Prompting the Writing

        This summer I'm working with teachers of writing. All day, four days a week, for five weeks. It's pretty heady stuff.

         Every day we start with a daily prompt. Each day, a different teacher chooses a prompt to get us writing for 10 minutes. Then, we share what we've written.

         One day the prompt was a commercial. In it, a father kept doing crazy things with his kids and kept saying, "Don't tell Mom." (It ended with the mother going skydiving and saying, "Don't tell Dad.") The prompt: Begin your piece with the words "Don't tell."

          Sometimes the prompt is a photo on the internet. Once, it was the first line from a novel: "The mouth is a strange place." It's the perfect way to start the day--warming up our writing mind.

          Yesterday we had five columns, and we had to choose one word from each column to use in our piece. As soon as I saw "Mrs. Cassidy," I knew what I was going to write about. (The other words I chose were sink, scatter, swell and iconoclastic.)

          Here's my story:

         "Swell. You're here," I said. A middle-aged woman stood at the door. She didn't look worthy of him. She looked like he had settled. Really settled.
          "Yes? Can I help you?"
          "So, you must be Mrs. Cassidy. When you married him, you got me all whipped up into a frenzy. Years ago, I made a voodoo doll of you, and eventually, scattered parts of it all over the country. You're an undeserving skank and your reign with him--the partridge of all the Partridge Family, the iconoclastic singer of the 60's and 70's--well, your time is up."
         Her mouth gaped open, like a brainless fish stuck in a tiny fishbowl.
         I yanked her by her hair, not even giving her the chance to say another word, and started shoving her in  a direction I hoped would lead in a direction which would lead to either the bathroom or the kitchen.
        Another reason to shout "swell," because we had gotten to the back of the house where the kitchen was. I filled up the sink, keeping my grip on her hair and despite her struggling, managed to hold her head under the water until she was limp and motionless.
        Now I could take my rightful place beside David...


        Why did "Mrs. Cassidy" instantly spark an idea? When I was 11 or 12, I was in love with David Cassidy. When he married the actress Kay Lenz, I was aghast. I could easily imagine a pre-teen crush going awry.

Aaah... the days when all hair was feathered back...

        Certainly there are huge holes in this story, and if I was interested in revising it, there's loads of work to do. However, I benefited from warming up with a little creative spark.

        How do you warm up? What rituals do you engage in to start off your writing? 

NOT What He'd Imagined...

       Denmark Vesey was a former slave. He bought his own freedom. Unfortunately, he was unable to purchase his wife and his children's freedom. 

Denmark Vesey

      A leader in the newly-formed AME church in Charleston, Vesey and a whole network of slaves and freed slaves plotted a bloody rebellion in June of 1822. They were going to kill the mayor, along with every white person they saw.

      A slave confessed to his master and told of the plot. The plan was squashed. People were arrested. Many were hanged... Vesey was one of them.

      That was 193 years ago. The killings that happened in the AME church--almost two centuries later... they were far from what Vesey had planned for Charleston. 

       Unfortunately, this plan--the plan to shed blood in 2015--was not squashed...

         (If you'd like to read a novel in which Vesey has a role, read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. Sarah Grimke and Angelina Grimke, two feminists and abolitionists, also are two main characters. It's a wonderful read.)

All You Need's a Nudge

       Sometimes all you need is a little push. A nudge. A bit of prompting.

      On Monday I only had two paragraphs. Two pathetic paragraphs that were written over the weekend. It was a prospective Chicken Soup story, but already, it wasn't going anywhere.

      Tuesday rolled around and I figured I would come empty-handed to my writing critique group. I rarely do that. I hate not bringing something to the group. We only meet twice a month, and since I get such helpful feedback from the WWWPs, when I don't share something, I'm missing out on invaluable help.

      I got up early enough on Wednesday morning that I was able to hurry through a rough draft. Yes, when I shared the piece later that evening, there were word choices that needed to be changed. The title stunk. But... I was able to benefit from the much-needed suggestions.

      Those twice-monthly meetings push me to write. And when I'm there, they nudge me to submit.

      Yesterday, along with some great food (Nora Ephron's spaghetti) and great critique work, we celebrated one of those pesky annual celebrations... a celebration that I'd like to ignore. The WWWPs, however, won't let any birthday pass without hilarity and thoughtfulness.

      One of the gifts I got was this book. Yeah, you missed the announcement that my mug had made the cover of a book? Well, don't look too closely. The expression on my face is, uh, well... I was looking pretty whackadoo when the camera shutter fluttered.

        One of the women took a book, entitled Wild Women, and glued in hilarious chapter descriptions and photos of all five of us.* 

         Let this be a lesson for you. When you are at a public event, and someone wants to take your picture, do not make a funny face to deter them from snapping the pic. The scary facial expression will not stop them. They will take the photograph, they'll hold onto it like it's a gold mine and then later, that picture will turn around and bite you in the butt.

        If you don't belong to a writing critique group, what nudges you? And if you do belong to a writing group, what's a story about a prompt/shove that you'd like to share?

* Linda: Pay-back is a cold-hearted witch. I am going to scour the thrift stores looking for the perfect volume... and I won't rest until I find it.
     

I'm 62, Baby!

       Okay, I'm not 62 yet although I look that old on many days but something is 62. 62,000, that is.

       My WIP is 62,000 words (and some change). It's not finished, but it's getting closer. This weekend I went to a writing conference and work retreat. Every chance I got, I dropped my butt into a chair and hunched over my laptop. I brought several books along. My usual routine--drink water... write... pee... drink water... write... pee... read... and repeat.

