visceral, the other detached and (possibly) more cerebral. Different points of view fit different types of stories, but it’s important to recognize the kind of relationship being created.

5. Themes

Themes become the overall ideas of the book. Maybe the story is about growing up, coming of age, the problem of good and evil, a struggle for significance. These ideas are significant to the plot of the story and help drive the story forward, but they can also transcend the story and speak to our own situation as well. What does love look like in Romeo and Juliet? Is it truly romantic, self-sacrificing, impulsive and reckless, and how do these definitions of love play out? When Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, will it bring healing to himself and Denmark, or will he destroy everything around him? Is revenge worth the price? What role does friendship play in the quest to destroy the Ring? Or to defeat Voldemort?

6. Symbolism

For me, symbolism plays a more minor role, and can possibly be tied to the ideas of theme. However, symbols can also still be key pieces in a story. The three animals Dante confronts at the entrance to Hell are more than random animals, but represent stages of life and key temptations during those stages; the stolen silver in Les Miserables becomes a kind of “blood money” to redeem one man’s soul; the Ring in Lord of the Rings is not just jewelry but evil embodied.

7. Key Passages

Key passages are the significant scenes and conversations between characters that illustrate themes, plot, character, or major events in the book. Key passages are significant in that they help illustrate your idea. They’re the “sound bites” of the story that show rather than tell. They’re especially helpful when you’re writing a research paper, or want to illustrate an idea through an example you’re teaching through. This is where the key ideas move from generalities to specifics. While this takes some extra work and planning, identifying key passages in the text can really help communicate the overall idea.  One of my favorite passages that illustrates grace comes from The Fellowship of the Ring, where Gandalf is recounting to Frodo Gollum’s finding of the ring and the problems he has created for Bilbo and the Shire. Frodo says, “‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!

                ‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo.’”

I still love reading just to get wrapped up in the story, but taking note of these key ideas in the second reading really helps organize my thoughts when it comes to research papers, teaching, or simply going more in-depth when talking about a book. Hopefully it will help your reading experiences as well!

Writing as a House: On Organization and Coherence

Over the last ten years I have taught a lot of writing classes and have also worked with students one-on-one with their papers. When I talk about structuring writing, I often use the analogy of a house. It has seemed to work really well, and I’d like to share two ideas about this (organization, coherence) with you as well.

Organization

First, imagine when you walk into your own house and step into the kitchen, what do you expect to find? Typically, you’ll see a fridge, microwave, stove, sink, cabinets, drawers, and other things. What is the purpose of the kitchen? To eat, of course! Actually, to be more accurate, the kitchen has to do with food: the preparing of it, the storing of it, the cleaning of it, the storing of dishes that serve food . . . but food is the main theme of the room. All of the main furniture that goes into this room supports the main purpose of the kitchen, which has to do with food.

Now, let’s step into the living room. Again, what do you typically see? You may see a TV, a couch, stereo, lamps, bookshelves, family pictures, a lazy boy, etc. What do you think the purpose of the living room is? When I ask this question, people will say, “To relax, to have friends over, to chill.” So again, the living room has a main purpose, which is to relax and to hang out with friends and family. All the furniture here, from the couch to the TV to the lights is intended to fit this main purpose.

We could move to the bedroom, the bathroom, and other rooms of the house and quickly identify the main purpose of the room (the bathroom: to get clean; the bedroom: to sleep, to have personal space) and we would find most of the furniture is there to fit that purpose. In a well-organized house, nearly everything in each room fits the main purpose of the room, and in a cluttered or disorganized house, we find furniture in rooms that don’t fit, or we find too much furniture . . . or too little.

So how does this relate to writing? I’m glad you asked. In the same way that the rooms of a house each have a purpose and the furniture in those rooms fits that main purpose, an essay has a similar structure. Think of the essay as its own house. The paragraphs are the rooms in the house.  Each paragraph should be about one idea. The supporting details, examples, and evidence are the furniture that are related to the main purpose of that paragraph. If there are too few details and examples, the room isn’t comfortable. If there are too many, the room can begin to become cluttered, or starts to spill over into trying to fill too many purposes. Many writing instructors suggest creating paragraphs that are between 3-8 sentences. There is no magic to this, and this is not set in stone. The idea BEHIND it, though, is this: your paragraph should be about one idea and you need enough supporting “furniture” in the room to comfortably fill this function.

