Discouraging Words- from teachers.

[Nateskate]

I've seen so many writers who were discouraged by one teacher or another in their formative years, or even in secondary education, that I felt this topic deserved its own thread.

Even our own renowned Jenna Glatzer recounted her experiences with a narrow-minded teacher in one of her books. So, it happens to the best of us. Maybe we were unconventional and hard to understand, but many of us did not sink into the worthless gutters predicted by puffed up educators who couldn't tell a diamond from a cherry pit.

Since, there is no lack of people here that suffered one insult or another, from being told that "You can't do it that way" to being mistakenly stuck in Special Ed for a year, due to a misdiagnosis, it's time to get it all off your chest. And who knows, maybe you will cause the educators who read over our shoulders to be a little more sympathetic and understanding of kids who didn't fit the mold.

Feel free to share your experience, and how it strengthened your resolve to prove them wrong, or took the wind out of your sails. If you've made it, you can say, "Ner ner na ner ner!"

[ZaZ]

I was the opposite.
My poor parents.
They'd attend a teacher's conference and my English teacher would fluff them up about my talents. Then they'd hit the Sociology teacher.
"Does Bob have a learning disability?"
The looks on their faces as they arrived home were priceless.

[maestrowork]

It's not writing related... but

When I graduated from primary to secondary school (or what you call junior high here), I got into a VERY prestigeous school. Most of my classmates played it safe -- they were all going back to the same school. My headmaster, upon learning the news, said very coldly to me, "You? Of all the students, you're the one going to the best school? You're not even in the top 20." The whole class was quiet when she said that.

It really stung.

But guess what, I went... so neh neh neh!

[Richard]

I'd like to jump in and start slamming, but my teachers were mostly excellent. Our English ones were extremely passionate about their subject matter throughout, with lots of attention on both literary criticism and creative writing. The only real downside seemed to be that I ended up reading the same book for three different classes, due to each level teacher being handed it as that year's text, and was ready to hurl it into a campfire by the time I left.

That said, I never managed to work out how to climb a rope in PE. I fully expect to die on the top floor of a burning library, just for the irony vaue.

[Nateskate]

I'd like to jump in and start slamming, but my teachers were mostly excellent. Our English ones were extremely passionate about their subject matter throughout, with lots of attention on both literary criticism and creative writing. The only real downside seemed to be that I ended up reading the same book for three different classes, due to each level teacher being handed it as that year's text, and was ready to hurl it into a campfire by the time I left.

That said, I never managed to work out how to climb a rope in PE. I fully expect to die on the top floor of a burning library, just for the irony vaue.

Good point. I have to admit it was a "Fantasy Lit" class that got me reading in the first place. So, you have as many stories about good teachers.

Yeah, I was terrible on the ropes! Gym was humiliating to me, at least until I started to not S#$% at something.

[aka eraser]

My English teachers were generally supportive through primary and secondary school. My detour came in my first year of University. Uncertain whether to major in English or Journalism, I took the introductory (hardest) course in each. The English prof was a pompous pedant who brooked no other interpretation of a work than his own. Students who regurgitated his lectures got A's. I got a C- and decided to major in Journalism -- never taking another English or Lit course again.

[LisaHa]

In general, I have had some fantastic teachers. One of the best was a teacher at junior school when I was about 10. He was a fantastic teacher, a little strict but he got results. However, there was one occasion when he made me feel really silly about my writing.

I loved reading and writing from a very young age and won some writing comps when I was a child. This teacher set us some homework to write a novel and design a cover for it, and then put it together in the style of a real book. Hooray, I thought, a project that I knew I would love doing. I spent hours on my "novel" and its design. Occasionally the teacher would ask whether I was finished yet as almost everyone else had completed the homework. This surprised me as I was usually one of the first to hand my homework in, but I was determined to get my novel right (a story of a girl and her horse, if I remember rightly).

Anyway, I finally handed it in for marking and the teacher promised to display them all on Open Evening. I proudly dragged my mum to the classroom where the novels were displayed, where we were greeted by the teacher who made a joke about my book being "War and Peace", and how he'd had to give it an 'A' for sheer volume.. When my mum explained the joke I was really upset because I had spent so much time writing it and to me he was suggesting it had been an effort to read and mark.

When we looked at all the "novels" I discovered that most of my classmates had written just a few pages and packaged it up as a book. I was really angry because he had called the project a "novel" and even as a child I knew a novel should be a story of considerable length. The teacher had never specified a length, so I felt really cheated that I had spent so long writing my novel only to have it joked about, while all the other kids who hadn't written what I considered to be a novel seemed to avoid any criticism.

My mum had to do a lot of consoling that night and reassured me that the teacher was only joking and that I deserved the mark I received because I had written a really good story. Plus, I was right to think that when he said a novel he meant a real novel. Bless her, my mum always was and still is super proud of everything I do.:heart:

Incase you are wondering, I wrote about 70 pages (handwritten, A5 size). It was probably dreadful and a real effort for the teacher to read, but serves him right for not specifying a length. Most of the other "novels" were 4 x A5 pages. Hmmmph! Novel my a**e!:Lecture:

L x

[LisaHa]

My mum, like many mums, has kept a lot of things we did as children, especially my writing. One of the earliest pieces of writing she has (and which she showed me at Christmas) was a letter I wrote to her and illustrated with love hearts. It went something like this:

"Dear Mummy,

I love you very much. You are a really good mum except when you shout.

Please don't shout anymore. Give it a rest.

And please can we have more roast potatoes for dinner?

Love,

Lisa"

My mum found this recently and said that until she found it she had always considered herself a fairly good, calm mother. Now she is having to revise her opinion of herself.

She also thought it was funny because it reflects my personality perfectly - hate confrontation, love my food (especially mum's roast potatoes).:)

L x

[Ketzel]

In my small and progressive private school, which went up to eighth grade, each year we had special projects. But the most special of all was the eighth grade book, which you literally made the year you graduated.

Each student picked a topic, researched and wrote about a 30 page paper as the English project, made the actual paper from pulp as a workshop project, calligraphied, illustrated and bound the book as an art project and then gave a brief talk on it to the whole school at the end of the year.

I had been writing short stories and poems to good reviews from the second grade, including an entire mystery series by installments that I read out weekly in fourth grade English class.

I went by myself (my parents didn't know of this plan) to our very imposing Head and asked for permission to write a novel as my Eighth Grade Book. I explained that I knew it had to have a research aspect, so I proposed to write a historical novel, about a little girl and her cat, living in France at the time of the Napoleonic wars who became pen pals with another little girl and her cat living in London. I had an outline of the story to show her, complete with a research bibliography, and I said that I also had a fallback - if I couldn't get the story done, I would make it a history book about the Battle of Waterloo.

The hideous woman looked at me as if I were a performing monkey and said, very condescendingly, "Oh no, my dear, that's MUCH too ambitious a project for a little girl like you." She refused to read my outline, refused to approve the Battle of Waterloo as a topic ("not suitable for a little girl") and, when I continued to argue my topic, informed me that SHE would select my topic and that I was to do my Eighth Grade Book on "The Fashions of the Twentieth Century." Which I very painfully did. My opening sentence was "From twenty-three skiddo to yeah, yeah, yeah, the fashions of the twentieth century were wild and exciting."

And I never wrote another piece of fiction for nearly twenty-five years. I still look back on that episode with awe at the brave and creative little girl I was and with baffled rage at that incredibly insensitive and sexist response. The damage bad teachers can do is incalculable.

[Richard]

"Most of the other "novels" were 4 x A5 pages. Hmmmph! Novel my a**e!"

Oooh, I don't know. I can think of many, many books that I'd have loved to have stopped at the four page mark. A particularly ghastly one I reviewed for SFX a few months ago sprung to mind - every single line of dialogue stabbing red-hot needles of pure apathy into my eyes until I started praying for the author to be retroactively struck down by lightning in front of her keyboard.

[Richard]

"I still look back on that episode with awe at the brave and creative little girl I was and with baffled rage at that incredibly insensitive and sexist response. The damage bad teachers can do is incalculable."

If it makes you feel any better, it's not easy for us guys either. I was never, ever taught how to cook - for some reason, our home economics teacher (now Food Technology) constantly had the girls making cookies while the boys made appalling hand puppets. You can still write despite your experiences, but I risk food poisoning every time I open my oven ;-)

[cwfgal]

I guess I was lucky. I never had any bad teachers or negative teachers. All were encouraging and fun. I loved school and I was a good student. The only subjects I ever failed were conduct and posture.Beth

[AprilBoo]

Apparently nobody here went to Catholic school, or went to better Catholic schools that I did, but I distinctly remember my teachers looking sideways at me because I didn't want to be a computer scientist or a doctor. I also distinctly remember a teacher calling my parents and telling them I might be on drugs because I just didn't behave the way the other kids did. Ahh, Catholic school, haven of individuality.....

My teachers actually gushed about my writing, but because I had absolutely zero respect for them it meant little. I participated in a summer program for advanced students when I was in 7th grade and came across a writing teacher who I did respect, and when she told me my work was good I believed I could be a writer.

[pepperlandgirl]

I guess I was lucky. I never had any bad teachers or negative teachers. All were encouraging and fun. I loved school and I was a good student. The only subjects I ever failed were conduct and posture.Beth

I was lucky too. I never had a dicouraging, mean, or bitter teacher. I had one third grade teacher I really hated, but that was more of a clash of personalities--sometimes there are just some people you don't get along with.

In fact, one day, I plan on tracking down the addresses of all my teachers--especially the ones who encouraged me to read and write--and send them a "thank you" letter. For exmaple, in second grade, I never did my reading homework. Ever. Some teachers would assume it was because I couldn't read--though I could since before Kindergarten. I just didn't want to. Mrs. Ruf took me to the library and gave me my first novel (Ramona Quimby: Age 8). She understood that the picture books that amounted to "See Jane Run" were boring and pointless for me. I'm very fortunate that I have many stories like that.

[rtilryarms]

Teachers up 'till 7th grade, GGGGGGGRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

Teachers 7th through 12th, :heart:

[Inspired]

Ooh, Lisa's story reminds me of when I was in advanced English as a freshman in high school. We had to do a little booklet about mythology. I carefully composed my little vignettes and used all the artist skills I could to depict each mythological character (although I became the art club later, I was severely depressed at that point of high school and couldn't muster much real skill). Anyway, it looked fairly good and was all original material. I got a D, if I remember. What really made me depressed (even more so than my natural depressive abilities) was when I saw another girl's A. She had traced her characters out of books, and copied most of the material. I went to the teacher and told her I didn't think it was fair, I had put so much effort into it. Her response: I never said you couldn't copy anything.

:Shrug:

Wow - any respect I had for her disappeared.

My other teachers were much better and encouraged me to write more - even original - stuff.

[BradyH1861]

I took a creative writing class in college. Before I signed up, I asked the professor if we would have to write poetry. I cannot write poetry. He assured me that you would have a choice between fiction and poetry. So I signed up. Imagine my surprise when the syllabus included a poetry assignment. My poem went something like this...

Roses are red
Violets are corny
When I look at you
I get h*#ny

Not original mind you. I think I read it on a bathroom stall somewhere. Anyway, I got discouraging words from him as a result of that. Oh well, I was born a smart*#@. I just cant help it sometimes. I still ended up with a B in the course despite my F on the poem assignment. If he hadnt of lied to me, I would not have taken the class in the first place. Oh well, we can't go back and change things. Needless to say, I am still pi##ed about it.

Sorry, I used a couple of bad words, didn't I. Just having an all around bad day I guess.

Brady H.

[victoriastrauss]

I remember writing an essay on gemstones in fifth or sixth grade and the teacher's comment was "tell in your own words". Which I had, but I guess she didn't believe a kid my age could write coherently.

I too took a creative writing course in college, and the professor (a Hemingway wannabe) told me that if I ever wanted to be taken seriously as a novelist, I'd have to forget about the genre stuff. I'd love to say I gave him the finger and went my merry way, but for various reasons that class was a huge blow to my self-confidence and I didn't write another word of fiction for several years.

That class was horrible. Horrible, horrible. And though all of us were presumably writing with the goal of publication, I can't remember that a word was ever spoken about the business of writing. It was like we weren't supposed to pay attention to such low-class stuff as contracts and advances. Of course this wasn't an area that Mr. Hemingway-wannabe was very expert in.

Can you tell I'm still bitter?

- Victoria

[Jamesaritchie]

Does an insult you thought was a compliment count? Generally, all my English teachers and writing teachers said only nice things, but I did have a jr. high English teacher once tell me that if I wasn't careful I'd "grow up to be another Edgar Rice Burroughs." It was a long time later when I realized that was meant as an insult. Getting a C on that paper should have been a clue, but it wasn't.

Then there was the ag teacher who told me I'd be nothing but a ditch digger when I grew up. But I knew that was a compliment. I loved digging ditches. Still do. What guy doesn't like using heavy machinery?

I avoided all insults from teachers in high school by the simple method of not going to high school. It's very effective.

College was better. I took every English class and literature class and writing class to be had, and it was an absolute ball.

The only problem I had in college was with one prof at an after hours, informal class. He started talking about first person novels wherein the narrator wasn't the protagonist.

"Do you mean," asks I, "stories such as the Sherlock Holmes tales where Dr. Watson is the narrator, but Holmes is the protagonist?"

In a truly snotty tone he said, "I wouldn't know. I've never read anything by Doyle, and I never will."

Yeah, well, color me out of there. It was a non-credit class, anyway, and I had better things to do.

[WVWriterGirl]

My problem wasn't so much with the teachers as it was with my parents.

I come from a very small town. I had the same teacher for English lit/comp (yep, they were combined) for 10th, 11th and 12th grades (my entire high school career). In WV, they have (or used to have) a competition called the Golden Horseshoe. Students from the entire state compete in academics through writing stories, doing research, taking massive tests, etc. In my 11th grade year, I decided I would compete.

My English teacher told me I should write something completely new and send it out to the Golden Horseshoe. She'd been reviwing my writing for about a year and a half at this point, and knew that I knew what I was doing. When I told my mom what Ms. Godby had suggested, she said, "Well, that's ok, I suppose, but maybe you should take a test or something too. Why not geography? You're good at that."

So...I wrote my piece for the Golden Horseshoe. And, I took the "fill in the map of the world" test where you have to name the countries of the world and their capitals by filling in blank maps. I didn't place at all in the map thing. I took a fourth honorable mention (pretty good, out of fifty-five counties with multiple entries for each county) for my story. Mom said, "it's a real shame about that test, isn't it?" Not a word about the story.

She's still like this. I think I've said in another thread that the book's been done for more than a year now and she has no desire to read even a part of it. My English teacher from high school was the first person to read it; she even served as an editor for me.

WVWG

[Dawno]

In my Sr. year of High School my Creative Writing teacher thought one of my stories was excellent and asked if he could submit it to the school's annual "Literary Journal." I allowed him to do so. (I should note that it was a story I had done as an assignment and that I had only typed one copy.)

The same teacher said that when he got the original back I should think about submitting it somewhere, it might be a story a magazine would be interested in. I was really excited about getting my story back and doing just that.

Several weeks later the journal comes out. My story isn't in it. This was very unusual because everything else that was submitted *did* get printed. I go to my teacher and he goes to the other teacher. Apparently that particular teacher didn't like me and simply threw the story away. Not return it with a 'sorry, not accepted' but tossed it in the trash.

I was pretty upset but fortunately I realized she was an aberration of a teacher (who didn't get tenure, either) and my English professors in college were much more supportive and I didn't give up writing all together.

Biggest lesson learned? Make Multiple Copies Of EVERYTHING

[triceretops]

My middle school biology teacher went out of his way to explain to the class that I was the perfect example of how "not too succeed." He reminded me at least weekly about how inept I was about "The Classification of Plants and Animals."

Forty years later, here I am writing a book about paleontology, one of the most difficult combinations of several core sciences to be found. I have a sub-chapter entitled, "The Classification of Plants and Animals."

Eat it, Mr. Goldman.

Tri

[TashaGoddard]

Apparently that particular teacher didn't like me and simply threw the story away. Not return it with a 'sorry, not accepted' but tossed it in the trash.
I had a similar experience in German class. The assignment was to write a brief summary (in German) of a TV programme we had watched recently. I chose to write a summary of 'Oranges are not the only fruit' (an adaptation of the Jeanette Winterson's book, which is about a young girl dealing with her sexuality within a very religious ubringing), because it had made a very strong impression on me. After about a month, I had still not received the marked assignment, so I asked the teacher whether he had marked it yet. He responded that it was so so disgusting he had thrown it in the bin. There were no descriptions of sexual acts in the summary - it would appear that the only thing that was 'wrong' was that lesbianism was mentioned. Go figure.

My mother wrote a very strongly worded letter of complaint to the head of the sixth form, the day after which I got my assignment back (along with a bunch of others I'd been waiting for - and the others also got assignments back that they'd been waiting for), so he obviously hadn't thrown it away. What an odd excuse for the fact that he obviously just hadn't had time (or made the time) to mark our work.

[Kida Adelyne]

I've actually had pretty suportive teachers for writing. Paticuarily my fourth grade teacher who selected me to go to a writing workshop.

It was the system that was more discouraging than anything. I believe that they try thier hardest to discourage writing. When we get introduced to essay writing the thing they stress the most is "use transition words inbetween every sentance" And me going "it sounds like **** when I do that!"
Plus the first couple grades we were always told "there are other words than said"
Plus they spent a lot time teaching the spelling of obscure words, and it made me feel inept, because I did, and still do have difficulty spelling many simple words. They are understandable, and the spell check always catches them, but it drove me nuts.

[azbikergirl]

I was encouraged by my teachers. Guess I was lucky. In fact, the only high school teacher's name I can remember was the English teacher. This thread inspired me to find his email address and write him a note of thanks.

[Nateskate]

Just wanted to let you know I've been reading your stories. I'm sure they will benefit others, so keep them comming. There are too many to comment on them individually, but it really shows us that teachers can be a source of inspiration or desperation.

Like so many of you, I had some who inspired me, and more that added to the general humility of feeling awkward and out of place.

A good number of writers are instrospective people who found a way to express their feelings on paper, because they really didn't have the means, opportunity or ability to express all their feelings verbally. And so we journaled, or wrote poetry or songs, stuffed them into a corner and forgot them until the day we found venues to express them.

I mentioned "teachers" here, but we could expand this to "peer groups" and whether or not we fit in.

Obviously all writers are not cut from the same cloth. Some of you were from Lake Woebegone, "always above average" in every endeavor. Others of us were misfits at one time or another. It's cathartic to know though, that you share experiences that others shared. So, keep the posts coming.

[Puddle Jumper]

Every teacher who I ever felt was discouraging to my abilities was in an area I really didn't care about. My drama teacher seemed discouraging of my ability to act. Thinking about it, I really can't act and I typically don't want to be on stage in front of a whole bunch of strangers. It's not my thing. My choir teacher was discouraging of my ability to sing, which bothered me the most because I've loved to sing ever since I was very young. However, I really don't have the desire to sing in front of people because it's too much like acting and I really don't have the drive to be up in front of a whole bunch of strangers. So I'm fine singing in the car, in the shower, in the congregation, etc... My coach in High School was very discouraging about my athletic ability. Which was fine because I never really felt that competitive and I just liked to get out and have fun. So I was fine with that.

Now I did find some encouragement. My art teacher was extremely encouraging when I turned in a picture I drew one day. I honestly didn't think it was very good because I didn't free hand draw it. He showed me how to take a picture from a magazine and make a chart over it and then draw the chart on a piece of paper and use that as a guide to draw the picture. So I felt I cheated on it. But when I showed him the picture, I think his jaw hit the floor because of the detail and basically it looked perfect. I found that very encouraging and I really enjoy drawing, even though I don't usually take that kind of time to draw anything really detailed.

As far as writing is concerned, I don't remember feeling encouraged or discouraged. I think every story I ever wrote for a teacher was only marked down for technical errors such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Which that isn't a reason to feel discouraged when they are fairly grading your paper like that.

:D

[twoeyesgrn]

My first year of college, I decided to take a class called “Studio art for the non-art major.” By that time I had already decided I would major in English, but I was still interested in art. The first half of the semester we had a great professor. She took time with each of us and was really encouraging. Unfortunately, in the middle of the semester she had to have emergency surgery, so the class was taken over by a pompous jerk right out of art school. He would spend the entire class time showing us his work and telling us how great he was. He would give us assignments like draw a fruit basket or something and then have us put the work up for everyone to see. Then he would tear each work apart in front of the entire class. He told some of us, including me, that we’d have to spend at least three hours a night working on these fruit baskets before we would be able to be good enough to get an “A.” I guess he didn’t get the non-art major part of the course.

