Yes, you read that correctly.
This particular student was exemplary. A talented poet, well-mannered, polite - the kind of student every teacher wants to have. Always volunteered to share his warm-up writing and it was SO GOOD no one else wanted to follow. This was a kid who would go places.
After my student left, I was standing in front of my first block class with no clue what to say. My mouth was frozen, my heart in pain. I managed to get the lump out of my throat and begged my current students to not go that route - if something was weighing too heavily on them, PLEASE find someone to talk to. I told them my own experience with suicidal thoughts and the boy who betrayed my confidence . . . the best thing that could have happened.
I e-mailed the guidance director at lunch to verify the story and she did. Yes, he drank the bleach, yes, he's in the hospital. I went to see her and she said both I and another teacher had the same reaction to the news, which, she said, was good for the student; to learn when (if) he comes back to our school that these two teachers were heartsick over his suicide attempt.
I try not to beat myself up because there were NO red flags. He was always smiling, always polite, always doing what was expected of him. Which leads me to worry even more about this type of student . . . what's going on behind their facade that they DON'T show?
When (if) my student comes back to our school, I hope the guidance counselor tells him that I asked about him. I hope he comes to see me. I want to give him a hug (even if I'm not supposed to) and tell him next time, come TALK to me. Or someone. There's nothing so bad that you need to end your own life.
Because the truth is, it's not the suicide that suffers, it's those that s/he leaves behind.
- Mood:
indescribable
However, since I'm likely not going to do that, I'm going to contribute to the 20 Things That Make Me Happy meme that's floating around:
1. I'm able to write this blog in the first place.
2. I like my job.
3. My students think I'm cool. :)
4. I finished NaNoWriMo despite the extreme odds this year.
5. I have an idea for a new book already.
6. I've been dating the same guy for six months and we're still happy.
7. I get to take my first ever cruise next weekend.
8. I get to travel over Winter Break - to see my best friend (19 years and counting!).
9. My novel is in the hands of an agent; I'm happy he requested the full.
10. I'm not in foreclosure.
11. Besides #2, I HAVE a job.
12. I have really good friends.
13. I am getting back in touch with old friends. Thank you, facebook!
14. I am happy my friends are getting book contracts (where's mine??).
15. I am happy that Florida Regional' SCBWI conference is next month.
16. Piggybacking on #15, I'm happy Lisa Yee's coming to talk about revision!
17. I'm alive and mostly well.
18. There are people in the world who believe that a little kindness goes a long way.
19. I found a great winter coat for $9.74 at the Salvation Army. (To travel with, of course!)
20. Most of all, I'm happy to have found my happiness. I spent too much of my life being unhappy.
- Mood:
grateful
I was starting to get a little down on sending out agent queries for DTM, since all of them have been coming back as nos on either a query or query plus first chapter. I had two agents on my list that I hadn't heard back from, and it had been over a month, so I followed up on Friday. One agent e-mailed a form back that said if I don't hear from them after six weeks, consider they're not interested. The other, however, said he had actually responded and asked for my material! AARGH! How did the Internet gods NOT send that e-mail to my Inbox???
I sent him a full via e-mail this morning. Now we wait. I'm hopeful, since the initial contact was query, synop, and first chapter.
On the NaNo front, I've got to double up today since I didn't have time yesterday to write. At least I'm only one day behind; that's fairly easy to catch up on. I just wish I was ahead of the game like I've been every other year. Too much going on in my real life this year, I suppose.
Well, tonight, I started the workout and the WAVE was on its "stable" side. Except for one minor detail - if you don't plant your foot directly in the center, it can flip over. Needless to say, I missed, it rose up and I lost my balance. Picture 6'1" 250+ pound me flailing uncontrollably until I landed hard on my tile floor and my head slammed into the leg of my dining room table. Talk about a HUGE ouch. I have to say, though, I was quite proud of myself for getting right back up, rubbing my sore derriere and hip (my head's pretty hard - I didn't seem to hurt IT), and going back carefully to the workout.
That's four days this week I've actually done a workout! Three days I did WAVE workouts, and on Election Day, I walked to my polling place and back. School pictures came back today and I'm so fat it's not even funny. Everyone says it's such a great picture, and technically, yes, it is a good picture, but I know what I look like when I'm not overweight and THAT'S the picture I want to see again.
I'm keeping up with NaNoWriMo even though I'm not ahead of the game like I was last year. Which reminds me - now that I've exercised, must get my 1667 words in for the day.
