WFMAD 4: Writing Space

Since I left my job at NCTE to come back to Virginia and take up family obligations, I have learned to write in what used to be a family bedroom. It’s a nice, standard-sized room. Every one of my siblings have called this room home at one point over the years. My niece was also an occupant for a few years while their home was being remodeled.

Now it’s my space. The moving process is ongoing, so this one room has to serve as my writing space, my bedroom, and my entertainment area. It’s like a large dorm room. Everything has been arranged to accomodate my desk, a light-colored wooden desk that I purchased as a birthday present two years ago. Too expensive, I’m sure. Now that I spend more than half of my time sitting here, I realize it was one of my wiser investments.

The desk is my control center. Everything I need to write is within reach. Two laptops sit on top of the desk, one Windows and one Mac. They share a keyboard and mouse, via Synergy (a great piece of software). Ball-point ens in every color, paper, Sharpies, file folders—all the tools a writer needs are spread around the laptops, spilling over onto a second table that sits perpendicular to the desk.

The chair has rubbed deep dents into the floor protector. The mismatched pieces of furniture look more like an awkward LEGO construction than a planned workspace. Oh, and did I mention the bed? Directly in front of the desk, beckoning me to nap many days, sits my inflatible bed. It was the only place that it would fit, but it’s such a dangerous location. The television across the room can distract me, but the bed tries to lure me off course in evil ways.

No crisp sheet of white paper, this writing space is a crumbled, aged scrap, repurposed for scribbled notes. There a computer and an Internet connection though, and with that, I can write anything, absolutely anything.
 

WFMAD stands for “Writing for Fifteen Minutes a Day.” Author Laurie Halse Anderson has declared August as the 2009 Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge Month. Each day she posts some writing advice, some inspiration, and a prompt to get the writing flowing. For more information, see her blog.

WFMAD 2: Yearbook Picture

Yes, that’s me. Or at least it’s the girl I was a very, very long time ago. I’ve only brought her out of the photo file because of Laurie Halse Anderson’s writing prompt for today:

Find a yearbook pic or school photo . . . . Choose a photo that evokes an emotional response – that gut feeling – even if you aren’t quite sure what that feeling is at first. Don’t think, just write the words that stream through your mind as you look at the photo. Write for fifteen minutes and have fun!

I figured it wasn’t fair to just write about that girl and not share her yearbook photo. When I pulled it out for this writing prompt, my first thought was that poor, naive girl. She really had no idea how messy life would become in the decades that followed.

Senior portraits were taken in a hotel, near the interstate. We were all given appointments. Girls were told to wear dark shirts, and boys were told to wear a white shirt and tie. Girls spent their entire spring and summer trying to make sure that these pictures came out perfectly. Even on that day, the poor, naive girl was missing information on what “everyone” was doing in their photos. She just never had the social skills to be connected enough.

All in all, I guess her porttrait came out okay. If you didn’t know the year that she graduated from high school, there’s not really anything in particular in that photo that would give it away. The hair is rather plain. No trendy haircut, jewelry, or clothing. All rather basic and simple.

I wish I could talk to her. I wish I could tell her of the mistakes she would make in the years that would follow that portrait session. If only I could help her know to take this path–and not that one–at a few crucial crossroads, she might be better off today.

There are moments today though, that I wish she could talk to me. That girl, that silly and naive girl, was rather optimistic. She blundered through school and work, but because of luck or perseverance, everything seemed to work out in her favor. She had faith in the world. She believed things would work out. Maybe it was just luck. But maybe it was that she believed in herself and was optimistic about whatever crossed her path. I wish I could still hear her voice. I wish I were still that naively optimistic and brave.

WFMAD stands for “Writing for Fifteen Minutes a Day.” Author Laurie Halse Anderson has declared August as the 2009 Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge Month. Each day she posts some writing advice, some inspiration, and a prompt to get the writing flowing. For more information, see her blog.

WFMAD 1: Dreams

Classrooms, student conferences, committee meetings.   All my subconscious can think about is finding a teaching job–or maybe more accurately, actually having one.   I seem to have great students, great classes, a wonderful department. Unfortunately they are only in my dreams.

I seem to be teaching very cool things in these dreams, like writing online, business writing for the web, how to blog or use wikis. Stuff I’d LOVE to teach. I see so many missed opportunities when I browse around online, and I wish I could take those writers aside and show them how making a few changes would make   a me major difference in meeting their goals. I seem to be doing just that in my dreams.

Beyond that I can’t really remember any specifics. I know that the committee meetings and impromptu discussions with colleagues are all important, but I don’t recall a whole lot about the conversations. The meetings always go well. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember much other than a feeling of getting things done and being in the glow of good teaching.

I miss teaching so much. The longer I go without a job, the more I wonder why I ever left the classroom at all. Maybe you have to stop doing something to realize why it matters. Maybe your “life’s work” isn’t obvious till you get some distance from it, look back, and recognize that ‘hey, THAT is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”

It’s that time of year when people are gearing up for fall classes. I envy them. I want to work on my syllabus, think about writing assignments, preview the books that we’ll read together.   I guess that’s the point of these dreams in a way. I’m not getting ready for a class in the conscious world, so my dreams are getting me ready in the subconscious one. When I finally find a job, I should be quite ready, having taught so much in my dreams these last few weeks.

WFMAD stands for “Writing for Fifteen Minutes a Day.” Author Laurie Halse Anderson has declared August as the 2009 Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge Month. Each day she posts some writing advice, some inspiration, and a prompt to get the writing flowing. For more information, see her blog.

Field Trip

Yesterday I took a field trip to New River Community College in Dublin. It was a nice and relatively fast drive over from Blacksburg. No doubt I benefited from taking the trip when shifts were NOT changing at the arsenal.

I drove around the campus twice before finding a visitor’s space and parking. I didn’t meander far into the buildings, just far enough to find a catalog and some basic information on their Fall schedule.

I’m sure there’s a lot more action on the campus during the Fall and Spring semesters, but I did see a few people, happily going about their business.   I noticed an English instructor’s office, but the door was closed and the lights were out. She was obviously out making the most of the lovely afternoon.

So what did I learn? It’s a pleasant little campus. I found all the glass-walled offices a little too “fish bowl” for my tastes, but there are window blinds. Probably because I had read of the Cho’s newly found medical records in a news story, as I thought on the offices last night, the windows did make me feel a bit spooked. There’s something much more protective about cinder brick walls. I bet I wouldn’t have thought of it if I hadn’t read the story though. I thought nothing of it while I was walking around in the buildings.

I did love that the campus had a large picnic pavillion beside the parking lot. Not a soul was there using it, but I could imagine that on lovely days, it would be a great place to sit and read or grade papers (especially if I can manage to get a wireless modem). It’s good to imagine yourself in the place you want to be, isn’t it?