Five years later and I have not even touched a colored pencil. The strange thing was, just two years earlier during my junior year in high school, my art teacher told me that I had some natural talent and tried to talk me into taking advanced art classes. Go figure.

[Coco82]

As much as I'd like to slam my teachers, most of them have been very complimentary.

[CACTUSWENDY]

:Jump: ...I HAD A ENGLISH TEACHER FOR MY JUNIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT GAVE ME A LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. UP UNTIL THAT DAY I HAD A VERY JUDGEMENTAL PERSONALITY ON PEOPLE'S MOTIVES...THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THEIR ACTIONS.....

WHEN I WAS VENTING BEFORE CLASS ONE DAY...HE TOLD ME THAT UNTIL YOU WALK IN SOMEONE ELSES SHOES YOU DON'T KNOW THE WHOLE STORY.....THIS TEACHER WILL NEVER KNOW HOW DEEPLY THAT AFFECTED MY LIFE. I REMEMBER THINKING ABOUT THAT FOR SEVERAL DAYS....AND KNEW HE WAS RIGHT....AND THROUGH OUT THE YEARS I HAVE TRIED TO APPLY THAT EACH AND EVERYDAY. IT HAS MADE ME A 'LOOK AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN' PERSON.

[Jamesaritchie]

I will say that by and large, all the English teachers and professors I had were wonderful. They cared, and they did their best to teach me what I needed to know.

[mistri]

Most of my teachers were pretty good. They'd let me write 'stories' whenever I'd finished that day's English assignments, and I'd fill up exercise books with them.

However, when I got to secondary school I had one English teacher who told my parents at parent evening (when I was 12/13) that 'all Helen's spark had gone out' of my stories. I just thought it was an odd thing to say about a twelve-year-old's writing

Bah! I remember being really hurt, and he probably thought it was a throwaway comment of no significance. I found it even harder to get my 'spark' back after that. I think the only reason it might have gone away at all (if it ever did) was because his lessons became duller and duller by the week.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

So, I tried to post this a couple days ago, but I wasn't logged in on the computer, and then I logged in and hit "back" which somehow reverted me to not-logged-in status so both times the post got lost, which I took as a sign, but I am going to disregard that sign and post anyway. Lucky us. ;)

Two stories.

First, in the category of "English teacher intolerant of deviant symbology." I had a sophomore English teacher in high school who was just like the professor that aka eraser posted about yesterday - if you did anything more creative than regurgitate the lecture, you lost points on the quiz. We were studying East of Eden, and while I agree the Cain & Abel symbology is a no-brainer, I was angry that even things as nebulous as "the color green" had to mean exactly what the teacher said it did. No matter how compelling or internally consistent an alternate interpretation I might present, it was wrong simply by virtue of not being the one the teacher taught.

Surviving her class with any pride intact was a challenge. I played the game, hung on to my sense of humor, and learned the meaning of the word "belligerent" as applied to self. All in all, not so bad.

What was worse was next year. My junior high school English teacher was a dream--the same woman as taught a one-on-one creative writing elective I'd taken the year before, in which she and another teacher-cum-published-author taught me and another student not only about writing, but about publishing. I worshipped her. Still do.

She was not the problem. This was: Certain fellow classmates had survived the previous class by virtue of unlearning how to think. Every day, I'd hear them asking Dream Teacher, to her bemusement, "What does this or that symbol mean?" What they were really saying was, what answer do you want to see on the test? Because of the previous teacher, the growth of their lit-crit skills had been stunted. It made me furious to see the damage that the previous teacher had done, let me tell you.

Second story. Actually, I can't complain too much about this TA I had in college. Great critique workshop format, useful skills taught, genre not sneered at. I hear that's the exception in college. I've been lucky.

But. I turned in this one story, my very best (at the time) imitation of the style of Meredith Ann Pierce. Any of y'all read her? Lovely, lyrical, read-aloud stuff, sounds like the kind of stuff storytellers in bygone times must have been formally taught. YA main characters with an intelligence of 6 (as my husband said of Aeriel in The Darkangel), admittedly, but a mythical narrative voice that feels like being sung to.

Again, idol worship. My imitation of her was definitely subpar. Clunky. Stiff. A failure Still, it would have been nice had the TA graded my story based on how well I succeeded at what I was trying to do, rather than simply his dislike of the style. "Too stilted and archaic," he wrote. The implication is, he would have said the same of Pierce herself.

In his defense, though, I turned in this story in lieu of revising a previous story. The lowish grade I got might also have indicated disapproval of that, and if so, I can't disagree--I wimped out, plain and simple. One of these days I'll revise the story I wimped out on, and the story I turned in, and see 'em in print.

[Nateskate]

Great new posts. Perhaps I should add some subclassifications, because I suppose that many answers depend on "Native intelligence, whether you were popular or an odd duck, from a supportive family or dysfunctional family.

And again, we also can look at "Fiction Writers" vs "Non-Fiction".

I'm going out on a limb because there is no way for me to know this with all certainty. But in my mind, a non-fiction writer has to be a great student period. You need discipline, organizational skills, and a knack for digging up information on any given topic. So, by nature, my guess is that most people who write non-fiction come from a pool of people who were also good students.

Fiction is filled with dreamers, and dreamers are generally not as good at being "doers". A dreamer is locked away in his imagination more than a library doing reserarch in archives.

I'm thinking out loud here, and would love input. Do you agree that Non-Fiction writers are general better in academics as a rule? Do you think that a life that sucks (at times) is what propels some dreamers to turn to dreams and the worlds they create, the desire to be the superhero, the desire to be anywhere but reality?

I am a dreamer, but I was not a great student. My mind constantly drifted to other places even while the teacher was talking, or while trying to cram information into my head about some subject.

Thoughts?

[AncientEagle]

I'd be reluctant to make such a generalization. I've written a little of both fiction and non-fiction. Was a decent, but not great, student. Something of a dreamer, but spent my life in a very action-oriented profession. Am working on non-fiction at the moment, but my first ever sale was a short-story and my real love is the novel.

[Christine N.]

I'll jump in with a "good teacher" anecdote. When I was in 11th grade, my Honors English teacher asked us to each writer a five handwritten page short story. I made up something, scribbled out my ten pages (hey, I had to finish it!) and handed it in.

When the teacher handed it back, I had a 98. She asked me if I'd ever thought of becoming a writer. I said no, because at the time I had other aspirations.

I remembered to thank her in the acknowlegements of my upcoming first book.

I also had a teacher from a core class in college (the college I actually graduated from) telling me that she thought I should go to med school. She liked my writing too, but said if I wanted to go, she'd write me a recommendation. LOL. Yeah, me and med school. I'd never make it through gross anatomy.

[Jamesaritchie]

I'm thinking out loud here, and would love input. Do you agree that Non-Fiction writers are general better in academics as a rule? Do you think that a life that sucks (at times) is what propels some dreamers to turn to dreams and the worlds they create, the desire to be the superhero, the desire to be anywhere but reality?


Thoughts?

I don't know for sure, but I doubt it, overall. I suspect this might be true for early school years, though I suspect it's the having a life that sucks part that makes the difference, rather than being a fiction writer. For me, fiction never has been about wanting to be a superhero, or about avoiding reality. For me, fiction is about exploring reality, even if I'm writing about a superhero.

Not all fiction writers have an early life that sucks, and not all spend their time daydreaming through classes.

And this certainly wasn't the case throughout my college years. Most of the fiction writers in the classes I was in were top students in every way. Nonfiction academia, for me, was mostly through all the journalism and media classes, which covered everything from writing for newspapers to writing for magazines, TV, and radio. If I saw a difference in the students on average, it was probably that the fiction writers worked harder.

Both types of classes always had two or three malcontents and two or three poor students who usually dropped the class after a short time. But on the whole, I saw no difference.

And I don't think nonfiction requires any less imagination, any less dreaming, than fiction. I've written a lot of both, and while there are differences in the way I prepare, the writing process itself is very similar.

There was, in fact, a major bleed over of students. Many of the fiction students also took nonfiction courses, and many of the nonfiction students took fiction courses.

And the more advanced the classes, the better the students in them, fiction or nonfiction. Fiction writers come from all walks of life, and with all sorts of academic records, but in my experience, most successful fiction writers were at least pretty fair students.

[victoriastrauss]

I'm thinking out loud here, and would love input. Do you agree that Non-Fiction writers are general better in academics as a rule? Do you think that a life that sucks (at times) is what propels some dreamers to turn to dreams and the worlds they create, the desire to be the superhero, the desire to be anywhere but reality?
My life didn't suck. Crappy things happened, but no more than to some and much less than to others. I've been very lucky in many ways, not least my eccentric but extremely supportive parents. That said, I'm by temperament a glass-half-full person (to put it mildly), so maybe the escapism thing is there because of that.

I was a very good student. I graduated from a fancy-schmancy college Phi Beta Kappa with thesis honors. I never had the smallest desire to continue with higher education, though; once I was done, I was done, and happy to be so. Academic-style research, which so far I've wound up doing for all my books, is a necessary evil; I do not enjoy it.

My anxiety dreams are always about school.

- Victoria

[pepperlandgirl]

And again, we also can look at "Fiction Writers" vs "Non-Fiction".

I'm going out on a limb because there is no way for me to know this with all certainty. But in my mind, a non-fiction writer has to be a great student period. You need discipline, organizational skills, and a knack for digging up information on any given topic. So, by nature, my guess is that most people who write non-fiction come from a pool of people who were also good students.

Fiction is filled with dreamers, and dreamers are generally not as good at being "doers". A dreamer is locked away in his imagination more than a library doing reserarch in archives.

I'm thinking out loud here, and would love input. Do you agree that Non-Fiction writers are general better in academics as a rule? Do you think that a life that sucks (at times) is what propels some dreamers to turn to dreams and the worlds they create, the desire to be the superhero, the desire to be anywhere but reality?

Thoughts?

I don't agree. I am primarily a fiction writer (actually I have never written non-fiction other than my academic papers). And I do great at school. I've always done great at school. In fact, I'm terrified of graduating and leaving because I know that I am very, very, very good when it comes to academics and I'm worried that I'll fail miserably when they make me leave and "get a real job."

So I plan on spending the next decade in grad school.

[arainsb123]

I write fiction, and I rarely daydream in class; my life is great; I've made honor roll for both quarters this year.

[Writing Again]

I hated school as a child and I hate school now: For much the same reasons: Things have not really changed.

A 12 year old girl in my family wanted to play basketball this year. They have a coeducational team. She is a better player than many of the boys and most of the girls selected to play on the team.

The coach would not allow her to play because he believes the girls on a coeducational team should be tom boys and she is just too feminine in spite of her skills. For some odd reason because he allows girls who are tom boys to be on the team this attitude does not count as sexist.

Pardon me -- This is a school -- The object is for teachers to teach and students to learn: Every child who wants to learn how to play basketball should be taught how to do so -- From those they can select the best to play on the team.

The reply to this is that participating in sports is a privilege of the qualified and chosen, not a right of the unwashed masses. However she can be a cheerleader -- The only requirement for which is the payment of $300 for the year plus purchase of her uniform. When I asked how come there are no male cheerleaders, as it once was an exclusively male function women were not allowed to participate in I was given the silent treatment -- Basically "Pay up, shut up, and get out. We want your money not your opinions."

I only had one teacher I ever had any respect for, and that was not for his teaching ability -- He had none: Nor was it for his qualities as a human being -- He was an over bearing, insulting, demeaning, bastard.

What I admired him for were three things: He fought his way up from the bottom to get where he was at, and he had to beat everyone else to get there; He was the only teacher I ever met who did not have a "pet".

And his honesty: His first day speech went like this:

"You white kids think I'm going to coddle you so I can toady up to the people who run this school -- And you black kids think I'm going to go easy on you because I'm a brother: You are both wrong: In my class I treat everybody like ****."

And he kept his word.

[Elizabeth]

Wow -- some of these stories are really nuts. Maestrowork, I'm lookin' at you. Sheesh.

It's funny -- I've only recently realized the severe damage that one high school teacher did, a teacher who was supposed to be a mentor (and was in many ways, in all fairness). Three problems, there:

1. He was sincerely of the view that writers are born, not made -- that you either were a writer, or you were not. Now, there's no question that he thought I was a writer back then. But he didn't really make that distinction when ranting about this, so, as a person who will always take the negative view of herself first... you know where this is going.

2. He had very limited ideas of the kind of writer that he thought I was, and never let that drop. To him, I was a smart, sassy, HIS GIRL FRIDAY/Linda Ellerbee/toughtalkin' journalist broad. Um. That's never been me, ever. So, taking the negative view of myself, I didn't really get over that either. "Guess I'm not a writer."

3. He had a very dismissive view of genre fiction -- made no bones about his opinion there. Comics? Trash. Genre fiction? Trash. "That's not good writing!" Now, I didn't absorb that in the way that you think I might, but it did leave me very conflicted. And meant that I missed out on reading a lot of fun books in my chosen genre(s), and now I'm playing catch-up.

These days, I am a staunch defender of genre fiction. And I've been able to put that teacher in perspective. He was great in some ways, not so great in others.

Feels wonderful to be on the right track.

[LisaHa]

My anxiety dreams are always about school.

- Victoria

Mine too. I saw an interesting interview with John Mccarthy, a British journalist who was a hostage in the Lebanon for over 5 years. He was asked whether he had terrible nightmares about his time as a hostage. He said that during the ordeal his anxiety dreams were often about being a captive but they quickly reverted back to school/college exams. He joked about how strange it is that exams are probably one of the scariest times of our lives, even compared to other terrible experiences.

L x

[Nateskate]

I don't know for sure, but I doubt it, overall. I suspect this might be true for early school years, though I suspect it's the having a life that sucks part that makes the difference, rather than being a fiction writer. For me, fiction never has been about wanting to be a superhero, or about avoiding reality. For me, fiction is about exploring reality, even if I'm writing about a superhero.

Not all fiction writers have an early life that sucks, and not all spend their time daydreaming through classes.

The generalization might not work. In fairness, I think I was thinking mostly Sci/Fi Fantasy Genre when I asked the question.

Let me tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote this. The question might lend it self to artists more than to writers, but that would bring up a different point, since most schools are not "Art Schools", and it may be that this had to do with artistic minds. But I remember a number of kids who were somewhat dropouts of the school society. And many were very good artists. Almost to the person, they all drew Sci Fi and Fantasy. They obviously read alot of Sci Fi and Fantasy as well, but as far as school work, they really weren't there, although they might have been physically.

None of this may be true, but I knew enough of these examples to wonder if there could be at least a degree of generalization???

[Zane Curtis]

Reading all these posts, I get the sense that being slightly at odds with our schools and school teachers is a good thing. After all, if we'd actually gotten along with them, they would have channelled us into a form of literary/academic writing very far removed from the real world of publishers, agents, and readers.

[Liam Jackson]

I was in the fifth grade when a teacher punished me by having me write 1000 times, "I will not fight on the playground."

I think I made it to the seventh sentence before I slipped in a line about Irving, a child-spy in the CIA's juvie division. By the 12th sentence, the original wording was history. Now, Irving was plotting his escape from a Soviet prison where captured spies were subjected to cruel and horrendous torture such as grammar lessons, mystery meat lunches, and writing 1,000 times, "I will not fight on the playground." Near the end of the story, Irving smashed a piano during music class (another ingenious torture) took some piano wire and garrotted the headmistress. He then escaped to Switzerland.

My teacher was not amused. Neither were my parents when they learned of the incident, and there was zero encouragement for additional creative writing exercises.

[Writing Again]

My teacher was not amused. Neither were my parents when they learned of the incident, and there was zero encouragement for additional creative writing exercises.

I was sooo lucky: My mother would have found it hilarious and wanted a copy for herself.

[Nateskate]

I was in the fifth grade when a teacher punished me by having me write 1000 times, "I will not fight on the playground."

I think I made it to the seventh sentence before I slipped in a line about Irving, a child-spy in the CIA's juvie division. By the 12th sentence, the original wording was history. Now, Irving was plotting his escape from a Soviet prison where captured spies were subjected to cruel and horrendous torture such as grammar lessons, mystery meat lunches, and writing 1,000 times, "I will not fight on the playground." Near the end of the story, Irving smashed a piano during music class (another ingenious torture) took some piano wire and garrotted the headmistress. He then escaped to Switzerland.

My teacher was not amused. Neither were my parents when they learned of the incident, and there was zero encouragement for additional creative writing exercises.

Yes, I had the teachers with the "Write blank times, "I will not ...." No wonder I have carpal tunnel!

[Denis Castellan]

Yes, I had the teachers with the "Write blank times, "I will not ...." No wonder I have carpal tunnel!
Never tried to tape four or five pencils together to write several lines at a time ? :D

[Jamesaritchie]

The generalization might not work. In fairness, I think I was thinking mostly Sci/Fi Fantasy Genre when I asked the question.

Let me tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote this. The question might lend it self to artists more than to writers, but that would bring up a different point, since most schools are not "Art Schools", and it may be that this had to do with artistic minds. But I remember a number of kids who were somewhat dropouts of the school society. And many were very good artists. Almost to the person, they all drew Sci Fi and Fantasy. They obviously read alot of Sci Fi and Fantasy as well, but as far as school work, they really weren't there, although they might have been physically.

None of this may be true, but I knew enough of these examples to wonder if there could be at least a degree of generalization???

There may be some degree of generalization at play. But I suspect it's a matter of the squeaky wheel being the one you notice. You always notice the oddballs, never the majority who are just sitting there quietly getting the job done.

[Jamesaritchie]

Reading all these posts, I get the sense that being slightly at odds with our schools and school teachers is a good thing. After all, if we'd actually gotten along with them, they would have channelled us into a form of literary/academic writing very far removed from the real world of publishers, agents, and readers.

There may be something to this, but probably not much. It is just personal experince, but most of the fiction writers I know got along very well with most of their teachers and professors.

I can't say I ever had a professor mention agents, but several of my professors did have agents and had been published, often extensively and profitably, and what they taught me about writing sure as anything helped with readers.

I suspect bad experiences with teachers happen most often in grade school, and get better as you progress through higher grades.

[Canada James]

Feel free to share your experience, and how it strengthened your resolve to prove them wrong, or took the wind out of your sails. If you've made it, you can say, "Ner ner na ner ner!"

My grade 10 English teacher told me "to drop out and take a trade" as I'd never make it in a literary field. When I saw him a few years back, he didn't remember who I was.

However, my grade 9 English teacher who thought I was filled with promise is always glad to bump into me.

As well, when I switched schools (after listening to my grade 10 teacher and dropping out of grade 12), my new teachers all thought I was just brilliant. They encouraged me enough to attend University, where the profs were relieved to have a student who challenged their ideas and debated the status quo.

What wound up happening?

Check out my next book via my profile!

__________________________________________________ ______________
"Don't try - don't get."
The Diary of Pelly D.
L.J. Adlington

[maestrowork]

I wonder why some adults like to squash a kid's creativity? Sometimes the culprits are the parents. I mean I lost count of the number of times my parents said "That's nice, but shouldn't you focus on your maths and science? And get a job as an engineer or a doctor?" My parents had good intention. But they're creative people themselves, so I don't understand why they would discourage my creativity. Were they afraid that creativity was just fluff? Like it wouldn't put money in the bank and food on the table? I mean even now... they're supportive of my writing, but at the same time worried that I wouldn't make it, and that I should keep a regular, good paying job instead...

[Nateskate]

My grade 10 English teacher told me "to drop out and take a trade" as I'd never make it in a literary field. When I saw him a few years back, he didn't remember who I was.

However, my grade 9 English teacher who thought I was filled with promise is always glad to bump into me.

As well, when I switched schools (after listening to my grade 10 teacher and dropping out of grade 12), my new teachers all thought I was just brilliant. They encouraged me enough to attend University, where the profs were relieved to have a student who challenged their ideas and debated the status quo.

What wound up happening?

Rancour, Simply Read Books

Glad to see you stuck with the dream. Good for you!

[Nateskate]

I wonder why some adults like to squash a kid's creativity? Sometimes the culprits are the parents. I mean I lost count of the number of times my parents said "That's nice, but shouldn't you focus on your maths and science? And get a job as an engineer or a doctor?" My parents had good intention. But they're creative people themselves, so I don't understand why they would discourage my creativity. Were they afraid that creativity was just fluff? Like it wouldn't put money in the bank and food on the table? I mean even now... they're supportive of my writing, but at the same time worried that I wouldn't make it, and that I should keep a regular, good paying job instead...

First, people like comfort and they like predictability. Writing is not a guaranteed living. It requires risk taking.