Off to write.
However, last year, I taught three sections of creative writing. The advantage there was there was a LOT of in-class writing time, and I took advantage of it to write my NaNo while the kids were writing whatever they were working on. So I managed to write several hours a day.
This year: much more challenging. Teaching three sections of tenth grade English - no sneaking off to write during class time. Tuesday afternoons I have grad school. Wednesday I teach a Fiction Writing class at a community school. Thursday is my critique group. Short of sacrificing sleep (which I can't afford to do) or my new habit of actually exercising (don't want to do), I have to squeeze writing in catch as catch can.
As I said, today, I should be working on my NaNo. I took the day off for my cardiologist appointment, then got a lunch invite from my best friend and his father. So now I'm home. And I'm writing this blog instead of writing my stinking book.
Okay, I'm going, I'm going. Two hours of writing. That's the goal. Off to NaNo land.
This year? In Character may be the novel of choice. Drama kids, promiscuity for the wrong reasons. But then I had a character whose best friend die of brain cancer pop up last week. She doesn't belong in In Character. But she wants to be written.
Yes, I know, we should all have such problems. Well, when I wake up in the morning, the first character to speak gets written for NaNo.
I hope one of them talks to me.
It wasn't as horrible as it could have been - I could check my e-mail accounts at work (at least until today - don't even ask), but sites like this one, MySpace, and Facebook are all blocked at school. So I'm a lot behind on my reading of blogs.
I don't think I realized until this week how dependent I am on the Internet. I couldn't pay my bills, I couldn't shop, I couldn't update my web site for my students . . . and that's just a few. On the bright side, I did take the time to write my query for Don't Touch Me (critiqued last night by my mentor and mailed out to an agent today). I'm excited about getting that MS out to the world. Now I have to start working on the next one. I have two in the works - one which is still just a collection of thoughts, the other has 22 pages of text already written.
Must find writing time. Lots of ideas cramming my head.
So far the highlights have been Bruce Coville's keynote, Rachel Cohn's and Jay Asher's breakout sessions, and the Paint the Town Red party last night (even though I always leave early since I have to drive back to the Valley). Looking forward to tomorrow morning's session with Bruce Coville - plotting isn't necessarily my strong point and I am ready to learn from what I hear is a master!
Tomorrow is my birthday, so LJ friends attending the conference who may be reading, do find me tomorrow to wish me many happy returns! :)
- Location:Los Angeles
The thing is, I LOVE writing! You would think I would play tetris with my life in order to make sure the writing cube fits in perfectly to each day. I manage to do it just fine in November, when I NaNo, but the rest of the year? Not so good.
Of course, the first week of hot writing I started what I'm calling the "rock and roll" novel. My MC is a sixteen year old who acquires a fake ID to get into the world of nightclubs and sexy musicians. I got 22 pages in but then realized I didn't know where my plot was going. Taking a step backward and going to start a plot outline to work from. That worked really well for Don't Touch Me, my strongest work to date, so it's probably a good idea for future works.
And speaking of Don't Touch Me, it's time to write the query letter and get that out to agents. The book won't sell if nobody sees it. :)
- Location:Butt on Couch
- Mood:
tired - Music:Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion on the TV
A little bummed today since school grades came out and my school dropped from a C to a D. I know how hard the staff and teachers worked to bring grades up, which clearly says who DIDN'T work hard to bring FCAT scores up. Too many kids in my school who don't give a flying you know what about testing or school or Bengal Pride.
Re-reading Marjetta Geerling's Fancy White Trash. Marjetta's in my Thursday critique group and I love her to death. Her book rocks, too.
Will try to write more often. :)
- Location:butt on couch
- Mood:
disappointed - Music:none - Sugar and Spice on Family Channel
I told Sarah, Lauren, and Emily about my "Writers are People too" wall and they posed for a picture for me. Here it is. :)
A fun time was had by all, and it has inspired me to really bust some butt on my revisions! The sooner I sell my book, the sooner I get to do booksignings and talk to teens and fellow writers about MY book. Can't wait!
- Mood:
creative
Only my friend Mindyalyse knows this, but I lost my notes from last summer's SCBWI Orlando workshop. Joyce Sweeney was the author presenter on the YA track, and she ran us through an exercise on the "Instant YA Novel." I looked for these notes for MONTHS, to no avail. I was kicking myself for not using my regular conference notebook for that particular workshop, and resigned myself to never seeing those notes again.