Coherence (Flow)

Now that we’ve talked about organization of the rooms, let’s talk about flow. Yes, there’s a kind of Feng Shui or flow that should exist in your papers as well. If we were to take a tour of your house, we might start out in the living room, then move to the kitchen, and so on, throughout the house. Imagine that someone in the group was busy looking at the fridge and didn’t hear that the rest of the group had moved on. Suddenly, they look up and they’re all alone, wondering how they missed the cue that the group was done with the kitchen and had gone somewhere else. It’s important to have markers, or sign posts, in your writing that signal to the reader that you’re done with one idea and are beginning a new one (moving from room to room).

Some good markers include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

First,

Second,

In addition,

On the other hand,

Also,

Finally,

However,

Meanwhile,

Next,

In contrast,

You probably get the picture.

Another way I talk about this idea of coherence, or flow, is that it’s like going on a road trip. You’re not in danger of getting lost on the straightaways, but it’s the turns, the “forks in the road,” the choices you have to make, to go right or left, when you can miss your cue and find yourself lost.  As a reader, you need to work hard to make the signage clear. The above markers are the equivalent to, “Stop here, Road Out Ahead, Turn Right.” They help our reader make the journey without getting lost.

One final point about coherence, and then I’ll move on: avoid writing overly confusing sentences if you want your reader to track with you. Watch for double negatives (test makers love using them, but they’re not good for clear communication). Also, watch wordy phrases and too many passive sentences (we’ll talk about that another time).

When you’re in the drafting stage of your writing, you may not be thinking about the organization and coherence ideas we’ve talked about, and that’s okay. The main purpose of the draft is to get your ideas down on paper as quickly as possible. You’re “unpacking the truck” into your house in the drafting phase. But in the revision phase, ask yourself whether each of your paragraphs serves one purpose (rooms) and whether the furniture (supporting ideas) is in the right room or not. In other words, do your dirty dishes belong in the bedroom or in the kitchen? Does your shower towel belong in the living room or in the bathroom? You may need to spend some time “cleaning house” by moving around ideas into the right rooms/paragraphs.

We’ve covered a couple ideas about writing today, and I hope it’s helpful. If nothing else, many of my students have said the house analogy has “stuck” with them months and years after we talked about it. If this has been helpful, let me know, and feel free to send me what’s been helpful for you. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Top 10 Moments in US History: Part 2

Top 10 Moments in US History, Part 2

As I kick off my next post in the Top 10 moments in history series, I’ll admit that I’m not someone who has read a lot about the Civil War. There are a number of books out there on the Civil War, from some great Northern and Southern historians. I encourage you to check them out. However, here are some highlights that you will need to know if you are preparing for a Praxis/US History test:

1. Presidents:

Abraham Lincoln was the president of the Union (North)(1861-1865) and
Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederate States of America (South) (1861-1865).

2. Generals:

- South: Robert E. Lee. A brilliant tactician and general who won a number of battles, even though he was often outnumbered. Lincoln wanted him to be a general of the North, but Lee stayed with his home state of Virginia and the Confederacy instead.

- North: The North suffered through a number of incompetent generals, but was most well noted for William Sherman (marched on Atlanta and burned the land as he made his march to the sea), and Ulysses S. Grant.

3. Cause of the war:

Slavery: Many historians point to the issue of slavery in the South as the primary cause of the Civil War. Virginia had first legalized slavery in the 1660s and much of the Southern agricultural economy depended on slavery.

- Other causes: some historians include economic differences between the North and South, and differences between states’ rights and limited federal government (South) vs. a more centralized federal government (North). Before the Civil War, the US was often referred to as “The United States are . . .” After the Civil War, it became “The United States is . . .” This shift in verbs signifies a bigger shift in thinking from a coalition of states and a stronger state government, to a unified nation with stronger federal powers.