Second, people close to you tend to see your flaws and not strengths, or they see them disproportionally. That lends to the proverb, A prophet is never accepted in his own town.

Third, some people put others down because of their own low self esteem. They always have to feel like the biggest fish in the bowl, which is why some Academia Nuts are intollerable bullies, who like to demean their students. They are trying to feel better by implying "You are not nearly as good as me." which explains the artist constantly pointing to his own creations will giving students busy work that he can criticize, because if they paint the same bowl of fruit, it isn't really allowing their creativity to come through.

[oswann]

Nothing and no-one is innocent. Everyone has a barrow to push. Criticism relates to what people see as flaws in themselves. Praise is different and more subtle but can be seen as self serving also depending on the context.
Those who can - do.
Those who can't - teach.
Those who can't teach - teach gym.

- Woody Allen (I think, feel free to whip me with limp lettuce if I'm wrong)

[Arisa81]

When I was in elementary school I was always put in the slow learners reading groups. I could read just fine, the problem was I did poorly on tests and when I had to get up to read something I messed up a lot because I was dreadfully shy.
When I got to high school I was pretty much convinced that I was bad at everything and for the first few years didn't try very hard at all. In grade 11 I decided I had had enough and I was smart enough to do well (thanks to a couple good friends and one great english teacher). Unfortunately, at that school not many teachers were kind. They hated to be asked questions and when they did give answers it was usually "what do you think" or "we just went through that" or "look it up". It was very discouraging. I am someone who sometimes has to ask many questions before really understanding something.
After high school I went to an adult learning center to pull up my high school grades and finish graduating (art teacher failed me). I managed a high B in almost every course I took, including math. I guess it all depends on the teachers and how dedicated they are. At the adult learning center there were less students and more teachers to work one on one with. I wish I'd actually dropped out of high school and gone there earlier.
And yes I sometimes think back to high school and want to send those teachers some of my published work and say look at me hehe. :tongue

[Nateskate]

When I was in elementary school I was always put in the slow learners reading groups. I could read just fine, the problem was I did poorly on tests and when I had to get up to read something I messed up a lot because I was dreadfully shy.
:tongue

When you are at a young age, your self-perception is almost always a reflection of the feedback others give you, especially authority figuires- Parents/Teachers/Coaches. What some people don't realize is that some people just happen to have a string of very immature, inadequate adults in their particular circle. The worst case scenario is thematic attacks on a person's self esteem. If your parents, teachers and coaches all give the same signal: "Defective...incapable of doing great things", that belief will be set in stone.

I'm convinced that some people who give up on themselves have gifts and abilities that would not only amaze them, but the rest of the world. But the trick is to change your own perception of yourself.

It's those voices fromt he past that act like dead weights.

[Eowen]

I never had a teacher be discouraging about my fiction. (Of course, most of them had no idea I wrote any fiction that was not required for class.) But I've had a few other related experiences.In Senior Year Advanced Placement English, each student had to memorize a poem or segment of a poem at least 12 lines long. One of my classmates asked if she could recite a poem she had written. The teacher said no, he wanted us to memorize published poems (he liked Chaucer in translation - the horror), and besides, "teenagers can't write poetry." Blanket statement, no possible exceptions. He nearly had a riot on his hands. Half that class wrote poetry, the rest of them read our poetry and liked it a lot. The girl asking the question had been published in a local poetry magazine, where the standards were somewhat higher than for the school magazine (ie, enroll in Creative Writing, or be friends with the student editor). The previous year, one of his students read a poem written by one of my classmates, and the teacher thought it was a good poem. (He had no idea who wrote it.) We had our inadvertent revenge on him, though. Myself and another student brought in battered copies of The Tolkien Reader and took our poems from that, and even ended up dressing almost identically on the day we had to recite. Disturbed the teacher quite a bit. <EG>

In college, I took a Creative Writing class, partly as filler, and partly to work on plotting. For our class projects, we were not allowed to write in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror genres. This decision was not based on any notions of literary merit; it was because everyone in the class was expected to critique all the other stories. The teacher felt it would not be fair to the non-genre readers to have to critique stories with conventions that were uncommon in mainstream fiction, or genres like Romance and Mystery that are more or less set in the real world. It was annoying for those of us who did not usually write fiction set in the real world, but it was at least logical.

Eowen

[Nateskate]

Myself and another student brought in battered copies of The Tolkien Reader and took our poems from that, and even ended up dressing almost identically on the day we had to recite. Disturbed the teacher quite a bitAnother ringnut I presume. I'm just finishing Tolkien Letters. Good read, and very insightful. It confirmed much of what I believed. 1) Without C.S Lewis, Tolkien wouldn't have finished LOTR. He was just too scattered, and disorganized.

Too bad the two had a falling out of sorts. I think Tolkien could have done so much more, but he required someone to keep him focused. His weekly readings to CSL kept him on track. And surprisingly, caused him to make changes in the book. I'd have been curious to see what major changes Tolkien made because of CSL comments. But he admitted he changed the chapter "The Voice of Sarumon" because of CSL. Evidently it was lighter, and contained more Merry Pippen banter. JRRT said CSL didn't like Merry and Pippen very much, although they are fan favorites with some.

[Jamesaritchie]

I wonder why some adults like to squash a kid's creativity? Sometimes the culprits are the parents. I mean I lost count of the number of times my parents said "That's nice, but shouldn't you focus on your maths and science? And get a job as an engineer or a doctor?" My parents had good intention. But they're creative people themselves, so I don't understand why they would discourage my creativity. Were they afraid that creativity was just fluff? Like it wouldn't put money in the bank and food on the table? I mean even now... they're supportive of my writing, but at the same time worried that I wouldn't make it, and that I should keep a regular, good paying job instead...

Well, I've tried to encouarge crativity in my kids at all times, and always urge them to do whatever interests them. But as a parent, and as a writer, I know the value of a backup plan.

Odds are about a thousand to one that anyone who wishes to be a writer will need a good job aside from writing, and the one thing I've always insisted on is that my kids get the training. I hope they make it doing whatever it is they most love, and I want them to work and study in those areas, but "I'll make it somehow" is not a good backup plan for life.

[BlueTexas]

I went to seven school from grades 1 through 12. I had two good teachers...one a 9th grade English Lit teacher who read aloud The Source by Michener to us. I had recently started reading his novels, and was dazzled. The other was a 10th English Comp/Lit teacher. He was the only teacher to offer me encouragement, even entering one of my essays into the school writing contest. His wife, who I had for 11th grade English, was a beast who accused me of plagarism because teenagers aren't supposed to be able to write that well.

I had an awful algebra teacher who actually called me stupid in front the class. (My profession now involves algebra daily, which I can happily say I mastered on my own because that a** didn't teach me a thing!) Switching schools so often, I ended up learning a lot of the same things twice because the class credits didn't always translate. I had a whole year of mythology, and no grammar! One memorable woman was a guidance counsellor in high school. She had been assigned to me when I trasferred there because the school admin was aware that my parents had...um...issues that kept me bouncing from school to school, state to state. Do you know what she said to me when she learned I was transferring out? Something to the effect of "Good, I couldn't fix you anyway. Good luck!"

And my family wonders why I refused to attend college, turning down a partial scholarship. Duh! I was a good student, A's and B's (except that blasted algebra class), but I couldn't stomach the idea of another second in a classroom.

As to the bad childhood equals better fiction writer, all I've sold is non-fiction narrative. I've just started writing fiction again.

[WVWriterGirl]

I have a second tale (see my tale on page one) regarding teachers, parents, etc.

I have a 19-year-old stepson who has lived with us for about 2 years now. He first came to my household as a 17-year-old junior in high school, midway through the school year. We enrolled him in our town high school, and he did well. When summer came, he went back to live with his mother and her boyfriend, and decided he wanted to graduate from his old high school, with his friends. Fine with me, what ever keeps the kid in school.

While there, the same problems at home arose (mother who cares nothing about education, atmosphere of alcohol and sometimes drugs at home, little brother who could be violent, uncaring teachers at school who "pushed" the child thru school to get him out of the system). He decided around Christmastime of his senior year that he would come back and live with us again. This time, he didn't want to be re-enrolled in our local school, and I allowed it with the promise that he would study through the rest of the school year and in the fall, he would get his GED. He agreed, but there was one unforseen circumstance - the child had no study skills at all, and at 18, could barely read.

We worked all spring and summer, and when fall came around, he decided that he was not ready to take the GED. He went back home to live with his mother, and tried it at his old school again. He was serious this time - he rarely left the house, tried in his school work, but things didn't work out very good. His mother and her "friends" partied for two days straight in early September, keeping my stepson out of school (the kid couldn't get to sleep). When he confronted them about it, violence ensued, and he moved back in with us again.

We re-enrolled him in our local high school. The only way I could get him in is because of the great respect the current principal at the high school has for me. I had to give him my solemn promise that my stepson would be there every day, would keep current on his assignments, and make a conscious effort in school. He turned 19 in January, and made the honor roll for the first time in his entire life this year.

The atmosphere of learning and literature that we promote in our home has, in my opinion, made my stepson strive to be more than he knew he would end up being at his mother's. He never considered attending college before - now he's showing interest in the Art Institutes. He calls my house "home", and only sees his mother when he feels he has too. Oh, he had siezures while living with his mom. He hasn't even come close to having one since living with us.

It just goes to show you that home life and school atmosphere plays a huge part in a child's ability and need for education. I believe that without us, my stepson would have probably ended up in jail with a pregnant girlfriend and every other cliche you can tack on to a rural West Virginian.

WVWG

[tjwriter]

I was in the fifth grade when a teacher punished me by having me write 1000 times, "I will not fight on the playground."

This reminded me of a PE teacher I had in junior high who made me write 200 lines for not having a parent sign my grade update sheet. I had an A. Yep, just to be mean. My parent's never worried about stuff like that. Of course, the next time I forgot to have them sign one, I found a place where my mother had signed my agenda for something, and promptly traced that onto the paper.

It seems that a lot of adults forget what it's like to be creative and to use imagination. Just look at the ratio of structured time to unstructured time for children in today's society. It's horrid. Some of the best times I had as a kid were unstructured play activities with my brother and two of my cousins. You don't really see that anymore. It's meetings, sports, activities, and college prep things for children still in elementary school. As much as I want to have children, it makes me second guess the idea. Creative play allows children to explore possibilities in life and stimulates an interest in learning about various topics. I consumed most of the fiction and nonfiction books in the children's section of the library before I was 10. My imagination was always going and it still does.

:Soapbox: Thanks for reading!

[Writing Again]

I almost did not graduate into the fourth grade because the third grade teacher decided it was her last year and she wasn't going to bother teaching anyone anything: The whole class was to be flunked because of poor reading skills.

My mother fought with the school asking to retest me after the summer was over because she was convinced she could teach me to read herself. Of course they told her she could not possibly teach a child to read as she was unqualified for such a task. My mother ranted, raved, and threatened until they gave in -- And yes, she threatened: She told the principal that if he couldn't use reason on his own she would take five minutes to beat the sense into him that all his years of college had failed to achieve. In those days teachers could not hide their cruelty behind being a protected species and hitting the principal would not have caused my mother any more problems than had she hit any other citizen.

Every day during the summer my mother took me to the park, and I read to her an hour everyday before I was allowed to play. My reading improved dramatically and soon I was reading rather than playing.

When she took me to the school the next year she had to fight to make them live up to the promise they had made her to retest me. She was adamant and insisted even though they told her she was wasting the school's time and valuable resources.

I was still being tested when I heard the principal in the next room yelling at my mother, "What have you done? You've got him reading high school level. He is not supposed to be above his peers. My teachers are not equipped to deal with a situation like this."

My mother yelled back, "If your teachers had less credentials and more patience they might be more effective."

I got up and did not bother to finish the test -- I figured the point had been made.

[Fractured_Chaos]

Writing Again, Sounds like your mom Kicks A**, in more ways than threatening the principal! :partyguy:


Me, on the other hand? Well, in 7th grade, I had an english teacher I really didn't like. She was a grumpy, grouchy old woman, who never had a nice thing to say about anyone. Then in October, we were given an assignment to write a Halloween story. Well, mine wasn't exactly the typical holiday story. Nope. Mine was about a girl who found a treasure in a cave, on Halloween.

She loved it, and had it published in the school paper.

I was so proud of that, because no one else in class had that honor. I couldn't wait to bring the paper home, and show it to my Mom.

My mother showed about -><- this much interest, tossed it aside, complained about me not putting forth that kind of effort in the rest of my classes, and told me that I cannot plan on making a career out of writing, because all writers were starving, slovenly, alcoholics with no sense of responsibility, and that they all died in deep debt and poverty, as well as insane.

Gee, thanks, Mom.

Around 14, I was sent to live with my Dad, because I was a little more than my mother could handle. He thought I had a good imagination, but still discouraged my writing. He thought it was a nice "hobby", but that I shouldn't consider doing it for a living because, "Women can't write anything but those horrid romances."

*sigh*

Then it was a string of relationships that were discouraging. No point going into those.

Now, I'm living with a man who is wonderful in every way, and keeps threatening to stand over me with a cat o'nine tails if I -DON'T- write!

I have exactly what I've dreamed of..a wonderful, supporting person....My kids are all encouraging....

And I don't know how to handle it. :(

[LisaHa]

It saddens me to read about teachers who don't like to or can't teach. I know so many good teachers who, even if they are disillussioned by the education system, still put their hearts and souls into their teaching. A teacher who isn't encouraging or who can't see the potential in all their students shouldn't be there.

It saddens me more to hear about parents who do not encourage their children. My dad has never given me any encouragement, he never attended parents evenings, and he never came to see me in the various theatre productions I have been in. However, on my wedding day he bristled with pride as he read out an article from the apper about me winning a writing competition when I was 9 years old. Better late than never!

My mum was my saving grace. She has encouraged all 5 of her children in EVERYTHING they did. She taught me to read before I went to school and encouraged my love of books (she even had to explain to a teacher at school that it was possible for me to read a book designed for a child several years older than me). She read to us before bedtime and bought all the classics for me. She let me read anything I wanted (although she was a bit perturbed when she found me reading a Judith Krantz I had found at a rummage sale at 11 or 12). She made sure we all had a good rounded education but was happy for me and my youngest sister to pursue theatre and singing interests, while my brothers and other sister were more scientifically minded.

While my dad was saying theatre/radio/tv is not going to pay my bills, she continued to tell me I could do anything I wanted. She also showed me through her own life that I could do anything. Mum left school with few qualifications but after all her children had been born she trained for the ministry through distance-learning and is now an ordained minister. I remember her trying to learn ancient Greek and, as difficult as it was, she wouldn't let it defeat her. She didn't even know how to use a word-processor, so I used to sit and type all her assignments for her - but being my mum she has since worked her way through numerous computer courses as well.

My youngest sister and I are very alike. She used to write loads of stories when she was younger and really liked sci-fi. One day she showed a friend some of her stories. It took a lot of courage to do it, and he repaid her by telling her they were non-Christian and she shouldn't be writing stuff like that. She stopped writing for ages, but thanks to encouragement from my mum and me she has started writing again, and recently asked me to critique something for her for a writing contest. I was so flattered because I knew she had asked me because she knew I would be honest but encouraging at the same time. I told her my thoughts, suggested some slight amendments and she sent it off. Just waiting for the outcome.

I'm not patient enough to be a teacher but I hope if I ever have children I will be as encouraging and helpful as possible.

[Nateskate]

Well, I've tried to encouarge crativity in my kids at all times, and always urge them to do whatever interests them. But as a parent, and as a writer, I know the value of a backup plan.

Odds are about a thousand to one that anyone who wishes to be a writer will need a good job aside from writing, and the one thing I've always insisted on is that my kids get the training. I hope they make it doing whatever it is they most love, and I want them to work and study in those areas, but "I'll make it somehow" is not a good backup plan for life.

I agree wholeheartedly. I have two sons. One of them has been obstinate about getting a job, because he wants to devote all of his free time towards rock'n'roll. Obviously, in this day of DJ weddings, and Kariokee (Sp???) if you don't make it, you can't even fall back on being a wedding/bar band. Bars don't pay what they used to because they have cheap alternatives.

On one hand, I don't want to crush his dream, on the other, I don't want to see him piss his life away. In a sense, he's convinced he will win the Lotto, since his chances of making it big enough to make it a career is like winning the Lotto. I keep pointing to "Behind the Music", and how people who once made it in the industry still have to get a job at some point.

[Nateskate]

I went to seven school from grades 1 through 12. I had two good teachers...one a 9th grade English Lit teacher who read aloud The Source by Michener to us. I had recently started reading his novels, and was dazzled. The other was a 10th English Comp/Lit teacher. He was the only teacher to offer me encouragement, even entering one of my essays into the school writing contest. His wife, who I had for 11th grade English, was a beast who accused me of plagarism because teenagers aren't supposed to be able to write that well.

I had an awful algebra teacher who actually called me stupid in front the class. (My profession now involves algebra daily, which I can happily say I mastered on my own because that a** didn't teach me a thing!) Switching schools so often, I ended up learning a lot of the same things twice because the class credits didn't always translate. I had a whole year of mythology, and no grammar! One memorable woman was a guidance counsellor in high school. She had been assigned to me when I trasferred there because the school admin was aware that my parents had...um...issues that kept me bouncing from school to school, state to state. Do you know what she said to me when she learned I was transferring out? Something to the effect of "Good, I couldn't fix you anyway. Good luck!"

And my family wonders why I refused to attend college, turning down a partial scholarship. Duh! I was a good student, A's and B's (except that blasted algebra class), but I couldn't stomach the idea of another second in a classroom.

As to the bad childhood equals better fiction writer, all I've sold is non-fiction narrative. I've just started writing fiction again.

Glad to hear you were strong enough to push on. Some kids get crushed by things like that. I was humiliated by teachers (algebra as well) in Jr High. At the time it was rather horrible. But I found out the problem wasn't my math skills, but that they really S&#*#& as teachers. Once I had good teachers, I started getting As.

As for college, if that door is still open, don't blow it off, because College is SOOOOOO much better than High School, and in fact, you get to choose your teachers, subjects and times for many of your classes. Honestly, for me, college was not only easier than High School, but it was so much more fun. It's just an entirely different world. You can major in what you actually like.

[Nateskate]

I almost did not graduate into the fourth grade because the third grade teacher decided it was her last year and she wasn't going to bother teaching anyone anything: The whole class was to be flunked because of poor reading skills.

My mother fought with the school asking to retest me after the summer was over because she was convinced she could teach me to read herself. Of course they told her she could not possibly teach a child to read as she was unqualified for such a task. My mother ranted, raved, and threatened until they gave in -- And yes, she threatened: She told the principal that if he couldn't use reason on his own she would take five minutes to beat the sense into him that all his years of college had failed to achieve. In those days teachers could not hide their cruelty behind being a protected species and hitting the principal would not have caused my mother any more problems than had she hit any other citizen.

Every day during the summer my mother took me to the park, and I read to her an hour everyday before I was allowed to play. My reading improved dramatically and soon I was reading rather than playing.

When she took me to the school the next year she had to fight to make them live up to the promise they had made her to retest me. She was adamant and insisted even though they told her she was wasting the school's time and valuable resources.

I was still being tested when I heard the principal in the next room yelling at my mother, "What have you done? You've got him reading high school level. He is not supposed to be above his peers. My teachers are not equipped to deal with a situation like this."

My mother yelled back, "If your teachers had less credentials and more patience they might be more effective."

I got up and did not bother to finish the test -- I figured the point had been made.

Great story! Go mom!

[Nateskate]

Lisa Ha

I'm not patient enough to be a teacher but I hope if I ever have children I will be as encouraging and helpful as possible.

I can't imagine that won't be the case! You seem like a sensitive caring person. I'm sure you'll pass that on.

[Mistook]

I agree wholeheartedly. I have two sons. One of them has been obstinate about getting a job, because he wants to devote all of his free time towards rock'n'roll. Obviously, in this day of DJ weddings, and Kariokee (Sp???) if you don't make it, you can't even fall back on being a wedding/bar band. Bars don't pay what they used to because they have cheap alternatives.

On one hand, I don't want to crush his dream, on the other, I don't want to see him piss his life away. In a sense, he's convinced he will win the Lotto, since his chances of making it big enough to make it a career is like winning the Lotto. I keep pointing to "Behind the Music", and how people who once made it in the industry still have to get a job at some point.


Oh, that is the saddest thing I've ever heard! :( It's sad because it's true. There aren't any venues for original bands anymore. But on the other hand, who knows how the pendulum will swing in the future? We're about due for a revolution aren't we?