A couple of days ago, I was looking for a legal pad to start organizing my exercise DVD's - get together a list of which ones I had and how long each one was so that when I want to work out, I can choose a workout of appropriate length. I grabbed a padfolio from my bedroom floor, flipped it open . . .
VOILA! MY NOTES!!!
That coupled with a colleague telling me I should volunteer to teach the Advanced Placement classes along with Creative Writing next year really put a smile on my face. My first year at the school, and I've made a huge impression on the seniormost member of our English department. I had a smile all day.
Now I must stop writing and must go work on revisions of DTM . . . June is right around the corner and I'd like to have the full revision done before I get to THIS year's Orlando conference.
My Personality
96 | |
10 | |
58 | |
35 | |
59 |
| You feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated, however you tend to lack energy and have difficult initiating activities. You tend to feel overwhelmed by, and therefore actively avoid, large crowds. You often need privacy and time for yourself. You prefer familiar routines and for things to stay the same. You can tend to feel uncomfortable with change. You are willing to take credit for good things that you do but you don't often talk yourself up much, however you are not adverse to confrontation and will sometimes even intimidate others to get your own way. You take your time when making decisions and will deliberate on all the possible consequences and alternatives. |
The best Buying Pet Gifts. |
I'm not one to spend megabucks on myself without major thought. And I have to admit I've been fascinated by e-Book readers since the introduction of the first. I'm on Amazon a lot, and the Kindle has been a tease . . . especially when it sold out and was on backorder. Imagine, a $400 product on BACKORDER!
So when they were on backorder, I placed my order, since Amazon kindly informed me I could always cancel up to the moment of shipping.
Well, it shipped. Yesterday. I spent $400 on an e-Book reader.
Will I stop buying books? Of course not. But I can be more discriminating now, and it will cost me less to read. Kindle versions of my favorite YA books are less than $10 each, and don't take up space on my bookshelf. My school bookshelf is currently overflowing, anyway - I won't need to replenish my students' reading material for a while. And I will continue to buy at the very least my friends' books. :)
But I did rationalize the purchase in that the Kindle can store the equivalent of 200 books on its included memory, more if I put in an SD memory card. 200 books, without having to build more bookshelves! And the e-Books are also stored in my Amazon account, if anything happens to the Kindle.
It's supposed to arrive on Monday, and I've already ordered four books, two YA, two adult, so I will have reading material already on it when it arrives. This is incentive to finish writing my Victorian Sensation Novel paper ASAP, so that I can sit down and play with the Kindle the moment it arrives.
I'm a techno-geek. Who would've thunk it.
totally went my way tonight.
I've got this addiction to the Biggest Loser, and was practically jumping off the couch excited when Ali won the whole thing. Knowing as I do how difficult weight loss is, and that women do tend to struggle with it more than men do, it was validating to FINALLY see a woman take the top prize.
Then I was sucked into the finale of Rock of Love 2 . . . the very fact that an age-appropriate candidate made the last two finalists made me eager to see if Bret Michaels would earn back some respect from me. Not that he cares what I think, of course. I was totally rooting for Ambre because we're the same age, and Bret's 44, and frankly, I thought Daisy was a little young and issue-laden. All the way to the end of the finale I was praying for Ambre but pretty sure Bret was going to pick dizzy tattooed rocker chick. I was thrilled when he dissed Daisy and chose the mature Ambre to be his rock of love! Granted, she's still a barbie doll but she's an older, settled, working barbie doll, and the episodes I saw, I felt she really liked Bret for Bret, not for Bret singer of Poison.
Okay, now that the reality TV finales are out of the way, all I have left to do is write a paper for my graduate class, and my free time becomes writing time again. I've got Don't Touch Me to revise, and have started planning out a light summer romance for my next project. I LOVE romances and I think I'm finally ready to write one, even if I may not be HAVING one. :)
Last week I brought my 2007 NaNo, Don't Touch Me, to my monthly critique group, which meets on the first Wednesday of the month. They were very positive about it, which made me sit down and re-think my revision strategy.
My gut has been telling me for a while that DTM is my strongest first draft yet. And I've been desperately struggling with Learning To Fly (formerly The Montegris Experiment), trying to make it work because I really wanted it to. But my instincts have been screaming at me to shelve LTF and work on DTM instead, that DTM has a better chance of finding an agent and/or editor. Problem is, I'm a perfectionist and don't like to admit that I can't do something. I don't like saying I can't fix Learning to Fly.