4. Other events

- Missouri Compromise: 

Before 1819, the number of slave states to free states were evenly split at 11. In 1819, Missouri petitioned to become a state and enter into the balance as a slave state. The decision passed, with the agreement that Maine would also be added, but as free state.

- Dredd Scott v. Sandford (1857):

 Dred Scott, a slave, had been taken to free states and territories by his owners. Scott sued his owners for his freedom. The Supreme Court ruled that he was not a citizen, and therefore could not bring a suit before the courts. This case has been seen as one of the worst in Supreme Court history. This decision further complicated the boundaries between “free” and “slave” states and some may have feared that slavery would have a “trickle” effect into the free states and territories.

- Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863): 

The Emancipation Proclamation was a declaration that stated that all slaves in the South would now be free. This may have been a tactic to destabilize the South further by creating an army of newly freed slaves who would be loyal to the North. Notice that it said nothing about slaves in the North.

- Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863): 

One of the great American documents in US history, the Gettysburg Address repeated the ideas stated in the Declaration of Address that “all were created equal,” and that the Civil War’s purpose was to preserve that idea.

- The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments:
- the 13th amendment abolished slavery
- the 14th amendment stated that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were US citizens, including African Americans.
- the 15th amendment prohibited denying (a double negative) people the right to vote based on race, color, or previous servitude. Another way to say this: African Americans were given the right to vote.

- Industrial Revolution:

The Industrial Revolution first began in England in the area of textiles and the invention of the steam engine. In America, however, it would translate to railroads and factories, especially in the North. The North capitalized on this new technology to outmaneuver the South logistically. With the beginning of factories and improved farming methods, it’s unclear whether slavery was already on its way out, or would have been, because of technology, or if it would have continued if not for the Civil War. Regardless, slavery and its aftermath have had a significant impact on American history.

Again, while this isn’t an exhaustive account of the Civil War, these are some highlights that will hopefully be helpful as you’re working your way through an American history test, Praxis exam, or just want to know a little more about the Civil War. Please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts and comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Top 10 U.S. History Moments: Part 1

                 Have you ever wondered what some of the top moments in US History have been? This year I’ve been tutoring a lot of students in Social Studies, Geography, and US History, so I wanted to put together a top 10 list of important events for you. This is by no means exhaustive, and you may disagree with me about what events are the “most important,” but here are some pretty key events.

Introduction:  

Following an unsuccessful attempt at colonization in Roanoke (1587), the main colonization efforts in the Americas began in Jamestown by the Virginia Company (1607), in Plymouth by the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), and the settlement of the Carolinas in the 1650s. The three areas developed in different ways and with different purposes in mind. The Puritans in Plymouth settled in the Americas primarily for religious freedom; the settlers in Jamestown initially sought gold and treasure, but developed a cash crop: tobacco; the settlers in the Carolinas developed plantations based on a Caribbean model. The Georgia colony would become primarily a colony of prisoners from Britain. In addition, some settlers came to the Americas as indentured servants, and later slaves (slavery was first legalized in Virginia in the 1660s).

               

1. American Revolution (1775-1783)

                The French-Indian War (aka the Seven Years’ War, 1754-1763) would serve as a prelude to the American Revolution. Many historians see this as an extension of a larger war between Britain and France. American colonists fought primarily on the side of the British, and tribes of Native Americans fought on both sides of the conflict. As a result, the French lost the war and gave up territory west of the Appalachians to the British. An American war hero would also emerge from this conflict: George Washington.

                Although the British won the war, they would soon feel war’s costly effects. In order to repay some of the war expense, the British taxed American colonists and kept a military presence behind to keep the peace. After all, they reasoned, the war had been fought for the colonists, why shouldn’t they do their fair share in paying for it?

                The colonists did not agree. They resented the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Quartering Act (soldiers lived in people’s homes), and other acts, but the Tea Act was the final straw. While Samuel Adams gave an anti-British speech, several members of the “Sons of Liberty,” dressed as Native Americans, stormed one of the ships in the Boston Harbor and dumped the tea overboard (1773).

                Rather than seeking a compromise, the British tried to tighten the screws and bring Massachusetts under stricter British control. The other colonies saw this as an indication of things to come. Tensions escalated until April 1775 when fighting broke out between American militia and British soldiers at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. This battle would become known as “the shot heard round the world.”