Oh behalf of the 19 year old punk-rocker I used to be... who actually did piss his life away on music with almost nothing to show, I would say, the kid needs more than moral support. He needs some serious guidance about how to survive as a musician.

My first deadly mistake was wasting nearly five years in a band with two guys who just weren't serious about anything but getting drunk at practice. I'd kill for a time machine to go back and find myself two (or even one) dedicated band mates who didn't have their heads up their arses.

2nd deadly mistake: Equipment, instruments, practice space, they all cost money. You don't stand a chance unless you have a joe-job to get some green in your pocket.

3rd deadly mistake: As the wise Mick Jaggar said when asked what broke up The Rutles, "Girls... gettin' in the way." You can't have a girlfriend and be in a band, that's just the way it is. Next thing you know, you're married and taking care of two babies, wearing a tie, thinking, "Wha' happen?"

Then of course, you need a competent manager, maybe a music lawyer, an agent, a following, a demo, a roadworthy van, a haircut... then maybe... just maybe if you're not already 30 by that point, there's the ghost of a snowball's chance in hades of getting signed...

or at least theoretically there used to be before they started giving all the record deals to former mousketeers who couldn't play an open E string to save their lives, much less write a lyric.

:Soapbox:

Okay, my rant's over. Thanks for letting me vent. You can have your kid back now.

[AncientEagle]

I guess I was more fortunate than many. I can't remember a teacher, elementary or high school, who DID NOT offer me encouragement in writing. Those who had any reason to come into contact with my efforts, that is. Not all of them were great teachers, but none ever tried to discourage me. Many went out of their way to tell me I should pursue writing. Sad to say, I didn't have as much confidence in me as they did - I failed to buckle down and write, but only played at it for many years.

[EL_Scorcho]

I was the opposite.
My poor parents.
They'd attend a teacher's conference and my English teacher would fluff them up about my talents. Then they'd hit the Sociology teacher.
"Does Bob have a learning disability?"
The looks on their faces as they arrived home were priceless.

I still remember the look of defeat my old English prof had when I said I declared a business major. I don't think she believe me when I was it was just to find work until writing started to pay. Took me about 3 semesters to convince her I wasn't blowing smoke.

And sure enough, my business professors nod and agree when I say I want to be a writer. Their C's are more than enough evidence that they think it's a better idea for me than business. Heh.

[Nateskate]

It just goes to show you that home life and school atmosphere plays a huge part in a child's ability and need for education. I believe that without us, my stepson would have probably ended up in jail with a pregnant girlfriend and every other cliche you can tack on to a rural West Virginian.
Glad you cared enough to stick with your stepson. Lots of step parents would have folded long before. It's unfortunately common for children of broken homes to get lost for awhile, and in some cases do crazy things. A sane and merciful parent is like an anchor. Although they (stepchildren) may kick the anchor, which happens, if that person believes in them, and doesn't give up on them, they often realize who is on their side, and they soften their heart. Good job. If you weren't as patient as you were, he'd have been in a much worse place.

[Nateskate]

Oh, that is the saddest thing I've ever heard! :( It's sad because it's true. There aren't any venues for original bands anymore. But on the other hand, who knows how the pendulum will swing in the future? We're about due for a revolution aren't we?

Oh behalf of the 19 year old punk-rocker I used to be... who actually did piss his life away on music with almost nothing to show, I would say, the kid needs more than moral support. He needs some serious guidance about how to survive as a musician.

My first deadly mistake was wasting nearly five years in a band with two guys who just weren't serious about anything but getting drunk at practice. I'd kill for a time machine to go back and find myself two (or even one) dedicated band mates who didn't have their heads up their arses.

2nd deadly mistake: Equipment, instruments, practice space, they all cost money. You don't stand a chance unless you have a joe-job to get some green in your pocket.

3rd deadly mistake: As the wise Mick Jaggar said when asked what broke up The Rutles, "Girls... gettin' in the way." You can't have a girlfriend and be in a band, that's just the way it is. Next thing you know, you're married and taking care of two babies, wearing a tie, thinking, "Wha' happen?"

Then of course, you need a competent manager, maybe a music lawyer, an agent, a following, a demo, a roadworthy van, a haircut... then maybe... just maybe if you're not already 30 by that point, there's the ghost of a snowball's chance in hades of getting signed...

or at least theoretically there used to be before they started giving all the record deals to former mousketeers who couldn't play an open E string to save their lives, much less write a lyric.

:Soapbox:

Okay, my rant's over. Thanks for letting me vent. You can have your kid back now.

The Reference to the Rutles is priceless! "Let it rot"

I was in a band that "ALMOST" made it. We had such a talented line-up. We were much better than many of the top bands of the time. Our lead singer had an affair(s), and his wife said, "It's "The band or me". He quite, but eventually they divorced anyway. My wife got pregnant with our first child (she's a great singer/keyboard player) and decided she didn't want to go on the road.

We had-free recording time given to us from a big wig who owned one of the top studios in the country. We had- connections, and were ready to tour the country with a super group in the (Eagles/Fleetwood Mac level) which was top of the line at the time. But our harmonies were at that level. For years, after we broke up, I laid down the dream, and thought, "someday". Well, one day I looked in the mirror and realized that I was too old for a commercially successful career and wrote a song, "Rock'n Geek", as in, "Forget it...that boat passed."

My kids are both talented musicians. Unfortunatlely they can't get along with each other. So, they never play in the same bands anymore.

But to make it, you have to have no chinks in your armor. My one son is absolutely one of the best guitarist around. He is extremely creative. Girls love him. He's got everything in the world. He's got a deep "Creed" like voice, except...he doesn't have the range and is out of key when he sings, but he's so set on doing his own songs, and not getting a lead singer. He's rather obstinate about it, and self-deluded that his singing is better than it is.

The other son has a tremendous voice, but his in a band where the "Alpha-kid" has the worst dog crying in the night irritating voice in the world. My son is not going anywhere with this band unless this kid gives in and they hire a lead singer. With his droning, every song begins to sound the same.

[Mistook]

Too bad they can't get along in the same band. Egos have killed more dreams than anything else, period.

At one point me and my two brothers were the perfect, self-contained, punk power trio (and this was well before Nirvana hit the scene). We were awesome. The crude boom box recordings from that period are some of the few gems in my vast collection that I never cringe about.

We could have easily taken over Chicago. Punk was still hot there, but on it's way out, and we would've been a perfect transitional sound into a post-punk era. The only thing stopping us was the fact that we were all hopped up on hormones and having so many pointless arguments that the whole deal became impossible.

I weird little solo career after that at open mike's around the area. People really dug me then too, but I kind of hit a plateau. I had no idea where to take the success I was having, and there was nobody in my world who knew. I was connectionless.

I tried it again with one of my brothers, and again, I think we were brilliant together, but we just spun our wheels being brilliant in garages and basements, never going anywhere. Kids and spouses were involved by that point. Drugs and alcohol had became standard issue at rehersal. Between the schedule conflicts, and the urge to party ourselves stupid, we never learned a full set list.

It was like... four crappy opening gigs a year, playing to crowds of 10 or 12. Very disapointing. The final rift came when I went through a real creativity burst. My style became more avant-garde than ever before, and at the peek I wrote 32 songs in one year.

The band just couldn't keep up with my creativity, and they started to resent it. At the same time, I was sick to death of playing five year old material. My soul had moved on. That's how we finally broke up.

Like you, I knew the boat had passed, but I figured it couldn't hurt to keep it up as a hobby here on my deserted island. :)

[Sunny7L]

I didn't have a teacher to discourage me, I actually did it to myself. I've always loved to write but I thought it'd be easier to write short articles than a full novel. So, I choose Journalism over English. It just seemed more exciting and I still got to write.

It wasn't until about a year before graduating that I realized my mistake. But, it's never too late.

[Nateskate]

Too bad they can't get along in the same band. Egos have killed more dreams than anything else, period.

Like you, I knew the boat had passed, but I figured it couldn't hurt to keep it up as a hobby here on my deserted island. :)

I was never a front man, because I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. But writing can naturally to me. It was always humbling being a writer who can't front the band. Eddie Van Hallen once spoke of LSD, Lead Singer Disease. Well, our lead singers weren't obnoxious, but I'd cringe when they'd take one of my songs (most were my songs at that point) and explain the song as if they'd written it, and they'd be so far off the mark it would make me cringe. It seemed that they had two options. 1) Ask me to take the mic and explain the song, or ask me to explain it to them. But they were Presumptuous sorts.

I once wrote a blues-rock song, whose first line was "Goodbye, I never want to see you again...you only cause me pain. I used to think I loved you...but you were just insane."

Well, that wasn't about the girlfriend who dumped me (Which happened around the time we were playing the song circa 1977-78) It was about leaving the insanity of my past life, and starting over again.

It went on to say, "It took so long to untie the strings, the bound me for so long....all the plans I made had gone so wrong."

The song was somewhat like the lessons someone gains from rehab, although I had never been in rehab. Your past can be so dysfunctional, that you might have to make a clean break in order to start all over. But when you do that, you have strings linking you to things that you miss. And those strings also become ropes that bind you. So, unless you are willing to make a clean break, you will get sucked back into your old vices.

They mangled the snot out of the meaning of the song every time we played. But being that I didn't do back-ups, I had no microphone, and so, I'd just bite the bullet.

Yes, it is a SHAME my kids fight like they came from Oasis. They not only play very well, they both have a great sound. But they are like oil and water at this juncture. They don't mix.

[Nateskate]

I didn't have a teacher to discourage me, I actually did it to myself. I've always loved to write but I thought it'd be easier to write short articles than a full novel. So, I choose Journalism over English. It just seemed more exciting and I still got to write.

It wasn't until about a year before graduating that I realized my mistake. But, it's never too late.

Hi Sunny. I doubt your major was much of a disadvantage at all. I could be wrong, but it's possible that some would see a Journalism major as an advantage.

I'll be honest. I've learned things from writers workshops, which can be helpful. However, in the end, what people teach you is at best a shortcut. At worst, they actually create boxes that stiffle your creativity. When I try a writing exercise, I do write differently. But I can't say that I write better because I used this voice or that voice, or even knew what a voice was.

A very close friend has a Ph.D, and is one of the best lit teachers in her college. But frankly, I don't recall taking a single English/Lit/Lang elective in college, and I'm a better writer than she is. My sister in law is a tech writer for a major corp, with a Masters in writing, and has tried writing stories. She read two of my stories, and praised my work telling me I should publish them, and asks me how I come up with these ideas.

(Sorry, my point is not that I'm a great writer. That's yet to be seen, and I may not even be a good writer. My point is that a college major does not hamstring you. It does help, but doesn't make or break you. Many famous writers were former chefs, waiters, grave diggers, people that didn't even go to college)

My problem, and I admit this, is that I need people like these (English Majors) to edit my writings. Your writing style will be like your speaking voice, something that is natural to you, and something you can further develop. What matters is your creativity, and if you are writing non-fiction, insight and powers of observation, along with how well you can organize, dig for facts and explain why your information is relevent.

Don't lament your major. I have a close friend who once worked as a Newspaper Editor. He's finishing his masters in creative writing. Yet, he was a good writer all along, and wrote for the paper. He may be learning some fine points in creative writing, but the talent is either there or its not. If you have the talent and desire, I'm sure your major will matter less.

One last honest point. Uncle Jim's thread contains some graduate school level teaching.

It's a free online course. Its that good. Perhaps we should be paying him a stipend, but the guy is good hearted and gave this gift. If you haven't read it, you should. You'll pick up more than you'd have gotten at most colleges. Honestly, Ph.Ds in lit don't equate with a great teacher. My wife is a college prof, and I know that few colleges have people the calliber of the people who post here on these boards, especially like Uncle Jim and Victoria (I could add fifteen people to this list, but its like the Oscars, if I start naming everyone, someone that I forget might feel slighted)

If Uncle Jim sees this, or someone might suggest this to him, is to associate himself with a college. (If he's not)

Some people might be willing to pay for college credits. He could then take their money, test them, grade them, and some could get college credits to apply towards a major. Just a thought.

[James D. Macdonald]

If Uncle Jim sees this, or someone might suggest this to him, is to associate himself with a college. (If he's not)


The nearest full-scale college to me is over an hour away on the other side of a mountain pass. (The nearest commuity college to me is an hour away in another direction, over a different mountain pass.) So, I'll just hang out here and chat.

(I do help teach a workshop (http://www.sff.net/paradise) every year, and I'm doing the Writer's Weekend (http://www.writersweekend.com/) this summer, if that helps....)

[Nateskate]

The nearest full-scale college to me is over an hour away on the other side of a mountain pass. (The nearest commuity college to me is an hour away in another direction, over a different mountain pass.) So, I'll just hang out here and chat.

(I do help teach a workshop (http://www.sff.net/paradise) every year, and I'm doing the Writer's Weekend (http://www.writersweekend.com/) this summer, if that helps....)

Jim, my wife and I live in Pennsylvania. Lots of colleges have online courses now. She's getting her Ph.D from Virginia Communwealth U. Her courses are all online courses. And they are now letting faculty teach for colleges outside of their area.

It's possible for you to teach courses from where you are. With VCU, my wife has to go there twice a year for two weeks, but in general, most of the courses are done completely on-line. This whole world is changing because of the internet. Almost all of her departments now offer online course. It's just a thought. She teaches one on-line course, and doesn't see the students. She does everything out of the home. She mostly teaches in the classroom setting. But for what you have to offer, you'd be able to have students from all over the country/world- which you already do.

At anyrate, I'd say from what I can see, your workshop and writer's weekend must be a blast. One of these days I'd love to attend one. Thanks for your contribution.

[Sheshewriter]

I do not remember the course itself in my junior year in college. I just remember the professor, how he talked, how he taught, I even remember the classroom.
So, we had a research paper to write for the final grade or something like that. I researched like crazy--notebook, index cards, internet, library books, newspaper, articles, you name it. (I believe it was about mass suicide, not sure).
He gives me a B+. I go to his office for some reason (I've got a reliable memory, don't I?). He tells me that he learned so much from my paper. It was the best he had read, he was impressed with the work it took to put it together, yadda yadda yadda.
So, naturally, I ask him why my grade does not reflect the high praise he yapped about.
He said::Lecture: "If I gave you an A, or even an A-, you'd think you did a perfect job, not leaving any room for improvement. I don't want you to think you can't do any better."
Can you guys believe that??!??!! :Headbang: So, do you think what he said helped me work harder? If it was so perfect for him, then why would he worry about me not having room for imporvement? Sheesh!

Thanks all, for helping me take it out. My husband hates it when teachers do that in general.

Sheshe

[Medievalist]

If Uncle Jim sees this, or someone might suggest this to him, is to associate himself with a college. (If he's not)

Some people might be willing to pay for college credits. He could then take their money, test them, grade them, and some could get college credits to apply towards a major. Just a thought.

Obviously "Uncle Jim"/James D. Macdonald is more than good enough to teach writing in higher ed. There's absolutely fabulous stuff in his "Learn Writing (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710)" thread.

But I'd hate to wish that on him. The amount of administrivia, even teaching purely online (which is not the best way to do a writing class) is overwhelming. Plus, grading writing is exceedingly unrewarding. In a workshop setting, like Macdonald and Co. Viable Paradise (http://www.sff.net/paradise/), you don't assign grades to work. In a college you do.

Plus the time teaching is stolen from time writing.

[MacAllister]

I've taught college-level writing. It's horrible. I wouldn't wish it on anyone...especially someone I LIKE.

[Medievalist]

I've taught college-level writing. It's horrible. I wouldn't wish it on anyone...especially someone I LIKE.

So, I'm on a three-day grading binge, with six inches left to go . . . wanna play ? Anyone? Anyone? Macallister?

So far, only four obviously plagiarized papers. One with two inch margins and 14 pt. bold type.

[maestrowork]

Makes me want to go back to college just to torment the profs. What do I care... I already got my Master's... <eg>

[Nateskate]

Obviously "Uncle Jim"/James D. Macdonald is more than good enough to teach writing in higher ed. There's absolutely fabulous stuff in his "Learn Writing (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710)" thread.

But I'd hate to wish that on him. The amount of administrivia, even teaching purely online (which is not the best way to do a writing class) is overwhelming. Plus, grading writing is exceedingly unrewarding. In a workshop setting, like Macdonald and Co. Viable Paradise (http://www.sff.net/paradise/), you don't assign grades to work. In a college you do.

Plus the time teaching is stolen from time writing.

I'm sure everyone doesn't have this luxury, but my wife has grad assistants who do much of her grading.

But you are probably correct. I see Jim as a great teacher, but that other stuff sounds like a royal pain.

However, "Big IF attached", if someday I do become very successful, and the college wanted me to teach a course, I'd love to. However, I'd try to work out something similar, working in colaboration with another teacher/grad assistants. I'd do the lectures, and they could do the dirty work. I love speaking, but I'd hate grading. I'd ask the grad assistant to let me see the good stuff, just for my pleasure. (By I love to dream!)

[Nateskate]

Makes me want to go back to college just to torment the profs. What do I care... I already got my Master's... <eg>

Then you could be a character in one of my novels, "Master Tormentor!" the nightmare of every college Don- Annie bar the doors, Maestro's coming!

[MacAllister]

So far, only four obviously plagiarized papers. One with two inch margins and 14 pt. bold type.

The blatant plagiarism is always the one that killed me...."What do you mean I can't just copy this whole essay out of Cliffs Notes? I changed the wording...And how did you know???"

[AncientEagle]

I didn't have a teacher to discourage me, I actually did it to myself. I've always loved to write but I thought it'd be easier to write short articles than a full novel. So, I choose Journalism over English. It just seemed more exciting and I still got to write.

It wasn't until about a year before graduating that I realized my mistake. But, it's never too late.

I majored in English, all those many years ago. And while I can't say it actually hurt me, so far as writing is concerned, it was at best sort of incidental. Long before that, I had absorbed into my bloodstream a love of words, inoculated by family members who loved them and nurtured by many hours of sitting in a rundown farmhouse reading from dog-eared books, tattered magazines, or anything else containing print, often by a kerosene lamp in the wee hours. My college major did put me in touch with some of the giants, but any ability at written expression, as well as my failure to become another William Faulkner, results from my own failures and lack of persistence, not from following the wrong college track. I don't regret my English major - it has at times been a persuasive credential to people who didn't really understand what it amounted to - but I'm not so sure a degree in Journalism (not offered at the time at my college, or I probably would have taken it) wouldn't be better. Surely it would be as good.

[Medievalist]

I'm sure everyone doesn't have this luxury, but my wife has grad assistants who do much of her grading.

You're lookin' at one, only at this point, I'm more like a paper processor.

However, "Big IF attached", if someday I do become very successful, and the college wanted me to teach a course, I'd love to. However, I'd try to work out something similar, working in colaboration with another teacher/grad assistants. I'd do the lectures, and they could do the dirty work. I love speaking, but I'd hate grading. I'd ask the grad assistant to let me see the good stuff, just for my pleasure. (By I love to dream!)

See, this is where I have real problems with the instructional system at many large universities. If a student takes "Writing the Novel" from Nateskate he does so with the assumption that Nateskate Himself will actually critique said student's work. For Nateskate to do the lectures (which is in itself no mean feat; figure at least four hours prep per one hour of lecture), and pass the grading/critiquing/commenting on to a T.A., well, that just seems wrong, even when the T.A. is pretty good. The use of a T. A. is not typical of "creative writing" classes, by the way--they're usually deliberately kept small for just the reason I've mentioned.

[Nateskate]

You're lookin' at one, only at this point, I'm more like a paper processor.



See, this is where I have real problems with the instructional system at many large universities. If a student takes "Writing the Novel" from Nateskate he does so with the assumption that Nateskate Himself will actually critique said student's work. For Nateskate to do the lectures (which is in itself no mean feat; figure at least four hours prep per one hour of lecture), and pass the grading/critiquing/commenting on to a T.A., well, that just seems wrong, even when the T.A. is pretty good. The use of a T. A. is not typical of "creative writing" classes, by the way--they're usually deliberately kept small for just the reason I've mentioned.

A local college has a grad level creative writing course. They do pair students with published authors. But lets say that you could have had J.R.R Tolkien (if he were alive) agree to teach a class. It would have been in the students interests to take his class simply for the lectures. They'd have gotten their money's worth, although from what I hear, Tolkien spoke too fast to follow, and students got lost when he spoke.

But for the sake of the argument, people would pay just to hear him. The college has to justify this as a learning experience, so they'd have gladly worked out a grading system. In a sense, you'd have these grad students determining the important core points, and formulating the tests and grades. In this type of situation, it is what it is.