However, I brought the first two chapters of Don't Touch Me to my weekly critique group last Thursday, and received UNANIMOUS agreement that DTM is the stronger manuscript. JS barely had any comments or suggestions other than I should always listen to my gut. :)
This week, I brought in chapters 3 and 4. Same reaction. Minor nits, nothing major. And JS is VERY positive about this one - so much so that she doesn't think it will be long at all before this one's ready to hit the submission circuit.
I admit I'm sad about shelving my baby . . . there's something about Learning to Fly that I really wanted to make that one happen first. And I recognized last night that LTF may NEVER happen. It may be one of those early manuscripts that finds a drawer and never leaves. It hurts a little. But what thrills me is knowing that Don't Touch Me is an unedited, unrevised first draft, and so far, EVERYONE who's heard or read it has loved it as is, no overhaul necessary.
And THAT is a huge compliment to the improvement of my writing. Each manuscript I've written is better than the last. That's true accomplishment, I think.
Spent the weekend in Orlando visiting a good friend of mine. He's a Disney employee so we went to Animal Kingdom yesterday. I'd never been there so I was pretty psyched. Took some stunning photos of tigers and a silverback gorilla who may as well have been deliberately posing for my camera. As soon as I get home and get them uploaded I'll post a link so everyone can see them. It was nice to get away from my "real" life to rest and relax and recharge. When my friend wakes up we're going to breakfast (he worked a late shift last night) and then it's off to the real world again!
- Location:Clermont
- Mood:
calm
I joined SCBWI in February of 2006, after attending a Reading Roundtable event for teachers and media specialists. Authors Joyce Sweeney, Dorian Cirrone, Joanne Hyppolite, and Alexandra Flinn were the featured speakers, discussing ways in which to entice reluctant readers. Afterward, all four authors signed books, and when Alexandra signed my copy of Fade to Black, I told her that someday I hope to be a children's book author too. (I had just finished my first YA/MG in November of 2005.) She gave me her card and wrote the web address for SCBWI on the back, saying that if I was serious it was a great organization to get involved with. So I joined.
I felt like I came full circle this year, in a way, because my critiquer this year was Alexandra Flinn herself. And the first thing she said to me was that she was disappointed when she got to the end of the submission, because she wanted to keep reading! I was floored and excited! The critique was definitely one of the high points of this year's conference.
Other great moments - having a chat with Adrian Fogelin about teaching writing to young people and having HER tell ME she was jealous of me, because I got to teach students creative writing for an extended session. Having my first page pulled and getting some great input on the project I'm currently revising (and having Nadia Cornier nail the plot based on the first paragraphs and title). Talking with Nancy Werlin in the lunch line immediately after the first page critiques and getting to talk a little more about my piece after she asked what I was working on. Having Joyce tell me that the beginning of Learning to Fly is definitely improving. Getting a big friendly hug from Nadia Cornier when I ran into her in the hall after her presentation Saturday and telling her I wanted to be her new best friend. Learning about grant money and places to find it from Donna Gephardt. Winning a Kimberly-Lynn doll in the raffle. Impressing my fellow SCBWI'ers with my photography skills (I donated five matted photographs for door prizes in the raffle). Getting to see LJ friends in person, and hanging out with both my Joyce critique group friends and my Boca critique group friends.
All in all, it was a great weekend, and I got a lot of valuable information to keep pushing me forward through my writing process. If two years ago, someone had said that by 2008, I would be invited into Joyce Sweeney's Thursday night critique group, receive good critiques from writers I admire, and actually have the guts to walk up and talk to an agent, I would have laughed. I have grown immensely in the past two years, as has my writing. I look back on my older writing and see instantly how I've improved. I truly think that Don't Touch Me, the piece critiqued by Alexandra this weekend, is one of the strongest first drafts I've ever written. Not to say it doesn't need work, because of course it does, but I feel very confident in this piece. And Joyce and my critique group are really helping me with the revisions for Learning to Fly.
This writing journey is a long one, and I knew that going in. I'm glad I can see the milestones as I pass them, and enjoy the trip every stop I make. I have to play with my schedule now to fit in more revision/writing time. I want to get Learning to Fly submission worthy as soon as possible, and start working on the revisions for Don't Touch Me. Plus there are the several WIPs gathering dust (figuratively speaking) in my computer files . . . between teaching, grad school, and health maintenance, I need to squeeze in more time to get my writing career off the ground!
- Location:home
- Mood: happy
- Music:none - TV news
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