The American Revolution marked a change in thinking, in government, and in political philosophy. The American Revolution was influenced largely by the writings of John Locke, a British philosopher who claimed in his Treatise on Government that human beings have certain “inalienable,” God given rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. He believed that no government could or should take these away. He argued that people give up some of those rights to self-govern for the good of the group. We can’t build roads, have schools, hospitals, libraries, or armies as individuals. We have to join together to create these things for the good of the community.

Locke continues that individuals make a contract with government, that government is a steward of the people and acts on the interests of the people. When government forgets that or abuses the charge it’s given, people have the right—the responsibility—to take this back and create a new government that DOES represent the people.

The Preamble to the Constitution begins “We the people . . .” recognizing this Lockean foundation. The writers of the Constitution also recognized that people, left to their own devices, would abuse power, and so the American government system was a system of “checks and balances,” where the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government had the power to keep each other in check; no one branch held all the power.

Overcoming Writer's Block

Post 1: Overcoming Writer’s Block (Sep. 15, 2015)

Have you ever gone to write something—an essay, an article, a homework assignment—and not known where to begin? You go to the piece of paper or computer screen and nothing comes out. You feel “frozen” (no, not the movie). If so, you’re not alone. Many students or writers at some point experience what’s commonly known as “writer’s block.” While this doesn’t fall in the top 10, or even the top 50, fears, writer’s block can be a significant problem for students and would be writers.

The problem lies in pre-writing.

Today I want to throw out a couple tips that may help you overcome writer’s block and help you get started.

First, part of writer’s block is a mindset. What if I don’t have anything to say? What if no one wants to listen? It probably won’t be any good anyway. It’s got to be perfect, or it’s not good enough.

No. Writing, while it can be work, can also be play.

Let’s try something. Think about this: What do you care about? What moves you? What are the things you’ve noticed today? Thought about? Wondered about? What are you curious about? What’s one of the first things you saw this morning when you stepped outside? Take a few minutes to make a list.

Have you written a couple things? Good. It wasn’t that hard to write those things down, was it? Was it related to the assignment you were supposed to work on? Who cares! The important part was starting the process.

Think of it this way. When a runner gets ready to go for a three mile jog, she doesn’t just walk out the door and start running. She walks around for a bit, lets her muscles warm up, stretches. When she starts running, she starts slower than a normal pace. In college, I jogged with a girl who would start much slower than I did initially, but she could blow past me once she warmed up. Before I met her, I had always started fast, and then couldn’t figure out why I was getting shin splints. She taught me to warm up, to ease into the running to avoid cramps, shin splints, and other injuries.

The same thing is true with writing. Give yourself the freedom to start slowly, to warm up. Here are some things that work for me:

1) Journaling.

I’ve kept a journal since I was a kid. Sometimes it’s nothing more than what I dreamed the night before, what I ate, who I talked to that day, a snatch of conversation. Sometimes, on bad days, it’s nothing more than, “I don’t know what to write,” over and over. If you’ve never journaled, I recommend starting, five minutes a day . . . about anything. You’ll be surprised the things you discover about yourself and the world around you. You’re not writing for an assignment when you’re journaling; you’re writing for you. At first, the five minutes may go painfully slow, you may not have anything you can think of to write, but stick with it. Five minutes isn’t much time, and then you can go on with the rest of your day. But what I think you’ll find is that the five minutes slip by, especially after you’ve been doing it a few times, and by being in the space for ideas to come through your brain and onto paper, you’ll find a lot more to write about than you originally expected. I can’t say enough about journaling.

2) Find when works for you.

When do you do your best thinking? Is it in the morning over a cup of coffee? At night before you go to bed? Take advantage of these moments by keeping a notepad, note cards, or an app nearby that you can jot down random ideas or ideas for a project you’re working on. This will prime the pump for when you sit down later to spend more time with a project.

3) Exercise.