No one expects a one on one with King/Creighton/Clancy. But if they came to a local University, you couldn't find a large enough class for the students. And the course outline could be up front "This course will be monitored by Whomever, and graded by whomever," Stephen King will only be doing the lectures, not the grading.

[Nateskate]

The blatant plagiarism is always the one that killed me...."What do you mean I can't just copy this whole essay out of Cliffs Notes? I changed the wording...And how did you know???"

My wife teaches graduate level course and had this happen.

[Medievalist]

My wife teaches graduate level course and had this happen.

I've found plagiarism in consumer technical books, romances, and magazine articles. Life as a graduate student in an English department cultivates a certain skill set that has gotten me work as an expert witness.

Worst of all, I've seen it in tenured faculty members, most often, tenured faculty plagiarizing their own advisees. I can't even begin to tell you how disgusting that is, and it's nothing new.

Frankly, dealing with plagiarism helped tipped the scales in favor of me choosing not to follow an academic career when I finish. I love teaching, and most students are fabulous, but the ones who aren't are enough to make teaching an exceedingly unpleasant experience.

[maestrowork]

I took a few novel writing classes at UCLA. Granted, it's just my personal experience... the way it worked was:

The instructor delivers the lecture, everything from dialogue to characterization to POV to plot development.
Based on the lecture, students go off and write a chapter or two focusing on what they've learned in class. For example, if it's a POV lecture, the assignment would be to write the same story using 1st, 2nd, 3rd omnscient and 3rd limited.
Students hand in work before the next class. They are available to the rest of the class.
Students have a week to crit each other's work.
Students break into groups, and they crit each other's work based on what they learned -- the techniques, skills, etc. And also crit the general quality of work as well. ("It sucks" is perfectly acceptable comment, although you may not come out of class alive...)
The TA/Instructor would also do a general crit on the pieces. They won't be in depth crits. But he will point out what works and what doesn't in broader strokes. Nothing at the line edit level (you're on your own).
These classes worked very well for me. The comments I always got was "the writing is strong, but the dramatic decisions you made is not." Ouch.

[Nateskate]

I've found plagiarism in consumer technical books, romances, and magazine articles. Life as a graduate student in an English department cultivates a certain skill set that has gotten me work as an expert witness.

Worst of all, I've seen it in tenured faculty members, most often, tenured faculty plagiarizing their own advisees. I can't even begin to tell you how disgusting that is, and it's nothing new.

Frankly, dealing with plagiarism helped tipped the scales in favor of me choosing not to follow an academic career when I finish. I love teaching, and most students are fabulous, but the ones who aren't are enough to make teaching an exceedingly unpleasant experience.


The dirty secrets of the underbelly of higher education. It'd make a great sitcom. Or is that a tragic comedy?

[Denis Castellan]

The dirty secrets of the underbelly of higher education. It'd make a great sitcom. Or is that a tragic comedy?
Whichever, just be careful not to set the story in Kentucky...

[Mistook]

Miss Bolin was the TA who taught my creative writing class at NIU. She enjoyed my work. The next semester, I took another of her classes. I made it to the first three or four, and then began skipping all my classes to hang out at a new coffeehouse that opened up in town.

Near the end of the semester, I ran into Miss Bolin at the coffeehouse one night and I told her I was dropping out of college to go experience real life until such time as I had enough material to write good novels.

She wished me well, and gave me an A for the course I never completed.

Fifteen years later, I'm finally working on that first Novel. I guess, when it gets published, I'll have to dedicate it to Miss Bolin.

[Fictionalizer]

This is my first post to the forum. Great topic.

Over thirty years ago in junior high school I took an elective course called Creative Writing. It was my first exposure to what I thought was the freedom to write in my voice. I knew my writing voice by age eleven and knew I wanted to write. However I was disappointed in the class. The teacher was strict and judgmental. She had given a total of zero A+/A+ grades for creative writing. The double grades were first for creativity and originality and second for structure, grammar, and spelling. This woman hated my work. My style was what would now be called gritty psychological/suspense/thrillers. It didn't matter what I wrote, she gave me C+/C+ for my highest grades.

The teacher would embarrass me, I do believe on purpose, in front of my classmates. "You'll never be a writer with dark and moody prose," she announced when my stories were handed back to me. She also announced students' grades, especially the lower ones. I felt like it was punishment for being different. Ninety-nine percent of the time the frilly, happy and upbeat stories and poems received the highest grades.

One day she gave the class a major assignment which accounted for 1/3 of our grade. It was the ultimate assignment for me. I loved it! We had to write our own ending to an Edgar Allen Poe story. I had fun. Finally I had permission to write a gritty, psychological/suspense/thriller.

As usual I cringed when the teacher handed the graded stories back to us. The shock of my life came when the teacher handed me back my paper. She stopped at my desk and held my paper up for everyone to see. I blushed in embarrassment certain it was a F+/F+. Instead praises came out of her mouth. My jaw dropped open in surprise. She had given me the highest possible grade, A+/A+, the first one she gave to a student. The teacher insisted I read my story to the class. While I read the story, my knees trembled and knocked against each other. The teacher had ridiculed my work so much I was afraid my classmates would laugh at me. Instead my story was loved and praised by everyone. The teacher couldn't stop praising my work. My story was displayed on the bulletin board for several weeks. In addition she shared my story with all her writing classes.


While I recounted this experience I cried. The teacher's negative words about my style and voice did loads of damage. The one great paper written and praised didn't erase her ridicule and cruel comments. It has taken me over thirty years to accept and use my style and voice in writing.

[oswann]

My English teacher was surprised when I told him I hadn't become a writer. His discouraging words were to stop what I was doing and to write.

Now after about twenty years I'm finally taking his advice.

Os.

[Nateskate]

Whichever, just be careful not to set the story in Kentucky...

Perhaps in the blue ridge mountains between North Carolina and Tennessee. Lots of caves to hide the dead bodies.

[Nateskate]

This is my first post to the forum. Great topic.

Over thirty years ago in junior high school I took an elective course called Creative Writing. It was my first exposure to what I thought was the freedom to write in my voice. I knew my writing voice by age eleven and knew I wanted to write. However I was disappointed in the class. The teacher was strict and judgmental. She had given a total of zero A+/A+ grades for creative writing. The double grades were first for creativity and originality and second for structure, grammar, and spelling. This woman hated my work. My style was what would now be called gritty psychological/suspense/thrillers. It didn't matter what I wrote, she gave me C+/C+ for my highest grades.

The teacher would embarrass me, I do believe on purpose, in front of my classmates. "You'll never be a writer with dark and moody prose," she announced when my stories were handed back to me. She also announced students' grades, especially the lower ones. I felt like it was punishment for being different. Ninety-nine percent of the time the frilly, happy and upbeat stories and poems received the highest grades.

One day she gave the class a major assignment which accounted for 1/3 of our grade. It was the ultimate assignment for me. I loved it! We had to write our own ending to an Edgar Allen Poe story. I had fun. Finally I had permission to write a gritty, psychological/suspense/thriller.

As usual I cringed when the teacher handed the graded stories back to us. The shock of my life came when the teacher handed me back my paper. She stopped at my desk and held my paper up for everyone to see. I blushed in embarrassment certain it was a F+/F+. Instead praises came out of her mouth. My jaw dropped open in surprise. She had given me the highest possible grade, A+/A+, the first one she gave to a student. The teacher insisted I read my story to the class. While I read the story, my knees trembled and knocked against each other. The teacher had ridiculed my work so much I was afraid my classmates would laugh at me. Instead my story was loved and praised by everyone. The teacher couldn't stop praising my work. My story was displayed on the bulletin board for several weeks. In addition she shared my story with all her writing classes.


While I recounted this experience I cried. The teacher's negative words about my style and voice did loads of damage. The one great paper written and praised didn't erase her ridicule and cruel comments. It has taken me over thirty years to accept and use my style and voice in writing.

Great story. I'm fascinated, because when push comes to shove, second to Parents, no one has the ability to make or break a person than teachers or coaches. Kids need someone in their corner. Often times, as we see today, its not their parents. And increasingly its not their teachers, because they are overwhelmed with class sizes...etc. So, you can have a self-esteem crises which is like being in a pit. When all of the major influences send the same negative message, it puts some people into a perpetual rut.

I was surprised about her thoughts on dark and moody prose, when there is an entire sub-culture that drinks the stuff like its water.

In a sense, if you followed other conversations we've had, this teacher would have told Kurt Cobain of Nirvana that there was no market for his music, when in fact he wrote cultural anthems for his time.

[Medievalist]

So, I'm on a three-day grading binge, with six inches left to go . . . wanna play ? Anyone? Anyone? Macallister?

So far, only four obviously plagiarized papers. One with two inch margins and 14 pt. bold type.

Make that six plagiarized papers, seven if you count the fact that two students either copied each other or used the same source.

I suspect the latter; I believe that this is a purchased paper.

Just under two inches to go.

[Nateskate]

Make that six plagiarized papers, seven if you count the fact that two students either copied each other or used the same source.

I suspect the latter; I believe that this is a purchased paper.

Just under two inches to go.

A Crises of integrity. In a society where everyone lies and cheats, is it considered cheating? That's somewhat of the mindset. It's not considered a vice anymore. It's considered an artform to be mastered.

People aren't ashamed anymore when they are caught. It's that pervasive. In fact, sadly, its expected.

[maestrowork]

I agree. A Crises of integrity. In a society where everyone lies and cheats, is it considered cheating? That's somewhat of the mindset. It's not considered a vice anymore. It's considered an artform to be mastered.

People aren't ashamed anymore when they are caught. It's that pervasive. In fact, sadly, its expected.

You know what I'm saying?

:D

[Medievalist]

People aren't ashamed anymore when they are caught. It's that pervasive. In fact, sadly, its expected.

This seems to be unfortunately the case, and I really can't bear it. I'm not kidding when I say this is the central reason I'm going to finish my dissertation but not seek an academic appointment.

In order to send a plagiarizing student to the dean of students for an inquiry and possible disciplinary action, I must thoroughly document the infraction, including finding the source(s) the student used. Finding the source is fairly easy if they used the Internet, less easy if they've used books (though I usually succeed) and almost impossible if they've purchased a paper from a mill. The ability to purchase papers means the wealthy students are more likely to successfully plagiarize because they can afford paper mills.

Once I've documented the evidence (which is time consuming), the student if it's a first offense will likely be given an online course on "academic integrity" and allowed to rewrite the paper. This just seems wrong to me; I think they should have to take a 0 (not an F, a 0).

If Mommy and Daddy are wealthy, they bring an attorney to defend junior, and often, threaten and even attempt to sue me.

And the most grueling aspect of this, for me, is that I will read any draft a student gives me as if I were going to grade it, with very full comments, and then I'll sit down and talk to the student. I always have some way to allow students to revise their papers for a new grade, as well. I'm lenient about extensions.

There's absolutely no need to plagiarize.

They do it anyway. And it's not at all fair to the students who maybe only got a C or a B- but you know, they work and then they go home and have to help with their siblings or their kids, so they don't have much time, but they really do try. And it's entirely their own work.

[Nateskate]

This seems to be unfortunately the case, and I really can't bear it. I'm not kidding when I say this is the central reason I'm going to finish my dissertation but not seek an academic appointment.

In order to send a plagiarizing student to the dean of students for an inquiry and possible disciplinary action, I must thoroughly document the infraction, including finding the source(s) the student used. Finding the source is fairly easy if they used the Internet, less easy if they've used books (though I usually succeed) and almost impossible if they've purchased a paper from a mill. The ability to purchase papers means the wealthy students are more likely to successfully plagiarize because they can afford paper mills.

Once I've documented the evidence (which is time consuming), the student if it's a first offense will likely be given an online course on "academic integrity" and allowed to rewrite the paper. This just seems wrong to me; I think they should have to take a 0 (not an F, a 0).

If Mommy and Daddy are wealthy, they bring an attorney to defend junior, and often, threaten and even attempt to sue me.

And the most grueling aspect of this, for me, is that I will read any draft a student gives me as if I were going to grade it, with very full comments, and then I'll sit down and talk to the student. I always have some way to allow students to revise their papers for a new grade, as well. I'm lenient about extensions.

There's absolutely no need to plagiarize.

They do it anyway. And it's not at all fair to the students who maybe only got a C or a B- but you know, they work and then they go home and have to help with their siblings or their kids, so they don't have much time, but they really do try. And it's entirely their own work.

It all depends on what excites a person. Teachers love to teach like writers like to write, and generally its like many things, a trade off. So there is a need to evalute each situation. "Is the trade off worth it here?" The answer to that question depends on where you teach, and what your students are like.

My wife loves to teach, and has some great classes. Others stink. And I'll generally hear about both, but mostly the ones that give her the most garbage.

I like to teach, and although I don't teach in a school setting, to me, teaching is somewhat like writing. It floats my boat. But again, you are right, in some settings with some students, its wearisome.

[Mistook]

Welcome aboard, Fictionalizer! :)


That was a great anecdote. There's nothing better than sticking to your guns and pleasing your harshest critic in the process.

[Euan H.]

@ Medievalist,

You have my sympathy. I teach writing to freshmen students (second language speakers), and my single biggest headache (aside from students not having the basic grammar skills) is plagiarism.

We're only now starting to get on top of it--and this is with 1) nearly ten percent of the class time in the first two courses devoted to citing and documenting sources, and 2) automatic penalties of a zero for the paper for first offence, then an F for the course for the second offense, then F for all courses that semester for the third.

Surprisingly enough, given the reputation of the country I live and work in (Thailand) for corruption, the penalties are enforced fairly rigorously. When the students are caught, they still have the grace to act ashamed, even if you can tell they're only doing it for your benefit.

...and almost impossible if they've purchased a paper from a mill....
This is where the interview comes in. "So, why don't you go ahead and summarise the major points in your paper for me. No, you can't look at it."

Often does the trick.

If Mommy and Daddy are wealthy, they bring an attorney to defend junior, and often, threaten and even attempt to sue me.

This would just kill me. Bad enough they cheat, but to try and sue your way out of it?

Unbelievable.

[Medievalist]

This is where the interview comes in. "So, why don't you go ahead and summarise the major points in your paper for me. No, you can't look at it."

That's not enough for the dean's office, and I can't really blame them, given the frequency of litigiousness. I must have the source, so unless the student confesses and reveals the source, even if I and the Dean agree the paper is plagiarized, there's nothing I can do. I'm not allowed to penalize the student; that has to be done through the Dean's office, though I'd probably be consulted.

[Fictionalizer]

Great story. I'm fascinated, because when push comes to shove, second to Parents, no one has the ability to make or break a person than teachers or coaches. Kids need someone in their corner. Often times, as we see today, its not their parents. And increasingly its not their teachers, because they are overwhelmed with class sizes...etc. So, you can have a self-esteem crises which is like being in a pit. When all of the major influences send the same negative message, it puts some people into a perpetual rut.

I was surprised about her thoughts on dark and moody prose, when there is an entire sub-culture that drinks the stuff like its water.

In a sense, if you followed other conversations we've had, this teacher would have told Kurt Cobain of Nirvana that there was no market for his music, when in fact he wrote cultural anthems for his time.

The teacher loved the "beautiful poem" she forced out of me. It took me over a week to finish a five line poem. It began,

'Verdant seas of grasses swaying in the wind ...'

Although nice sounding it wasn't me.

She didn't manage to squelch all my creativity though. I began to journal in 1978. I still keep a journal today however most of my time goes towards writing and editing my manuscripts. I have three books going at once. Unlike my struggles with forced poetry and prose assignments in that teacher's class, I can write 2,500 words in two hours in my genre. And most important, I enjoy it. I even enjoy the editing process.

[Nateskate]

The teacher loved the "beautiful poem" she forced out of me. It took me over a week to finish a five line poem. It began,

'Verdant seas of grasses swaying in the wind ...'

Although nice sounding it wasn't me.

She didn't manage to squelch all my creativity though. I began to journal in 1978. I still keep a journal today however most of my time goes towards writing and editing my manuscripts. I have three books going at once. Unlike my struggles with forced poetry and prose assignments in that teacher's class, I can write 2,500 words in two hours in my genre. And most important, I enjoy it. I even enjoy the editing process.

My friend recently took her journal, and reworked it, and published it.

[Nateskate]

That's not enough for the dean's office, and I can't really blame them, given the frequency of litigiousness. I must have the source, so unless the student confesses and reveals the source, even if I and the Dean agree the paper is plagiarized, there's nothing I can do. I'm not allowed to penalize the student; that has to be done through the Dean's office, though I'd probably be consulted.

My wife had to deal with this. It wasn't just her decision. She had proof they plagiarized. They were caught red-handed. She'd have tossed them out of the program, but the choice goes up the ladder. If her "chair" fears a lawsuit, or the Dean, then it doesn't matter if my wife wants them to fail the course. When it comes to discipline, sometimes the school won't back you. And the bottom line is they fear lawsuits more than they want to enforce justice. So, they always find some slap on the hand solution, having to make-up the test...etc. Extending the deadline and giving them an "Incomplete" instead of failing them.

My wife teaches in an extremely competative graduate program. If they fail two courses they are out of the program. So it isn't like some places where you can stay in school for seven years until you get it right. Perhaps on some level, you might find an otherwise good student who did something stupid, and you weigh their overall investment, but in some cases they are just terrible students who are slacking their way through trying to get away with murder.

[Jamesaritchie]

I didn't have a teacher to discourage me, I actually did it to myself. I've always loved to write but I thought it'd be easier to write short articles than a full novel. So, I choose Journalism over English. It just seemed more exciting and I still got to write.

It wasn't until about a year before graduating that I realized my mistake. But, it's never too late.

I think journalism is the best possible major for anyone who wants to be a writer. Many of our best writers were journalists. I majored in journalism and in English, and aisde from all the great books we read in English lit, I learned more about writing from journalism than I did from all the English writing courses.

[DavidJ]

I've spent about a quarter century since college feeling indadequate about my writing skills having been told by a writing teacher I wasn't any good...and I probably wasn't--but is that what teachers are supposed to tell you? I've spent all that time convinced I'm not a good writer. This has lingered in spite of making my living by writing communications in general--as a journalist in the US Army, decades of work as a communicator, etc., etc...I've never felt 'good' about what I can do. Others tell me I'm a good writer--I've been thinking they were simply 'blowing smoke.'

Recently, though, I'm starting to feel better about the idea of writing...ever since I wrote and delivered my father's eulogy about a month ago. But that's not the only reason...part of it is what has come since his death...reconnecting with extended family for the first time in decades...and finally beginning to understand my own personal history, my family's history--my own story, if you will. The puzzle of my life is being assembled. I'm becoming more sure of my place in the world.

Out of that comes a desire...a need...to write something about the unhappy family of which I'm a part. Now, I have to decide to act. And then act.

[Nateskate]

I've spent about a quarter century since college feeling indadequate about my writing skills having been told by a writing teacher I wasn't any good...and I probably wasn't--but is that what teachers are supposed to tell you? I've spent all that time convinced I'm not a good writer. This has lingered in spite of making my living by writing communications in general--as a journalist in the US Army, decades of work as a communicator, etc., etc...I've never felt 'good' about what I can do. Others tell me I'm a good writer--I've been thinking they were simply 'blowing smoke.'

Recently, though, I'm starting to feel better about the idea of writing...ever since I wrote and delivered my father's eulogy about a month ago. But that's not the only reason...part of it is what has come since his death...reconnecting with extended family for the first time in decades...and finally beginning to understand my own personal history, my family's history--my own story, if you will. The puzzle of my life is being assembled. I'm becoming more sure of my place in the world.

Out of that comes a desire...a need...to write something about the unhappy family of which I'm a part. Now, I have to decide to act. And then act.

Hi Dave. My father also passed away a short time ago. Sorry to hear about your loss.

Chances are, from what you say, your teacher was just another voice in your life that was negative?

It's possible that we (me included) looked outside the home for validation of some sort, and were simply disappointed. One of the problems in life is that some people are not generally insightful. Some teachers are well meaning, but they don't necessarily realize what each student needs, or how much impact a positive word or a negative word will have on a student.

Someone with a great deal of self esteem and confidence aren't going to be blown away if a teacher says they aren't good at something. Others will be derailed by comments like that. Chances are, your teacher missed the boat if you made a living writing.

[arrowqueen]

The only good thing about so-called 'teachers' like that is that, with a bit of luck, they'll instill in you the sheer bloody-minded determination to prove the buggers wrong!

:Soapbox:

aq

[Fictionalizer]

My friend recently took her journal, and reworked it, and published it.