       Drinking lots of water as I write helps remind me to get up and run (before the pee runs down my legs).

      Unfortunately, one of the books I brought was so good, I did more reading than I planned. Saturday night I stayed up past midnight reading, and ended up with only 50 more pages to read. On Sunday I woke up early and finished it.

     At the core of this story are strong women--four of them filling the pages for most of the story, and then a new one appears towards the end. The Invention of Wings is the real-life story of Sarah and Angelina Grimke--two abolitionist and feminist sisters, along with the slave that was given to Sarah as a birthday present when Sarah was a young girl. In reality, the slave girl dies before she becomes a full-fledged adult but Kidd has written a fictionalized version, and it is stunning.

     The voices of Sarah and Handful ring so true. Mauma (Handful's mother) is such an engaging character. Not many books drive me to read while my eyes are watering from being overly tired... and yet I continued to read.

     It was that good...


     On a semi-side note, my WIP is part novel and part cookbook. At the end, I'm including recipes from my made-up writing critique group. If you have an incredible recipe you'd like to send me to include (I'll include your name in the recipe's name), send it to sroslawski@yahoo.com (I've got the directions for some delectable dishes so far).

       What accomplishment do you have to celebrate? Confetti-covered minds want to know... 

Just Back Off and Let Us Teach

       Just Back Off and Let Us Teach came to me at the perfect time. For me, this school year was a tough one. Twenty-seven students. A brand-new state test that was taken on computers. Increased pressure when it came to achievement. As I finished boxing up my classroom (so the floors could be cleaned and waxed) I was able to take a breath, read Caroline Alexander Lewis' book and get rejuvenated.

     Lewis, a former high school teacher and principal, believes that super teachers are superheroes. Of course, there are lazy teachers. There are also uncaring and uninterested teaches who wreak havoc on who-knows-how-many students every year. Those educators give all the other teachers a bad name. Effective teachers, according to Lewis, have

S--sensitivity
C--communication skills
O--organizational abilities
P--professionalism
E--enthusiasm

     Caroline Lewis and I agree--enthusiasm is the one thing that can't really be taught... and when teachers are enthusiastic and have passion for their work, they are soaring around Superman.

     Unfortunately, teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. It's a brutally exhausting job. We frequently get chewed up by parents, but we can't bite back. We sometimes go 3 or 4 hours--every day--without having the chance to go to the bathroom. Some of us have 30 minutes to walk a class down the hall to the cafeteria, drop them off (making sure they are supervised), eat our own lunch, and use the bathroom. (And that's assuming there were no problems during the trek down the hall.) We spend many hours at home in the evening and on the weekends grading papers and planning lessons. I love my job. It's the best profession in the world. But if something is not done, there'll be a severe shortage of teachers.

       Lewis spends about half of the book discussing what makes an effective teacher, using the SCOPE acronym. She then covers some of the things that can be done to validate and retain teachers.

       Before the book even begins, Lewis sets the tone with a quote by William Butler Yeats. It says it all: Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." 

       As Jose Feliciano sang, "Come on baby, light my fire." My fire is lit... don't let it get extinguished.

About Caroline Lewis:

After spending 22 years as a science teacher and school principal, Caroline Lewis became director of education for Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and developed the award-winning Fairchild Challenge to engage students in environmental issues. As founder and CEO of The CLEO Institute, she applies her educational leadership skills to promote solution-oriented approaches to address climate disruptions. A native of Trinidad, she earned an MS in Educational Leadership in 1999 and is committed to elevating and celebrating the teaching profession.

Visit the author online:

Website: www.CarolineLewisEducation.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JustBackOffandLetUsTeach

About the Book:

If America wants to reform public education and regain its status in the world, it must start valuing teachers and stop the present policy of commissioning study after study and revising measurement tests every few years. That assertion is made by author Caroline Lewis, who outlines reform in her new book Just Back Off and Let Us Teach: A Book for Effective Teachers and Those Who Champion Them. Both descriptive and motivational, Lewis' book defines five skills distinctive of effective teachers called SCOPE (Sensitivity, Communication, Organization, Professionalism, and Enthusiasm) Skills. Lewis encourages all teachers to self-examine and grade themselves on their own effectiveness using SCOPE Scores.

If Your Lips Are Movin'... Then You're Lyin'

          It's been a dry spell when it comes to some of my friends (and me) and Chicken Soup. Story call-outs are posted, we submit, and then we find out the book is coming out in a month or two and we still haven't gotten our acceptance email.

        They must be running late with letting everyone know their story's been chosen. But then the book hits the bookstores and we still haven't heard... and we resign ourselves that yet another book has rejected more of our stories.

        At our last writing critique meeting, the WWWPs were talking about it. I didn't say a thing because I didn't want to jinx it, but I'd heard a month or so earlier that one of my stories had made it through part of the acceptance process. Two days after our WWWP meeting, I got the final A-okay. My story, On a Mission, will be included in an upcoming Chicken Soup anthology.

This book will be on sale beginning on August 18.


My story is about a bunch of lies I told in order to get a dog rescued. I didn't go as far as steal the dog (which I did once, or at least was an accomplice in stealing an abused beagle) but I did tell some tall tails tales. The golden retriever went from a horrible home to a wonderful home, due to the lies I concocted.

When have you lied for a noble cause? When have you used lying for good (instead of evil)? When you "stretched the truth," did it ever come back to bite you in the rear end?

Truth-transforming minds want to know.