                When I was in grad school, I would often go for a walk at the nearest park while I was thinking

about a short story I was writing. I’d notice the trees, the squirrels and birds, and soon I’d let my mind wander. My body would be moving, but my mind would be free to think about the story, or whatever it wanted to focus on for the day. The key here was to pay attention to where my thoughts were taking me, to let the story unfold like a mental movie. I’ve found that dishes are also a great time for this, or when I go driving in the car. What do these things have in common for me? I’m doing something physical, something I don’t have to think about or focus on, which frees my mind to be creative. It’s creativity unleashed.

I hope these ideas help and have gotten you inspired to keep reading. Thanks for reading, and please be on the lookout for future (bi-weekly) posts.

Feel free to email me or comment to begin a discussion with other members. This space is primarily designed for tutoring and helping people grow, so if you know anyone who is likeminded, please let me know! Happy writing!

Know Your Audience; Know Your Purpose part 1

It’s taken a while to write this post. To be honest, the first two steps of writing I talk about with my students seem the most obvious. Much has been said about them, in more detail, in more clever ways, in more profound ways . . . well, you get the picture.

The first two steps I talk about are about the conversation of writing: know your audience, and know your purpose. To put it another way, who are you writing to and what are you wanting to say? You’re not just throwing out words into the void (or at least you hope not. “Ground control to Major Tom . . .”). You may not be able to see the person on the other end of the conversation, but you ARE having a conversation, and some of the rules of good conversation also apply to good writing. So first, who are you writing to?

To best answer that, let’s look at commercials. If you turn on the Hallmark Channel, you might get sappy commercials for exotic cruises and romantic getaways that you can share with your spouse to put the spark back into your marriage (I don’t watch the Hallmark channel, so I’m only guessing). Turn on ESPN, and there are Nike shoe commercials, Reebok clothing commercials,
commercials for sports drinks that make your sweat orange and purple as you stare like a wild animal into your opponent’s face, growling, and then shatter them into a million pieces as you dunk a basketball over their heads and apply Speedstick to your underarms simultaneously. Or, turn on Fox, and watch multiple gold investment commercials, retirement commercials, commercials for erectile dysfunction and better bladder control, or how you can call a law firm to sue a company that misapplied a surgical mesh.

Here’s what these commercials on these different channels all have in common: they know their audience, or more specifically, what makes them tick. They know their interests, hobbies, and fears based on things like their age, gender, geographic area, economic status, education, race, religious preference, or sexual preference. They know how to push the buttons of greed, security, desire, coolness. In short, they know their audiences very well. By trial and error, and sometimes market research, they have learned not to advertise sports cars on Nickelodeon, or Lucky Charms on CNN. It’s the wrong demographic.

Effective communication to your audience will take these differences into consideration. If you’re writing to a general audience, use multiple illustrations that appeal to a variety of audiences (i.e. don’t always use sports illustrations). I try to give a lot of movie examples, because it seems to be an area of cultural common ground (though I may be shutting out those who don’t watch movies). Overall, this works well, though I’ve had a couple audiences where no one had seen Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Forrest Gump. I try to vary male and female pronouns as I give illustrations, and try to give examples specific to the area where I live.

Taking these differences into consideration, and finding examples that communicate well to different demographics may seem basic, but it seems to be worth addressing. It’s easy to become myopic.

For this section, here’s the bottom line: writing is a conversation between two or more people. As the writer, we bring our preferences, individuality, and experiences to the writing, but our readers bring theirs as well. The more variety we can use in the illustrations and examples we use to communicate our ideas, the more bridges we build between different demographic groups.

Steps of Writing Part 1: The Shortest Distance is Not a Line

Writing is messy.

Anyone who tells you otherwise . . . is lying.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Mathematically, that makes sense. However, life turns out to be much different. When I was five, I wanted to be an astronaut. My dad and stepmom made me a “space ship” out of a cardboard refrigerator box. They placed it on the patio out the back door, cut out a door, and helped me decorate the outside of my ship. The
coloring was largely up to me, which was why it ended up being a fairly plain spaceship. They also made me a space vest out of a brown paper bag, and used another paper bag as a space helmet. (If space suits were only so easy and cheap, NASA would have had an easier time funding their space program). Once they helped me suit up, I hugged my dad and stepmom goodbye (there would be no tears), climbed into my space ship, and was off to see the stars. Shortly after
the very loud liftoff which involved a lot of mouth noises and spitting, I was off into the atmosphere.