That's an idea. Mine would take a big rework. It spans nearly thirty years. Some of those years I wrote two or three 175 page journals. Did she publish a single book? A series might be interesting.

My current project is a journal of sorts. I've got three books going at once. They are a sequel and a result of NaNoWriMo. That online challenge gave me the incentive to write a book. That single book became two. I am 2/3 through the third book.

[Nateskate]

That's an idea. Mine would take a big rework. It spans nearly thirty years. Some of those years I wrote two or three 175 page journals. Did she publish a single book? A series might be interesting.

My current project is a journal of sorts. I've got three books going at once. They are a sequel and a result of NaNoWriMo. That online challenge gave me the incentive to write a book. That single book became two. I am 2/3 through the third book.

She wrote of a period of life, her struggle with cancer. She published it as a book.

My thoughts on this is that if you are going to write a story about your life, its always best to pick an interesting point, and then you might use flashbacks of other points.

I encouraged one friend to write a book about his life, and its a compelling story. He just hasn't mastered the way to tell it. But I also told him, "You should wait, because you have to complete the last chapter.

People like seeing how people overcame adversity, not how they wallow in it. So, if the story is, "I'm in the gutter because of Ma and Pa," and you are still in the proverbial gutter, your experiences are only going to pull people down in the gutter with you. However, if you got out of the gutter, and find interresting annecdotes that can help others figure out how to get out of their gutter, you have an audience.

I can tell absolutely fabulous stories about parts of my life, but here's what I wouldn't want to do. I wouldn't want a jukebox where every song is a sad song. There has to be a bit of redemption and happiness in there. And at one point in my life that was exactly how it felt. I realized my story was interesting, but had to wait until I overcame adversity, and overcame the bitterness. Now I can tell some pretty deeply dark events and even make people laugh in the telling, because I overcame the pain.

Here's an idea. Some people use their past as a platform. But generally, these people are in somewhat of a self-help/emotional healing Genre. What they write is a compelling story, but if they write like my friend was writing, although they had something powerful to say, it just sounded like a ladder down to a pit, where life just went from bad to worse, to worser, to worsest, to worserest, and to whatever is beyond worserestestes.

[Nateskate]

The only good thing about so-called 'teachers' like that is that, with a bit of luck, they'll instill in you the sheer bloody-minded determination to prove the buggers wrong!

:Soapbox:

aq

Amen sister!

[Mistook]

People like seeing how people overcame adversity, not how they wallow in it. So, if the story is, "I'm in the gutter because of Ma and Pa," and you are still in the proverbial gutter, your experiences are only going to pull people down in the gutter with you. However, if you got out of the gutter, and find interresting annecdotes that can help others figure out how to get out of their gutter, you have an audience.



Yes but some-times the writing of the book is itself the way to overcome adversity. By that I do not mean that writing can be theraputic and help a person work out issues. I mean you can take lemons and make lemonade. Telling the story of adversity with dark wit, sardonic humor, etc, can make for a best-seller.

This isn't a literary example, but look at the success of the TV show MASH. For nine years we couldn't get enough of those depressed people in that very awful situation. Hawkeye had no power to "overcome" the Korean War. His struggle was to deal with it, and to care for wounded.

Corporal Klinger (sp?) tried very hard to overcome the war by wearing women's clothes to get himself a section eight. It never worked. They just couldn't spare him.

Well anyway, I think a mountain of adversity can make a great fulcrum for the long, long lever of a story positioned to move the earth.

[Nateskate]

Yes but some-times the writing of the book is itself the way to overcome adversity. By that I do not mean that writing can be theraputic and help a person work out issues. I mean you can take lemons and make lemonade. Telling the story of adversity with dark wit, sardonic humor, etc, can make for a best-seller.

This isn't a literary example, but look at the success of the TV show MASH. For nine years we couldn't get enough of those depressed people in that very awful situation. Hawkeye had no power to "overcome" the Korean War. His struggle was to deal with it, and to care for wounded.

Corporal Klinger (sp?) tried very hard to overcome the war by wearing women's clothes to get himself a section eight. It never worked. They just couldn't spare him.

Well anyway, I think a mountain of adversity can make a great fulcrum for the long, long lever of a story positioned to move the earth.

I'd say that the worst thing to do with "pain" is repression. So, expression can bring a degree of healing. And in journaling, some people work out there issues.

Obviously what I said may not apply to anyone who reads this, but I tend to talk like there's a t.v audience reading this, and that everything I say will apply to someone.

Writing wasn't the issue. Writing something that will appeal to readers was the issue. And in some cases, if you have an audience that is frustrated and looking for catharsis, which you find in politics these days, Venting can be popular. "Yeah...those...B#sT*rds....I hope they all rot..."

Apart from the fact that I prefer a bit of redemption in life, I'm also speaking to human nature. SNL did a skit. I think it was called "Downer Debbie"??? In it, this woman always anticipated the negative outcome of things. Take any issue, such as "Wow... Dad is going to start a "Wendies" Franchise....we'll be rich." And she would say, "Yeah, it will probably be in a low traffic area. We'll not only wind up losing our shirts...but will end up getting sued...what if a sink hole swallows the building..."

From a human nature standpoint, we are generally drawn towards hope rather than despair. However, we like hope that is against a high degree of difficulty, such as throwing the ring into the fiery pits of Mordor. So, in a general sense, if someone wants a "large audience", a "My life was the pits" story must focus on "WAS", not "IS". So, if I write to work out my pain, that might work for me. I expressed it, which is like sucking out the poison. But if I want someone to stay with me for twenty chapters, they have to have this idea that somewhere something good came from the garbage he endured for so many years.

[Count_LeCo]

My 7th grade English teacher wrote at the bottom of a story I had written for Halloween, "Brian, you have great talents. I just wish you'd use your powers for good instead of evil."

I still laugh when I think about that. Only nowadays I guess she gets her revenge since I don't laugh maniacally anymore.

[Nateskate]

My 7th grade English teacher wrote at the bottom of a story I had written for Halloween, "Brian, you have great talents. I just wish you'd use your powers for good instead of evil."

I still laugh when I think about that. Only nowadays I guess she gets her revenge since I don't laugh maniacally anymore.

Actually that sounded like a compliment, being that in 7th grade, few kids aspire to the norms of the prior generation. I know I didn't, and went far south (into rebellion), before turning north looking for balance. Heck, if they printed my teen thoughts-if I honestly expressed them-they'd have locked me away. One of my real beliefs of the time, "Nobody really loves anyone else...they just mutually abuse each other..." Meaning that all people opperate from a purely selfish-self-centered core, and never do any good simply because of a pure motive to do good. (Cynics 101)

If you don't mind, I would love to hear an elaboration of how your writing didn't fit her mold. Also, I'd like to hear if you went on in the same vein, and used your talents for good or evil? (By her standards?)

[pconsidine]

The majority of my formal education is in Fine Arts – another source for some really interesting experiences. I once had a drawing professor take me outside and curse me up and down the hallway (not sparing the F-words either) for "distracting" one of the other students (a girl who had a serious crush on me and spent class trying to talk to me instead of drawing). I also had a professor who took such a strong dislike to me that the highest grade I ever got from him was a B+ (on a project that eventually won a Best in Show award that year).

What I learned from this (and what I tell all my students and anyone studying the arts) is that the grade you earn is only a measurement of how well you have satisfied the teacher's criteria. It is in no way a measure of the worth of the piece. If you're lucky, the teacher's criteria correlate to the worth of the piece, but it's never guaranteed.

The words of a true bitter art school graduate.

[Nateskate]

The majority of my formal education is in Fine Arts – another source for some really interesting experiences. I once had a drawing professor take me outside and curse me up and down the hallway (not sparing the F-words either) for "distracting" one of the other students (a girl who had a serious crush on me and spent class trying to talk to me instead of drawing). I also had a professor who took such a strong dislike to me that the highest grade I ever got from him was a B+ (on a project that eventually won a Best in Show award that year).

What I learned from this (and what I tell all my students and anyone studying the arts) is that the grade you earn is only a measurement of how well you have satisfied the teacher's criteria. It is in no way a measure of the worth of the piece. If you're lucky, the teacher's criteria correlate to the worth of the piece, but it's never guaranteed.

The words of a true bitter art school graduate.

Well said. But to be fair, which of us testosterone laden males wouldn't have taken a B+ for the girl our heart's desired? Heck, I'd have taken a C-, honesty, I'd have gone to summer school and made up the course!

[pconsidine]

Unfortunately, two different teachers, Nate. Interestingly enough, I got pretty fair grades from the Swearing Guy.

[Nateskate]

Unfortunately, two different teachers, Nate. Interestingly enough, I got pretty fair grades from the Swearing Guy.

Surprisingly, swearing teachers are pretty generous graders.

[Count_LeCo]

Actually that sounded like a compliment, being that in 7th grade, few kids aspire to the norms of the prior generation. I know I didn't, and went far south (into rebellion), before turning north looking for balance. Heck, if they printed my teen thoughts-if I honestly expressed them-they'd have locked me away. One of my real beliefs of the time, "Nobody really loves anyone else...they just mutually abuse each other..." Meaning that all people opperate from a purely selfish-self-centered core, and never do any good simply because of a pure motive to do good. (Cynics 101)

If you don't mind, I would love to hear an elaboration of how your writing didn't fit her mold. Also, I'd like to hear if you went on in the same vein, and used your talents for good or evil? (By her standards?)


To be honest Nateskate, her remark about following good over evil wasn't in reference so much to my writing as to my person. I was just a general pain in the @ss in those days. But my writing was good and I think in general my nature was good. She saw those two things and encouraged me to give up the antics and realize that I was good. She wanted me to turn around before I ended up in serious trouble.

[Count_LeCo]

The worst remarks I ever got on writing came from my uncle, a psychology professor. We were sitting in my grandparents' living room at Christmas. I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and had just finished a long short story that took all summer to write. I was excited about writing and starting to think about college.

"Uncle D, what's the best college major for writers?"

"Pizza-delivery."

He basically told me that majoring in English was pointless, about as useful as majoring in basket-weaving (well probably less so, since at least then I'd know a trade). He said if I majored in English I'd end up an English teacher, and there were too many of those already.

He said my chances of making a living writing were next to zero, not because of any lack on my part, but because of market forces.

So that day I left behind the idea of studying creative writing and English, and now, 10 years later and gainfully, though unhappily employed, I find myself returning to the idea.


Of course now I realize his words probably came out of his bitterness over the hard work/low pay/ lack of tenure that was his life's reality.

[Nateskate]

To be honest Nateskate, her remark about following good over evil wasn't in reference so much to my writing as to my person. I was just a general pain in the @ss in those days. But my writing was good and I think in general my nature was good. She saw those two things and encouraged me to give up the antics and realize that I was good. She wanted me to turn around before I ended up in serious trouble.

Did her remarks have any impact? I'm not sure what your situation was. When I went through the lost years, turning from teacher's pet, to teacher's nightmare. It was mostly reactional, in that sometimes if you don't feel you fit in or people believe in you, you tend to become somewhat "me against the world." I wanted a lifeline, but wasn't quite sure what I'd do with it. I had straight As in Trigonometry, in a class where everyone else was tanking. She was the toughest teacher in the school, and I became the class pet. I decided I'd rather fit in with the peer group than have an A, and sabotaged myself. I became such a prick (class clown) that I made the teacher fail me. In fact, I ended up cutting nearly half the next schoolyear. And mostly it wasn't because I disliked school or teachers. I simply didn't know where I fit into life.

[Nateskate]

The worst remarks I ever got on writing came from my uncle, a psychology professor. We were sitting in my grandparents' living room at Christmas. I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and had just finished a long short story that took all summer to write. I was excited about writing and starting to think about college.

"Uncle D, what's the best college major for writers?"

"Pizza-delivery."

He basically told me that majoring in English was pointless, about as useful as majoring in basket-weaving (well probably less so, since at least then I'd know a trade). He said if I majored in English I'd end up an English teacher, and there were too many of those already.

He said my chances of making a living writing were next to zero, not because of any lack on my part, but because of market forces.

So that day I left behind the idea of studying creative writing and English, and now, 10 years later and gainfully, though unhappily employed, I find myself returning to the idea.


Of course now I realize his words probably came out of his bitterness over the hard work/low pay/ lack of tenure that was his life's reality.

Bitterness is like a virus. It spreads. I'm glad you turned things around. In my previous post, I mentioned tanking in school. The primary issue was bitterness. I been hurt by so many authority figures in my life, that I decided I wanted no part of the school. It was also the "anti-establishment" years of the late sixties, early seventies. But like yourself, I ended up with option "B", not the courses I should have had.

[Vipersniper]

:Sun: I had some extremely good teachers in highschool but I had one in the third grade that probably should have never taught a dog much less children. Funny how she is the one that stands out now. She said that I would never amount to anything and she was harsh in her teaching. She lost her tenure after she cut a curl of mine off and invoked the wrath of my mother. She was fired from her job. But my highschool English teachers were very helpful. My favorite teacher was the one who taught me how to read and how to interpet what I read. She was strict but I still honor her today. But a child only echoes what they have been taught.

[E.G. Gammon]

She lost her tenure after she cut a curl of mine off and invoked the wrath of my mother. She was fired from her job.

WOW, I can't believe your teacher would cut off a piece of your hair! That's just horrible! Who knows what else she might have done, to other students before you...

[Nateskate]

:Sun: I had some extremely good teachers in highschool but I had one in the third grade that probably should have never taught a dog much less children. Funny how she is the one that stands out now. She said that I would never amount to anything and she was harsh in her teaching. She lost her tenure after she cut a curl of mine off and invoked the wrath of my mother. She was fired from her job. But my highschool English teachers were very helpful. My favorite teacher was the one who taught me how to read and how to interpet what I read. She was strict but I still honor her today. But a child only echoes what they have been taught.

You wonder how anyone can tell a third grader they aren't going to amount to anything. Whether its immature overreaction, or a belief that this is some means of lighting a fire under someone, it's a rather terrible thing to say.

I think some people have pondered only their lit/english/grammar teachers, because it relates to writing, but generally you will find some people in any subject who should never have been permitted to work with children.

[pconsidine]

Bitterness is like a virus. It spreads.

That's the primary reason that I've always be totally up front about my own bitterness. It's the only way to avoid infecting others with it. Of course, I don't teach anymore, so it's not so much of a problem.

I've also noticed that a lot of bitter teachers are really just jealous of their students, whose lives and choices are still ahead of them. Just one more reason that good teachers are so rare.

[reph]

"Uncle D, what's the best college major for writers?"

"Pizza-delivery."

He basically told me that majoring in English was pointless, about as useful as majoring in basket-weaving (well probably less so, since at least then I'd know a trade). He said if I majored in English I'd end up an English teacher, and there were too many of those already.
The way you report this encounter with your uncle, he sounds like a mean old man, but here's another way to look at it: His view may have come from experience with university English departments. Perhaps he was warning you that majoring in English wouldn't go far to prepare you for professional writing. I believe that's true. Pizza delivery, however, provides life experience...

[TemlynWriting]

The worst remarks I ever got on writing came from my uncle, a psychology professor. We were sitting in my grandparents' living room at Christmas. I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and had just finished a long short story that took all summer to write. I was excited about writing and starting to think about college.

"Uncle D, what's the best college major for writers?"

"Pizza-delivery."

He basically told me that majoring in English was pointless, about as useful as majoring in basket-weaving (well probably less so, since at least then I'd know a trade). He said if I majored in English I'd end up an English teacher, and there were too many of those already.

He said my chances of making a living writing were next to zero, not because of any lack on my part, but because of market forces.

So that day I left behind the idea of studying creative writing and English, and now, 10 years later and gainfully, though unhappily employed, I find myself returning to the idea.


Of course now I realize his words probably came out of his bitterness over the hard work/low pay/ lack of tenure that was his life's reality.

I cannot count the number of times I've been asked (upon having explained my major: English), "So, do you want to teach?"

(No offense intended to any teachers, as teaching is something I have considered for the future, but...)

No! If I'd wanted to teach, I'd have majored in English EDUCATION, since you need to be certified to teach. There is a separate major for those specifically with that intention. I originally studied journalism, but was enchanted with the creativity of the English department. Journalism majors don't get those questions, so why do English majors? Mind you, I did take an assortment of journalism-related courses, and my English classes (aside from the token literature classes) also were very writing-oriented, so I was taught quite a bit about the writing field, and had professors who prepared me not just for creative writing, but also for short non-fiction work. I probably would have stayed in the Journalism department, had it been a larger and better-prepared department at the two colleges I attended. The Communications department (which headed Journalism) consisted mainly of every other facet of communications, especially radio/television, and very little focus on journalism.

My parents thought a business degree would be nice. I actually started out in Music (Vocal Performance emphasis), but as much as I loved it, I didn't fit in with a lot of the really competitive people in the department. When I told my parents of my wish to switch to English, while they couldn't understand why, they were supportive. To some it may seem like a joke-worthy useless degree, but I am doing what I love. I am writing. One day I may choose to teach, but not now. And you know, there aren't enough GOOD English teachers. There are some bad ones, but we could use a few more good ones. If I ever do teach, I want to be an inspiring teacher, like the excellent English professors I've had.

[Nateskate]

That's the primary reason that I've always be totally up front about my own bitterness. It's the only way to avoid infecting others with it. Of course, I don't teach anymore, so it's not so much of a problem.

I've also noticed that a lot of bitter teachers are really just jealous of their students, whose lives and choices are still ahead of them. Just one more reason that good teachers are so rare.


We live in a generation of increasing bitterness. I've been ruthless with my own bitterness, because it always hurt me more than it ever hurt anyone else. Bitterness and resentment are the evil twins who steal people's joy and become like a prison. But it has such deep roots, that often it's more than just a choice alone. It takes a great deal of insight, and motivation.

I once talked to a friend about dealing with his own bitterness, and he said, "Yeah, but you don't know what my parents were like" (besides the point). In other words, he was saying, "My parents still own me and have power over my life." "I deserve to feel this miserable because I was abused."

I told him point blank, don't deal with your bitterness because they deserve it. Perhaps they don't and never will deserve forgiveness and giving up your judgments (critical anger- my mother's a slob, my father's a raging alcoholic b#st#rd) You don't do it for them. You do it for you, the spouse you hope to have some day, the kids you don't want to be in counseling, and for all the people you'd want to positively influence. Just a thought. That was the kind of motivations that caused me to deal with these things. And honestly, life just is so much better when you cut those chains to the past.

[Vipersniper]

:Headbang: My third grade teacher was run out of the room by my mama when she came to school with her mop. Now I would have rather have the police lock me up before I took a note home from the teacher but the children in her class feared her. She found out though that mamas with mop could teach too. I was lucky that my seventh grade teacher while she was strict on us she taught us to read and most important she taught us how to decipher what we read. For me that opened the doors through books to go places I could only dream of. Plus she also taught me when I tried to make coal to look things up and research it. She chuckled when I told her that I had waited two years for the tree branch that I buried to turn into coal. Boy was I surprised but she really taught the rest of her students well.

[Nateskate]

:Headbang: My third grade teacher was run out of the room by my mama when she came to school with her mop. Now I would have rather have the police lock me up before I took a note home from the teacher but the children in her class feared her. She found out though that mamas with mop could teach too. I was lucky that my seventh grade teacher while she was strict on us she taught us to read and most important she taught us how to decipher what we read. For me that opened the doors through books to go places I could only dream of. Plus she also taught me when I tried to make coal to look things up and research it. She chuckled when I told her that I had waited two years for the tree branch that I buried to turn into coal. Boy was I surprised but she really taught the rest of her students well.

Sounds like a good magazine story. Moma and the Mop.

[Vipersniper]

:snoopy: I did write an article about it and I am putting it into my biography of my wacky and crazy family. It is called Family Tree and no we are not the Waltons. Mama gave whole new meaning to PTA but that teacher gave me a complex for years. Now I have a guy that says he is prophet of God and that I have no apptitude for writing but he belongs to a company that wants thousands of dollars to teach me how to write and obey God. Irritating little son of a Belial. I admit that I made a mistake in chosing my first publisher but the book is in the library at University of Tenn., and the University of Longwood. I could have written it better I think but it is a matter of getting my rights back or just waiting out the six years. I did inform Trellix Mailer that if I needed courses or books that I would buy them from the people here on this site.

[Nateskate]

:snoopy: I did write an article about it and I am putting it into my biography of my wacky and crazy family. It is called Family Tree and no we are not the Waltons. Mama gave whole new meaning to PTA but that teacher gave me a complex for years. Now I have a guy that says he is prophet of God and that I have no apptitude for writing but he belongs to a company that wants thousands of dollars to teach me how to write and obey God. Irritating little son of a Belial. I admit that I made a mistake in chosing my first publisher but the book is in the library at University of Tenn., and the University of Longwood. I could have written it better I think but it is a matter of getting my rights back or just waiting out the six years. I did inform Trellix Mailer that if I needed courses or books that I would buy them from the people here on this site.