Space, though, can be pretty turbulent. My ship rocked, buffeting me from inside my craft, and nearly knocked me off my seat. I loved it. I was off to see the planets, the stars, the universe . . . all I needed was my imagination and some cardboard, and my dad providing the effects. It was
a great day.

A couple days later I wanted to return to my spaceship, but my dad was at work and my stepmom wouldn’t come outside. Once again I climbed inside the cardboard box turned galactic explorer, but without my dad outside, space was a much smoother--and much more boring--ride. A week later a rainstorm hit while my spaceship was outside, and since it was made of flimsy stuff, it
soon fell apart. Still, the dream to become an astronaut lived on. When we moved from Illinois, I told friends to watch the skies, because someday I would be waving at them from inside my spaceship far overhead. A few years after that, the Challenger exploded, and as I watched the pensive expression on the newscaster’s face, I realized that something in me, and in our nation, had died. We weren’t invincible. Going to space wasn’t without real risk. Pursuing this dream could come at great cost. As I watched the footage of that explosion again and again, my dream of becoming an astronaut, along with a number of my friends’ dreams, went up in flames.

Sometimes we plan out where we will be five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now. Our guidance counselors tell us we need a plan; our parents tell us we need a plan; sometimes we have personalities that just feel better about having a plan.

And then there are surprises and twists along the way. Someone dies. A family moves. The transcript wasn’t accepted. We find out we’re not going to be with our high school/college sweetheart. We end up pregnant/divorced/unemployed. We get the thing we wanted, and realize it wasn’t what we wanted after all.

Just like life, writing takes us places we didn’t envision when we set out. It has its share of surprises, its twists. We can try to plan our story out and then bully it into submission to fit into our original framework, creating huge amounts of stress for ourselves and the people around us; or, we can hold on with white knuckled dread, hoping that if we close our eyes and just keep writing we’ll end up with a good story and it’ll all end happily; or we can enjoy the surprises, holding on loosely as a character does something unexpected, realizing they’re outside our control (and it’s better that way), and let it take on more of a life of its own. If we’re working with an idea or research paper and hit a dead end, we can step back, rethink, and try a new direction.

When I sit down to write, it’s intimidating. That feeling of fear and inadequacy hasn’t gone away yet, and from what I read and hear from others who write, it doesn’t go away for them either, no matter how much they’ve written or how good of writers they are. What does help, however, is knowing that I have the freedom to not get it right the first time, or the second, or sometimes even the third or fourth. I don’t remember where I heard this, probably from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, but here is what the dictum states: “There are no good writers, only good rewriters.” Writing is messy. Life is messy. In writing, as in life, the adventures and surprises are what make the journey interesting. Most mistakes aren’t irreversible.

One more final image—I like this one—and then I’m done. Sometimes we keep coming to the same things, either events in life, or keep seeing and seeing again our writing. It feels like a loop that we can’t get out of, the nightmarish Groundhog’s Day. However, a friend described it as climbing the steps of a lighthouse. Each time you see the same image, but then you see a little
more. You get a better perspective on what you’re seeing, adding to it every time. The first time you look out the window of the lighthouse, you can see the edge of the cliff at the border of the lighthouse yard; the second time, you see the cliff, but then you see the sand on the beach just beyond the cliff, and the little boy playing with his pail and trying to catch starfish; the third
time you see the cliff, the boy on the beach, and the white fishing boat, battling the choppy waters, bucking like a wild bull; and the fourth time you see the cliff, the boy on the beach, the fishing boat cutting the water, and the distant horizon of endless sea, as smooth as glass as the sun dips down into the water, setting everything ablaze in a brilliant pinkish red twilight.

The Importance of Good Communication

Communication is hard. Strike that. Good communication is really hard. It may not be
difficult to yell, or bully, or pontificate, but to understand someone else and be understood, to share who you are, what you think, what you feel, how you see the world in a way that someone can see it clearly . . . now that’s difficult.

I was a kid trying to tell my parents it was going to rain. I don’t know why I was so excited about it, but I ran into the living room of our trailer where my dad and stepmom were talking, and tried to explain what I had seen: a dark cloud moving across the sky, growing, piling on top of other
clouds, about to break open with rain.

What I said was this: “The sky told me it was going to rain.”

“This guy?”

“No. The sky.” They asked me to explain it again, and then again. Soon they were laughing . . . it became a big joke. I waved my arms frantically, jumping up and down, trying to explain it in a different way, but they laughed harder. I burst into tears, and an emptiness opened up inside: a
gnawing, hungry desire that would never be satisfied. I wanted them to understand me.

Present day. I’m in a classroom.

“Why is it important to communicate?” I ask. “What happens when we miscommunicate?”
At first I get blank stares, and then the wheels begin turning. Soon a student ventures forth, “Things don’t get done.”

Me: Like what?

Student 1: I dunno. Grades. Work?

“Okay,” I say. “That’s good.”

Student 2 adds, “Relationships break down. People get hurt.”

“Good again.”

Student 3 has a smile spreading across his face. It’s a good one. Yeah, he’s got it. “War,” he says. That will end the conversation for sure.

“Yes,” I agree. “If communication breaks down, it can lead to war.” The student gets a high five from another classmate.

Let’s back up. Miscommunication can be fairly harmless (“‘Who’s’ on first, ‘What’s’ on second, and ‘I don’t know’ is on third base”). But usually it’s more damaging. If a road construction crew doesn’t communicate to traffic that a bridge is out up ahead, someone could go off the road. If directions to a party are miscommunicated the friends never arrive. If prescribed medication
is miscommunicated between a doctor and nurse, the patient may not get enough medication, or may overdose. If an organization doesn’t communicate well, it breeds distrust and inefficiency. If a couple doesn’t communicate well they don’t stay married. If nations don’t communicate well they may find themselves at war.

On the other hand, clear construction signs give us fair warning that something’s not right up ahead. Good communication means the friends make it to the party, the patient is given the medicine they need, the organization runs well and is successful, the couple communicate well and feel connected, and the nations negotiate peace.

How important is it that we communicate well? Very important.

Then why is communication so difficult?

Here’s an idea. If we could do telepathy, we could take the images, thoughts, experiences, and feelings out of our minds and put them in someone else’s. They would see what we see, know what we know, experience and feel what we experience and feel. It would be amazing, an invention that would revolutionize how we live and relate.

But we can’t, and so we are limited by language to communicate what we see, know, experience and feel.

For example, I may have an image of a car. It’s silver, a two door coupe, and runs on electric or hydrogen. You have an image of what I’m talking about, and I guarantee on some level that it’s not the same. However, we can still understand enough about what we’re talking about to get the
general idea that riding on a country road in a fast car on winding curves is exhilarating; it’s what car commercials use to capture our imaginations . . . and sell their cars.

We carry our baggage, our experiences, our worldviews into every conversation. When I say the word “father,” someone may remember the time they went fishing with their dad, or played baseball, or wrestled together, and how it was a great bonding experience. Another may think of “father” and remember the drunk who came home late at night and hit their mom, hit them, or
worse, and feel anxiety or anger at the mention of the word.

Father. It’s one word, but has two drastically different emotional connotations.

Language is a broken tool, or at the very least it’s loaded with “baggage”, our positive or negative experiences, our culture, gender, faith, age, education, geography . . . and so on. I’ll never see exactly what you’re talking about or what you mean, and you won’t see exactly what I mean,
but we can get close enough to communicate, to understand fairly well, and get along if we give each other a good dose of grace along the way.

So what is writing? Writing is anything that seeks to communicate with someone else, whether it be a novel, an email, a memo, or a grocery list. Writing at its core is communication (not the only kind, and maybe not even the best) between two or more people. Right now I’m having a
conversation with you. I can’t see you, and I don’t know you yet, but we’re having a relationship, wherever you are. You’ve been listening as I’ve talked, and you may be responding by thinking about what I’m saying, picturing the two door sports car and how you’d like to be up in the mountains in Colorado driving it, or remembering your relationship with your dad. Maybe you’re
writing notes, asking questions, getting angry. It means you’re engaged in the conversation.