Are you serious? Heck, we'd all tell you about God for free. You have to be leery of prophets who charge for their services.

[Vipersniper]

:guns: Oh yes I am deadly serious that he did that. He went to a site that my husband built for me and got the email. Now I use to write on useless knowledge but I stopped when my picture was posted without my permission and I started getting these messages from this particular fanatical group. Plus I maintained my copyright freedom and artistic freedom against that editor because he thought that he had exclusive rights. Then they started sending me hate mail which I turned over to the Secret Service because of threats and the threat came from Gitmo Prison and these guys think that a woman has no place in the church. I was thrown out of a church for advocating a woman minster who is also an author. Best thing that ever happened. I am a person of faith so I told him that I was evoking the blood of the lamb and to flee from me. They said that I was a harlot in the first degree and I said well at least I am first. I have a feeling one of them is from the church and once we track down the email server there will be a surprise. They then started calling us and we got a call from a PrePaid legal service another scam thing but that is another story. I really think these guys have no life and they just want to irritate those of that do. Oh and he complained about my husband's spelling while putting this on the email.
Yo b##%% yo can't rite worth%$73w. I am going to come to your house and smack you down you harlot of the first degree. My I love it when they give me a new kill. Hope he does because this country cousin learned from mama how to shoot and swing a mop.

[Nateskate]

:guns: Oh yes I am deadly serious that he did that. He went to a site that my husband built for me and got the email. Now I use to write on useless knowledge but I stopped when my picture was posted without my permission and I started getting these messages from this particular fanatical group. Plus I maintained my copyright freedom and artistic freedom against that editor because he thought that he had exclusive rights. Then they started sending me hate mail which I turned over to the Secret Service because of threats and the threat came from Gitmo Prison and these guys think that a woman has no place in the church. I was thrown out of a church for advocating a woman minster who is also an author. Best thing that ever happened. I am a person of faith so I told him that I was evoking the blood of the lamb and to flee from me. They said that I was a harlot in the first degree and I said well at least I am first. I have a feeling one of them is from the church and once we track down the email server there will be a surprise. They then started calling us and we got a call from a PrePaid legal service another scam thing but that is another story. I really think these guys have no life and they just want to irritate those of that do. Oh and he complained about my husband's spelling while putting this on the email.
Yo b##%% yo can't rite worth%$73w. I am going to come to your house and smack you down you harlot of the first degree. My I love it when they give me a new kill. Hope he does because this country cousin learned from mama how to shoot and swing a mop.

Second rule of thumb. Always be leery of people who call other people harlots and preface a sentence, "You are going to hell..."

I'm not against spirituality in the least, but there is something I dislike about immaturity, and people who really miss the "spirit" of the teaching. In fact, Jesus hung out with people called harlots and winebibbers, and the only time I think he used that term in a derogatory way, was in reference to spiritual harlotry.

Well, that was obviously free of charge. Some prophets are free (No, I'm joking...in case anyone takes my sense of humor too serious) that'll be $5.95 (Joking again)- Lord please forgive me! (Not joking)

Even if they have a problem with your theological view, slinging phrases like that is a rather immature responce to a disagreement.

[Vipersniper]

:crazy: My new minster laughs when I tell him this story and he said my best revenge is the one liner used for a bumper sticker. One that they said they liked in which I put this. "My family tried to be Baptists but they found out that they had to be teetolalers so they all became Methodists."

I go to a Methodist country church. I grew up with this guy and he is a retired Lt. Colonel in the Army. My chaplain friend mentor said that the best way is to get even. She is a card too. Yes I think they allow as another cousin said the organ between their legs over rule the organ between their ears. Someone sent a picture of that preacher to his wife when he was found at another woman's house hehe. My husband just grows at them. They think he is nuts and want to save his soul but he knows more about the bible than they do. Mama again once a preacher came to the house and told her she was going to hell for some sin or another. Mama did not like holy rollers and I hope you know what that term means. But mama just looked him in the eye and told him he was going to hell first. Darn if he did not die that night of a heart attack. But you know what nobody from that church ever rang our door bell again. Mama was a good woman and she had her favorite verses but we all laughed about her giving the evil eye to the holy roller preacher and killing him. David my minister asked me to write articles for Modern Maturity so I am composing a few and a couple of poems for them. The woman minsister at the other Methodist church was a teacher/preacher and mentor. She went to the mat with me when I was seriously ill from cancer. So they should be ashamed of themselves because she could out preach them anyday. I told David that I could preach better drunk than the first preacher. He said most people could we have a great relationship. He is very sick and has a mass on his kidney but I told him that to survive you had to have a sense of humor. Because if you don't then the jerks get you down. I did write a book with the preacher in it and that is the beauty of fiction you can find creative ways to kill off a nasty and not go to trial for it. I think some of them read the book and figured out who the character was but heck I do not care it was the truth but told in a fictional novel about 911. One guy at the flea market told me you know you are funny but he said he knew what I was talking about. I told him you know I would have left that church quietly but they riled me up. For some reason they all thought that was hysterical. I did have an audience down there and I make gemstone jewelry as well as write.

[Zane Curtis]

Surprisingly, swearing teachers are pretty generous graders.

Not surprising to me. I've gone by the principle that you can generally trust someone who'll cuss you up and down when you piss them off. It means they're not holding anything back. They're not saving up every slight and annoyance so they can pay you back later with interest.

:)

[Vipersniper]

:crazy: I agree that I would rather know straight off what it is that makes them angry at you. My seventh grade teacher could do that and so did my Senior English teacher and she was a character too. But in retrospect they wanted the best out of their students and knew that we had the potential to do it. My Senior English teacher gave me a lot of material alone by her style and zany characteristics. But there was one person that lived next door and a church member of the church that I was thrown out of that was like the Jaws shark you were never safe in the water. He reminded me of the male version of a shrew. In fact I really prayed when he was gone for six months that he would stay in Utah so I would not have to go through with my plans to kill him. But he came back and I told the sheriff if I ever figured out a way to do it without his linking it to me I would. He did die and no I will not lie and say that I am sorry because there is peace at least in this neighborhood. He used to irritate the heck out of me the way that he spelled and no matter what you told him he still grossly misspelled words.

[Nateskate]

:crazy: My new minster laughs when I tell him this story and he said my best revenge is the one liner used for a bumper sticker. One that they said they liked in which I put this. "My family tried to be Baptists but they found out that they had to be teetolalers so they all became Methodists."

I go to a Methodist country church. I grew up with this guy and he is a retired Lt. Colonel in the Army. My chaplain friend mentor said that the best way is to get even. She is a card too. Yes I think they allow as another cousin said the organ between their legs over rule the organ between their ears. Someone sent a picture of that preacher to his wife when he was found at another woman's house hehe. My husband just grows at them. They think he is nuts and want to save his soul but he knows more about the bible than they do. Mama again once a preacher came to the house and told her she was going to hell for some sin or another. Mama did not like holy rollers and I hope you know what that term means. But mama just looked him in the eye and told him he was going to hell first. Darn if he did not die that night of a heart attack. But you know what nobody from that church ever rang our door bell again. Mama was a good woman and she had her favorite verses but we all laughed about her giving the evil eye to the holy roller preacher and killing him. David my minister asked me to write articles for Modern Maturity so I am composing a few and a couple of poems for them. The woman minsister at the other Methodist church was a teacher/preacher and mentor. She went to the mat with me when I was seriously ill from cancer. So they should be ashamed of themselves because she could out preach them anyday. I told David that I could preach better drunk than the first preacher. He said most people could we have a great relationship. He is very sick and has a mass on his kidney but I told him that to survive you had to have a sense of humor. Because if you don't then the jerks get you down. I did write a book with the preacher in it and that is the beauty of fiction you can find creative ways to kill off a nasty and not go to trial for it. I think some of them read the book and figured out who the character was but heck I do not care it was the truth but told in a fictional novel about 911. One guy at the flea market told me you know you are funny but he said he knew what I was talking about. I told him you know I would have left that church quietly but they riled me up. For some reason they all thought that was hysterical. I did have an audience down there and I make gemstone jewelry as well as write.

Well, unfortunately it seems some churches aren't much different than Peyton Place, drama and high drama. I'm of the opinion that religion (not singling out any particular religion) has been the cause of the greatest good and the greatest evils in the world. And I'm not saying religion is bad. However, misplaced zeal is worse than misplaced indifference. Perhaps not always directly (as happened in the inquisitions) the cause of the greatest evils, but indirectly through not being the kind of moral voice the world needs. I'm actually very spiritually minded, but also keenly aware of the problems in the churches, religions, and the world in general.

[BlueTexas]

I told him point blank, don't deal with your bitterness because they deserve it. Perhaps they don't and never will deserve forgiveness and giving up your judgments (critical anger- my mother's a slob, my father's a raging alcoholic b#st#rd) You don't do it for them. You do it for you, the spouse you hope to have some day, the kids you don't want to be in counseling, and for all the people you'd want to positively influence. Just a thought. That was the kind of motivations that caused me to deal with these things. And honestly, life just is so much better when you cut those chains to the past.

You've got pearls of wisdom there. Sometimes you have to decide which parts of your past you want to let define you, and which you don't. I know I was much happier when I decided I didn't want to keep all the nasty stuff I had built over the years, thinking it was someone else's fault.

We can't always choose what happens to us; we can choose how we react to it. The rest makes good fodder for writing, anyway!

[EvilRobyn]

I've never had a problem with discouraging teachers over writing. Everyone of them says that I have a talent for creativity in poetry and stories. (I stink at math but that is almost a given) However, also according to all of them, my grammar stinks. Thank whatever gods there be fore beta readers.

[Nateskate]

You've got pearls of wisdom there. Sometimes you have to decide which parts of your past you want to let define you, and which you don't. I know I was much happier when I decided I didn't want to keep all the nasty stuff I had built over the years, thinking it was someone else's fault.

We can't always choose what happens to us; we can choose how we react to it. The rest makes good fodder for writing, anyway!

One of the things I've learned is that you can have two people who had equally horrible childhoods, or traumatic experiences. Yet, both don't suffer equally. One gets over it and moves on. The other wallows in it through twenty years of counseling, and cynically says, "No one can help."

What's the difference? Why do some move on, and others don't? We just aren't designed to handle pent of anger, and those who held onto anger for a long time, linger in their violation. They feel just as cheated at forty as they did at twelve. That's just giving people from the past too much control over your life. If you want to hold them in contempt, you end up holding yourself in prison. And this doesn't mean you will find that redeaming quality in them that makes you want to get warm and fuzzy.

Rather, they could be a monster, or at least seemed like it to you. But you have to understand that every negative in life can be equally a blessing as much as it seemed like a curse. Yet, some people demand that apology from mom, dad, or whomever the evil person is that did the violating, wasn't there, made you feel worse than a moldy crumb.

The issue is that we ultimately must do things for our benefit, and if being angry benefited us, we'd have known it by the time we were forty. But if there's a trainwreck full of lost jobs, addictions, broken relationships, you can ask yourself, "Is this really working for me? Hasn't yet. Probably never will." Then the epiphany, "Hmmm, other people got over it. What's option B?"

[Nateskate]

I've never had a problem with discouraging teachers over writing. Everyone of them says that I have a talent for creativity in poetry and stories. (I stink at math but that is almost a given) However, also according to all of them, my grammar stinks. Thank whatever gods there be fore beta readers.

Thank God you found your gift. Some people don't know what they're good at. No one is good at everything. If they're even close, they stink at humility, and often lack the ability to empathise with others.

[EvilRobyn]

I know I am lucky. It's the technical stuff that drives me nuts. On plus side, since I can also draw, eventually I may get to do my own covers. One day... Lol... First step is to finish the book and get and agent, etc. In any case, I must fly off to Crim. Class, yeck, I have an exam today.

[TemlynWriting]

Second rule of thumb. Always be leery of people who call other people harlots and preface a sentence, "You are going to hell..."

I'm not against spirituality in the least, but there is something I dislike about immaturity, and people who really miss the "spirit" of the teaching. In fact, Jesus hung out with people called harlots and winebibbers, and the only time I think he used that term in a derogatory way, was in reference to spiritual harlotry.

Well, that was obviously free of charge. Some prophets are free (No, I'm joking...in case anyone takes my sense of humor too serious) that'll be $5.95 (Joking again)- Lord please forgive me! (Not joking)

Even if they have a problem with your theological view, slinging phrases like that is a rather immature responce to a disagreement.

Well, unfortunately it seems some churches aren't much different than Peyton Place, drama and high drama. I'm of the opinion that religion (not singling out any particular religion) has been the cause of the greatest good and the greatest evils in the world. And I'm not saying religion is bad. However, misplaced zeal is worse than misplaced indifference. Perhaps not always directly (as happened in the inquisitions) the cause of the greatest evils, but indirectly through not being the kind of moral voice the world needs. I'm actually very spiritually minded, but also keenly aware of the problems in the churches, religions, and the world in general.

Amen and Amen, NateSkate.

I, too, am a believer, but it pains me the so-called "Christians" that are out there giving a bad name to those of us who don't just use the phrase in passing. I tend to prefer the term "God Follower." It's horrible that some "Christians" act so hateful and cruel towards others who may not believe just as they do. That is not Christ-like at all.

[Nateskate]

Amen and Amen, NateSkate.

I, too, am a believer, but it pains me the so-called "Christians" that are out there giving a bad name to those of us who don't just use the phrase in passing. I tend to prefer the term "God Follower." It's horrible that some "Christians" act so hateful and cruel towards others who may not believe just as they do. That is not Christ-like at all.

No matter what term you use, someone somewhere will find a way to corrupt that name and give a negative connotation to the meaning, at least if you give them enough time. Words are so easy to twist, you'd be redefining things add infinitum. Perhaps a philologist would have a field day with this, how the meaning of words constantly change.

[EvilRobyn]

I don't get hung up on names for my faith. One way or anotehr, I dislike all fanatics, no matter what religion including my own. At least my branch is open minded... Probably why we are usually in debt.

[Vipersniper]

:heart: Some of the best writers are spiritually minded and many time we can examine issues and see things from all sides. I have read articles and stories that was written from a person that shunned the organized religon realm. My minister is retiring and I would find it hard to write sermons all the time and some situations you really do not know how to address what is going on around you. Teaching children the essentials of writing sometimes is beneficial to the author. You have a tendency to have a completely fresh view on old subjects.

[Nateskate]

I don't get hung up on names for my faith. One way or anotehr, I dislike all fanatics, no matter what religion including my own. At least my branch is open minded... Probably why we are usually in debt.

I feel like I'm hijacking my own thread, since this isn't the topic of conversation. But since the subject was brought up, I'll say this. I don't mind what you would call enthusiam or dedication in any endeavor. You name it, love, art, spirituality. Passion itself is not a dirty word.

However, when it comes to anything that produces zeal, you have little room for error. If you are going to err at all, why not on the side of forgiveness, mercy, love and compassion? Be generous to a fault. Be zealous to help hurting people if you want to be zealous. Be zealous to be kind helping shut-ins and visiting the sick. There= no harm no foul. If you happened to be a little too zealous, someone benefited, and you might have been "too" loving, if there is any such thing, or "too" forgiving.

On the other hand, if you are zealous for "power, control, manipulation, greed, domination", that's another story altogether. Instead of accidently benefiting too many people, you run the risk of accidently wounding and hurting many people. And what are you going to do if in eternity you find out you shouldn't have bullied, maimed, or whatever nasty things people do in the name of religion, "Well, gee...I thought that was what you wanted...er...you mean...I wasn't supposed to hurt all those people...Oh, you must really not like it when we go around butchering and insulting...Oh, dear...if I knew this, I'd have never..."

Ideology + zeal+ love, mercy, generosity= someone going around the world building orphanages and hospitals, and clothing the sick, feeding the poor.

Or if you replace that desire to help with Ideology+Zeal+ a mandate to dominate rather than to serve, it equals a terribly judgmental bully who goes around oppressing, hurting, tearing down, making misery. Now, common sense tells me that deep down, the love, mercy, generosity package can't be abhorant to a God who makes dolphins, sparrows, lillies, and gives instincts to animals. However, in the back of my mind, I can imagine how a whole lot of people from the other camp are going to have, as Ricky said to Lucy, "a whole lot of splainin to do."

[oswann]

This is all fine with me Nate on being a good person. If beliefs come into the equation this is fine with me also.

But, just to play devils advocate for an instant (no pun intended), what about being a good writer? I nearly asked the question in a cult of personality thread I started, but backed off. So imagine that your favorite writer is an out and out a**hole. The question is; do you need to examine yourself and improve yourself to be a good writer or is the writing seperate?

If I was to be totally honest I would think that writing is writing and the political or spiritual or civic or moral or whatever views of the writer don't come into play. We are told to treat rejection or criticism like this. It is not you being criticized it's your words. So why not judge the writing despite the writer?

Take this idea to the extreme and it becomes a little sticky. :crazy:


Os.

[James D. Macdonald]

Any number of writers, including very talented, famous, brilliant, best-selling writers, are (in person) total a-holes.

It's all black marks on white paper.

Don't take this as permission to become a total a-hole yourself. It's a better ideal to work on the talent and the brilliance.

[Jamesaritchie]

So why not judge the writing despite the writer?

Take this idea to the extreme and it becomes a little sticky. :crazy:


Os.

I think it's extremely dangerous to judge the writer from his writng. It becomes more than a little sticky. As a writer, I can write darned near anything, and I can write it from darned near any point of view, and with any opinion I wish coming to the fore. I can write just as convincingly about things I don't believe as I can about things I do believe.

More, I can firmly believe one thing on Monday, another on Wednesday, and something else that completely contradicts the first two beliefs by Friday. And what I write on Saturday may not go along with any of them.

Just judge the writing. When you start judging the writer, you really are on dangerous ground.

[BlueTexas]

The issue is that we ultimately must do things for our benefit, and if being angry benefited us, we'd have known it by the time we were forty. But if there's a trainwreck full of lost jobs, addictions, broken relationships, you can ask yourself, "Is this really working for me? Hasn't yet. Probably never will." Then the epiphany, "Hmmm, other people got over it. What's option B?"

This is all true, imo. But the last question you wrote is a big thing, and I know a few people who've never gotten enough perspective on their own situation to even get to that question. Some probably never will. And some enjoy the wallowing. It gives them a reason to feel sorry for themselves, and therefore feel put upon and think that the world owes them something. Sad.

[Nateskate]

This is all true, imo. But the last question you wrote is a big thing, and I know a few people who've never gotten enough perspective on their own situation to even get to that question. Some probably never will. And some enjoy the wallowing. It gives them a reason to feel sorry for themselves, and therefore feel put upon and think that the world owes them something. Sad.

If their misery exceeds the gain they get out of wallowing, then they'll do something about the situation. People do things because 1) They don't have any insight how to change their thinking. 2) They aren't motivated to change. And for the most part, people are just unaware what their mental payoff is for wallowing, if they are wallowers.

But long term screwed up people tend to have a different issue. If they've tried this or that, they may simply have given up hope, and believe that change is futile. So, in the end, they are disallusioned and suspect "This is another thing that won't work."

You have to sell them on the belief that change is possible, as long as they want it and are willing to invest enough in it. And you can't be pissing in the wind either, saying, "I have the answer," and hand them ten bumper sticker solutions. "Just try harder...let go..." Well, if you put me on a treadmill for six weeks, and I didn't lose a lb. I'm not wanting to go another six weeks to see if I can repeat that. I want to know why you think this go around will be different.

The term "Downtrodden" comes to mind. If you can convince them, and often by examples of success stories, Why "this will work", generally you can rekindle hope. But people don't need more of the same. "I've spent twenty years with psychiatrists, counselors, ministers...and none of them helped."

Some people simply are convinced they can't be fixed and they have a track record that makes them believe it. And worse yet, some immature counselor who can't bear to admit they don't know all and see all, guilted them by inferring these weren't "Cured" because they didn't try hard enough. Well if you tried for twenty years, that's considered trying "hard" in my book.

[Vipersniper]

:Clap: I agree that you can write on everything if you are using your creative talents enough. Some teachers of mine used many ways to spark interest in their students and others were too lazy to light a cigarette much less ignite a spark in their students. I think that it can be said that the teacher you recall the best is the one that made you work the hardest on the subject in which you were taking. Unecessary criticism does not teach anything except maybe a means to get back at that person. In nursing this can be a very harsh lesson to learn indeed. Because once I had a charge nurse that was an ahole and she wrote a very terse crappy thing at the top of the sheet about me. That statement came back to haunt her when another nurse saw it and turned it into her instructors. It was also used against her in a court room proceedure when a patient sued the nursing home for what she had written. I do not know which nurse turned it in so it was a time when something written by a teacher came back in their face. This can be deadly in the medical profession.