So here’s the point: writing is communication, it’s conversation, it’s relational. Since writing is communication, good things happen when we write well. Bad things might happen if we don’t write well. At the very least, bad writing, poorly communicated writing will create a comedy
of errors, grumpy looks, and confusion.

Next time I’ll talk more about what I share with my students about the steps of writing, and then I’d like to take a look “under the hood” to talk with other writers and their journeys to communicate well.

Words Have Power

"You're such a screw up."

"I wish you'd never been born."

"I was never meant to raise someone else's kid."

Words destroy.

"I love you."

"I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"You really did well with that. You're so neat. Good job."

Words heal.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

Words give life.

At the foundation of reality lies the spoken word. Some physicists say that in the tenth dimension, everything that exists is reduced to sound waves. It may not be too much of a stretch to think those "sounds" could be words (or song). Words have power. We have the ability to create life or destroy it. Maybe not always literally, but definitely figuratively, and sometimes—who knows—even literally.

I remember a friend in fourth grade. We were in band: he played saxophone, I played the French horn. His parents were going through a divorce. He was always talking. One day we got in an argument, and I wanted him to just stop talking. I said something about his parents getting divorced. The silence between us continued forever after that. His mother yelled at me through her tears, his older brother and his friends stood around every corner, threatening to beat me up, and when I tried to talk with him after that, all I got was stony silence. His eyes revealed nothing, except a wall to hide whatever hurt was inside. I tried to apologize, but by then the damage had been done.

Over a decade later I was still haunted by that conversation. I looked him up through some different friends, got his phone number, and gave him a call.

"Hello?"

"Hi. J___? Do you remember me?"

"Remember the conversation we had in fourth grade?"

"Yeah. I remember."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Silence, then, "Yeah. No problem. That's water under the bridge."

Another scenario.

It was late at night, my uncle had gone to bed hours before, and my aunt and I sat on the couch in the living room, talking. "Nothing good happens in my life," I said.

My aunt was silent a moment, building up steam for what was about to come next. "That's not true. Remember the time we came and got you and you came to live with us?" She continued over the next hour, walking me through several moments in my life that I had been rescued, or kept from some pain, or had received a reward or affirmation. As she talked, something shifted in me. I no longer saw my life as a big tragedy, no longer cast myself in the role of an unwanted child, but saw moments of protection on my life, favor . . . and grace. It was an incredibly healing moment, a night that has changed the direction of my life.

If words have that much power, then we should use them well. My dad used to say, "If you can speak well, you can influence a generation; if you can write well, you can influence a hundred generations." If our words have power, which they do, to heal or destroy, then we owe it to our readers, to the craft, to our words, to ourselves and to countless others to give our very best, to work hard, to be conscientious about the words we use. Good writing requires hard work. In fact, the harder we work, the easier it will be for the reader to understand what we are trying to say, and they may thank us. And maybe they'll even want to read more. We have no idea the impact our words can have.

Choose your words well. Choose to bring life into the world through the things you say. Write well.

New Site is up

Welcome to Writers' Rites!

This is a community blog for writers, talking about . . . writing.

Here's a sneak peak about some of the upcoming topics I'll be writing about:
1) The process of writing. Here we'll explore the process of drafting, revising, editing . . . all the things I teach my students in written composition.

2) I'll share some primary "tips" I've learned from teaching writing that should help your writing become stronger.

3) I'll share some of what really happens in the writing process, some of the things that have worked, and some that haven't. I'll also bring in other writers to share their experiences as well.

4) I'll talk about different genres of writing. Again, you'll be hearing from other voices as well on this one.

5) We'll take a look at some famous author bios

6) I'll throw in a few common grammar trends and break them down in ways that hopefully won't be so . . . 7th grade school marm-ish.

7) I'll write some about the submission process, include helpful websites and tips, and encourage you to weigh in as well.

After that . . . we'll see where this goes. Hopefully this can become a writing community where we share our writing experiences, tips, and learn from each other.

And now . . . on with the story . . .