[Nateskate]

:Clap: I agree that you can write on everything if you are using your creative talents enough. Some teachers of mine used many ways to spark interest in their students and others were too lazy to light a cigarette much less ignite a spark in their students. I think that it can be said that the teacher you recall the best is the one that made you work the hardest on the subject in which you were taking. Unecessary criticism does not teach anything except maybe a means to get back at that person. In nursing this can be a very harsh lesson to learn indeed. Because once I had a charge nurse that was an ahole and she wrote a very terse crappy thing at the top of the sheet about me. That statement came back to haunt her when another nurse saw it and turned it into her instructors. It was also used against her in a court room proceedure when a patient sued the nursing home for what she had written. I do not know which nurse turned it in so it was a time when something written by a teacher came back in their face. This can be deadly in the medical profession.

The best happens when you happen to have a good teacher in a subject that you have some apptitude in. I hated reading until I had a fantasy lit class. In fact, I had to take it, and was mad at the time, thinking it would be a waste, but I loved it.

[zeprosnepsid]

My creative writing always went over very well in school. In particular I had a very supportive Junior English teacher. I also had one screenwriting teacher in college who was not particularly inspiring but seemed to like my work (I would complain that he would never give me comments and he said it's because my work never needed any).

But my grammar and such is abismal. And it caused me great trouble in college. Just about every paper I have from college says 'great ideas, terrible writing'. I don't know how I just totally missed grammar all together. My boyfriend is great with copyediting and all that and he checks my stuff and is always pointing out this stuff that I had no idea was wrong.

But as for unsupportive teachers, my gym teacher in like 3rd grade or something was a complete chauvanist. And one of my greatest accomplishments in my life was winning the big obstacle course. When I set a great time he went up to his favorite male gym students and was all 'are you going to let a girl beat you?' and he just couldn't believe a girl won. It's still one of my proudest moments =) If only it had inspired me to stay in shape....

[Nateskate]

But my grammar and such is abismal. And it caused me great trouble in college. Just about every paper I have from college says 'great ideas, terrible writing'. I don't know how I just totally missed grammar all together. My boyfriend is great with copyediting and all that and he checks my stuff and is always pointing out this stuff that I had no idea was wrong.

There's a wide gap between creativity, and grammar. If you rate everyone on a scale of 1-10 on each, I'm certain you'll find some people who have a ten in creativity and a 4-5/10 in grammar.

My guess is that you'll find a lot more published authors who are maybe a 7+7 than a 4+10. But if you have a passion for something, you'll find a way, even if you have to co-write with someone else. There's someone out there with a 10 in grammar and a 3 in creativity, who would love to publish, but can't come up with ideas. It would be like Elton John and Bernie Taupin. One was clearly a better singer, the other a better song writer.

Like yourself, I feel that I am rather lopsided on the creativity side. When I see the grammar threads and how this comes easy to some of these minds here, a part of me does feel a little jealous. But if we were great at everything, we'd be stuck up snobs. Nothing so humbling as a weakness.

[zeprosnepsid]

I always wanted to be a stuck up snob =)

But yeah, at least in fiction, with my writing style, I can get a way with a lot. But I have certainly turned to others for the editing help I know I need.

[BlueTexas]

Like yourself, I feel that I am rather lopsided on the creativity side. When I see the grammar threads and how this comes easy to some of these minds here, a part of me does feel a little jealous. But if we were great at everything, we'd be stuck up snobs. Nothing so humbling as a weakness.

When Reph gets started on a grammar thread, I just sit in awe and learn what I can. All the grammar and style books help, but watching sentences picked apart and discussed is a great help. Especially when someone starts talking about possesive apostrophies..

[Medievalist]

Any number of writers, including very talented, famous, brilliant, best-selling writers, are (in person) total a-holes.

It's all black marks on white paper.

Oh yeah, that's true, both in terms of literary history, and living writers. I worked on e-books when both e-books and I were young and some people--William Gibson, John Grisham, Douglas Adams--were absolutely fabulous. Adams in particular was a joy to work with, and an interesting, caring, person.

But there were others . . . And though you mostly hear about misbehaving fans at SF conventions, there are a couple of authors whose books I might have bought, and did buy in the past, but will never, ever buy again--mostly because of the way they referred to and treated other authors. I've bought books, more than once, because I was impressed by an author's online behavior or something he or she said at a panel.

Don't take this as permission to become a total a-hole yourself. It's a better ideal to work on the talent and the brilliance.

Absolutely. It really does pay. Oh, and don't think agents and editors and artists don't talk about writers and their behavior; they do. You can get a reputation as someone to work with, or one as someone to avoid, unless the money is worth the annoyance of dealing with you.

[Medievalist]

Like yourself, I feel that I am rather lopsided on the creativity side. When I see the grammar threads and how this comes easy to some of these minds here, a part of me does feel a little jealous.

Nate, if I can learn to parse, that is, to take apart and analyze a sentence, and a paragrah, and even a word, anyone can.

Really. I'm profoundly dyslexic, and dysphonetic, which, roughly speaking, means that neither the appearance of text nor the sound of language come easily to me; my brain is mis-wired.

Or the rest of the world is backward . . . ;)

But I can do it. And I've taught other people to parse and analyze as well.

Reph is atypical; don't compare yourself to an ace fighter pilot when you're doing your first solo flight.

The more you write, the more you revise, and think about what the words are doing, and saying, and how they work, the easier it will come. I swear.

[Medievalist]

Just about every paper I have from college says 'great ideas, terrible writing'.

That's a pretty half-witted response from the teacher. To be fair, there's really little or no pedagogy, or instruction about how to teach, given to prospective college teachers. If you're lucky, you'll be a T. A. in grad school and there might be some guidance from a special pedagogy class, or from a mentor.

But that's pretty rare. We don't get a lot of guidance about how to teach, and much of what we do get is theoretical. A lot of the time grad students are deliberately modeling their behavior, in and out of the class room, on the worst teachers, the most arrogant and self-assured and least caring of the faculty.

[Jamesaritchie]

There's someone out there with a 10 in grammar and a 3 in creativity, who would love to publish, but can't come up with ideas. It would be like Elton John and Bernie Taupin. One was clearly a better singer, the other a better song writer.

Like yourself, I feel that I am rather lopsided on the creativity side. When I see the grammar threads and how this comes easy to some of these minds here, a part of me does feel a little jealous. But if we were great at everything, we'd be stuck up snobs. Nothing so humbling as a weakness.

In writing, particularly in writing fiction, I'm not sure it works well to have the creative person be a 4 in grammar. A fiction writer doesn't have to be an expert in grammar, but I think he does have to be pretty knowledgeable, else the creative side just isn't going to emerge very well.

As for grammar coming easy, I suspect it does for some, but I also strongly suspect it just seems this way because of hard work. Grammar is simply somethng a creative writer needs to know. It's the number one tool in the writer's tool chest. If it comes easy, great, but no matter how hard it comes, it still has to be learned.

This means that if it takes opening agrammar books as often as you write or read, then you open grammar books as often as you write and read. Or more often. Whatever it takes.

I suspect most grammar deficient writers make the mistake of tackling grammar books that are too advanced. If you have fifth grade grammar skills, then it's likely you need to start with a fifth grade grammar book, and work up through the grades, maybe an hour a day, exactly as if you were back in school.

As I said, I'm sure there are writers who pick up grammar naturally and easily, but for most writers I've known, it's a matter of dedication and hard work. They put in however many hours, days, weeks, months, or years it takes to learn the required skills.

I've been in this business for twenty-five years, one way or another, and I still study grammar, punctuation, and language every week.

The lucky writers are the ones who paid attention while they were in school, but the rest of us still have to learn, even if it means putting ourselves back in school, figuratively or literally.

[Ella]

I applied and won a spot in a workshop with a famous children's author when I was in grade 5. I wrote a story about skeletons, a ghost story. The reviewer liked my writing, but murdered my topic, telling me...
(wait for it....)

.... Write what you know.

I thought, Jeez, I'm ten, what the hell do I know? If everyone wrote what they knew, there would be no genre other than non-fiction and whining memoirs. That discouraged me for a lot of years.

[James D. Macdonald]

Saying that grammar comes easily to a professional writer is like saying that scales come easily to a professional musician.

But I've also said that, in fiction, all your grammar has to be is workmanlike or better.

If you're shaky on grammar -- there are workbooks, and community-college classes, and all sort of things that can help you get better.

[Writing Again]

The other day I was talking about school, and someone said, "You should grow up and move on. Put all the bad things behind you and get on with your life."

My reply was that there are thousands of kids out there all being battered by the school system in one way or another just as I was. It should be stopped. Until it is stopped I feel the least I can do is to rail against the injustice of it all.

Their reply was, "What all those people need to learn to do is to grow up, put all of that stuff behind them and get on with their lives. Bitching and whining about it isn't going to do any good. Schools separate the winners from the losers: The ones who can go on with their lives afterwards and the ones who spend thier lives complaining how unfair it was. It isn't unfair. It is necessary, and the rougher teachers are the better."

Another person chimed in with, "Injustice and unfairness is everywhere you go. The sooner children learn how to deal with it the better."

I seriously believe this is the most depressing conversation I have ever had.

[Ella]

Wow, that's nuts. Don't let it get you down.
I think bitching CAN be a good thing, if it raises awareness about a problem. But bitching, and not doing anything about it, is not a good thing. We all have issues with schools, either from our own childhood, or our children's. Can't do much about the experiences from years ago, other than learn from them and move on. We can do something about the present and the future, by moving into action when a situation is wrong. I've personally fought with my son's school until an acceptable level has been reached; not perfect, but no longer damaging.

[Medievalist]

It isn't unfair. It is necessary, and the rougher teachers are the better."

Another person chimed in with, "Injustice and unfairness is everywhere you go. The sooner children learn how to deal with it the better."

Yes. Life is unfair. But that doesn't mean that it isn't our duty to do what we can to make it more fair, to look out for each other, to help. We can make life better for others, and we should.

Otherwise, we're accessories, aiding and abettting wrong doing by not thwarting it.

[BlueTexas]

If everyone wrote what they knew, there would be no genre other than non-fiction and whining memoirs. That discouraged me for a lot of years.


Fiction uses the old 'write what you know adage'. Our characters, their behaviors, foibles, and relationships are all things we know. We know settings, we know professions, and we know human behavior. Sure, it's fictional, but it's based on what we know.

Isn't it?

[tjwriter]

At the age of 10 however, Write What You Know is quite a bit limiting. At that age, there are plenty of things a person wouldn't know. It's also a great time for expanding the imagination and developing creative writing abilities. For an adult to tell a child that is a bit outside the limits, IMHO.

In sixth grade, I had a really great teacher for my English class. We always wrote stories and poems with our spelling words each week. She was helpful and encouraging, which prompted me to continue using my imagination and coming up with more stories.

As far as Writing Again mentioning someone talking about fairness and the school system, the kids have enough to worry about just dealing with the other kids. My school system was pretty good, most of my concerns for injustice and unfairness came from other kids. A child shouldn't have to worry about that from the school itself.

BTW as a kid, aren't you "learning to grow up?" Again, IMHO.

[Jamesaritchie]

The other day I was talking about school, and someone said, "You should grow up and move on. Put all the bad things behind you and get on with your life."

My reply was that there are thousands of kids out there all being battered by the school system in one way or another just as I was. It should be stopped. Until it is stopped I feel the least I can do is to rail against the injustice of it all.

Their reply was, "What all those people need to learn to do is to grow up, put all of that stuff behind them and get on with their lives. Bitching and whining about it isn't going to do any good. Schools separate the winners from the losers: The ones who can go on with their lives afterwards and the ones who spend thier lives complaining how unfair it was. It isn't unfair. It is necessary, and the rougher teachers are the better."

Another person chimed in with, "Injustice and unfairness is everywhere you go. The sooner children learn how to deal with it the better."

I seriously believe this is the most depressing conversation I have ever had.

While I think those people put it too harshly, I do think they have a point. I suppose I was as "battered" by school as any kid. I was always the outcast, the poor kid, the country boy who didn't fit in. There were attempts to bully me, to make fun of me, etc. There were teachers who said insulting things, teachers who gave me problems for things other kids did, etc.

So what? That's life. If such things continue to run your life after you leave school, those other kids and the teachers have won.

It always seemed to me that since I had little or no control as a kid, it might be fair to blame some things on others. But the day I grew up there was no one to blame for anything, including how I felt, but myself. And I grew up very early on.

There isn't a thing in the world that will make school "fair," that will make life "fair," of that will change human behavior. Especially pre-adult behavior. I wouldn't say school separates the winners from the losers, I'd say each of us does by the way we handle school and life. It's a decision, and some simply aren't capable of handling the unfairness in life.

I suppose I always had some advantages. I couldn't be bullied. It was tried many times, but there wasn't a kid in school, or any group of kids, up to that task. I knew I was as tough as any kid in the school, and I knew I was smarter than 90% of them, and I knew darned well that whatever happened in my life, whether I succeeded of failed, was my decision, not theirs.

I saw kids who didn't have it nearly as bad as I did just fold up and quit, despite much intervention. I saw others who had it as bad, sometimes worse, just grit their teeth, laugh at the trouble, and move on.

To be perfectly honest, I'm extremely glad school wasn't fair, that it battered me around. School is a fire that tempers steel and melts lead. So is life in general.

And I think I had one other huge advantage. My dad left home when I was three, and I never saw him again. So having no dad, I found myself a surrogate dad, and a great many uncles, in the pages of novels. The dad was William Tell Sackett, the protagonist of several of Louis L'Amours Sackett novels. He seemed to have a lot more trouble than I did, and the way he handled it taught me how to handle trouble in my own life.

I feel terribly sorry for the way school, and life, treats some kids. I've sent three kids through school, and they've all had rough, unfair times. Big deal.
I often think those who have it hardest in life are the few who get through school without any unfair times, without being battered in any way. When they step out into real life, it's often like a deer caught in the headlights. The first real trouble that comes along crushes them.

There comes a time when you just have to decide whether you're going to grow up and move on, or whether you're going to wallow in the past. It is a decision. There comes a time when you just have to decide whether you're in charge on your life and feelings, or whether someone else is. Likely someone else who hasn't given you a single thought in many years. This, too, is a decision. And it should matter that all those unfair teachers and kids probably haven't given you a single though since the last time they saw you. So why waste any time thinking about them?

And maybe I had one other advantage. There's been a saying in my family for more than a hundred years now. Whenever someone says, "That's not fair" the reply is always, "It's not Sam, either."

A grandmother on miner had many brothers and sisters. One brither was named "Pharoh," be he was called "Phar," pronounced "Fair."

You see where this is going. Whenever someone said, "That's not fair," the inevitable reply was, "It's not Sam, either."

It can be infuriating to be told this, but it can also get you through a lot of crap, so the saying stuck around, and we all still use it. Things that happen to you may not be fair, but they aren't Sam, either, so get over it and get on with your life.

[zeprosnepsid]

As for the grammar topic -- I don't necessarily think of it coming easy or not. It's just I never learned it. When my boyfriend edits my work, he tells me about things I had no idea were even grammar rules. So I'm jealous of people who had teachers who pounded grammar into their heads at a young age. Because it's terribly hard for me to learn it now (and there was nowhere for me to turn in college to learn it when I realized I didn't know it).

But if you are telling a compelling story, you can get away with a couple of things. And it'll give the editor something to do =)

[Nateskate]

But, just to play devils advocate for an instant (no pun intended), what about being a good writer? I nearly asked the question in a cult of personality thread I started, but backed off. So imagine that your favorite writer is an out and out a**hole. The question is; do you need to examine yourself and improve yourself to be a good writer or is the writing seperate?

If I was to be totally honest I would think that writing is writing and the political or spiritual or civic or moral or whatever views of the writer don't come into play. We are told to treat rejection or criticism like this. It is not you being criticized it's your words. So why not judge the writing despite the writer?

Take this idea to the extreme and it becomes a little sticky. :crazy:


Os.

Forest Gump would say, "Good is as good does." No one has a lock on goodness. I am spiritually literate, so if I quote something it isn't meant to preach, only to highlight the point. The story of the Good Samaratan was meant to embarress spiritual people who were not acting very "good". A levite, priest...etc, were religious leaders in the community that let a bleeding man lay on the side of the road. The person who helped was not a spiritual person. If you are familiar with the theology of the Samaratan's they were not considered spiritual people in that culture.

So, Jesus, as a religious teacher is saying, "Good is as good does." People get hung up on religion and think it is the only means to "goodness". On the contrary, what we do with our conscience is what defines who we are. If anything, religion is supposed to educate people. But it's what they do with what they know that sets people apart.

So, you will find areligious people doing good things. And people who are not particularly spiritual do good, and sometimes to the embarrassment of spiritually minded people. However, I'm not putting down spiritual minded people. In the end its what you do with what you know that makes the difference in my mind. "To whom much is given, much is expected."

[Nateskate]

Nate, if I can learn to parse, that is, to take apart and analyze a sentence, and a paragrah, and even a word, anyone can.

Really. I'm profoundly dyslexic, and dysphonetic, which, roughly speaking, means that neither the appearance of text nor the sound of language come easily to me; my brain is mis-wired.

Or the rest of the world is backward . . . ;)

But I can do it. And I've taught other people to parse and analyze as well.

Reph is atypical; don't compare yourself to an ace fighter pilot when you're doing your first solo flight.

The more you write, the more you revise, and think about what the words are doing, and saying, and how they work, the easier it will come. I swear.


I think you are a dear, and wish I knew you personally. I'd take you up on the offer, and I'd pay to take parsing lessons. I'm not dyslexic, at least not that I know, but I realize that I have a penchant for phrasing things awkwardly. So, in a rewrite, I have to do a great deal of re-writing.

I'm not sure what dysphonic is, but perhaps I have some "dys" or "dat". I'm not entirely normal. But, you gotta love me! I'm just a giant confused looking teddy bear.

[Nateskate]

In writing, particularly in writing fiction, I'm not sure it works well to have the creative person be a 4 in grammar. A fiction writer doesn't have to be an expert in grammar, but I think he does have to be pretty knowledgeable, else the creative side just isn't going to emerge very well.

As for grammar coming easy, I suspect it does for some, but I also strongly suspect it just seems this way because of hard work. Grammar is simply somethng a creative writer needs to know. It's the number one tool in the writer's tool chest. If it comes easy, great, but no matter how hard it comes, it still has to be learned.

This means that if it takes opening agrammar books as often as you write or read, then you open grammar books as often as you write and read. Or more often. Whatever it takes.

I suspect most grammar deficient writers make the mistake of tackling grammar books that are too advanced. If you have fifth grade grammar skills, then it's likely you need to start with a fifth grade grammar book, and work up through the grades, maybe an hour a day, exactly as if you were back in school.

As I said, I'm sure there are writers who pick up grammar naturally and easily, but for most writers I've known, it's a matter of dedication and hard work. They put in however many hours, days, weeks, months, or years it takes to learn the required skills.

I've been in this business for twenty-five years, one way or another, and I still study grammar, punctuation, and language every week.

The lucky writers are the ones who paid attention while they were in school, but the rest of us still have to learn, even if it means putting ourselves back in school, figuratively or literally.

I've tried to teach people creativity. If you lock me in a room and put a gun to my head and say, "Write 10 good songs by the end of the night," as long as I didn't have an anxiety attack because of the gun, I could do it. Some people who can play music can't write. For me, it pours out like water. I've known many musicians, and actually have tried to teach some how to write creatively. It's just hard for them.

Now, grammar is different for me for a specific reason. Part of it had nothing to do with applying myself, but a rather difficult period of life where I cut half the days of school. So, I was always playing catch-up. But it wasn't lack of motivation at the time. We just had these Jr gangs, and several threatened to kill me, and things got out of hand, and I was afraid to go to school. So, I looked for every reason to cut.

Now, why can't I just go back and read grammar books. Well, I can, but if you put a gun to my head and said you have to master 1 page of a grammar book by the end of the night, I'd be a dead man. I'm not sure what my problem is, but I know I have one. It could be the ADD, which I have in spades,, but it might be something else. I am a habitually bad speller. From day to day I pereverate on the spelling of specific words. But I also do the same thing with certain people's names. I used to do that with Cane Cain (as in Cain and Able). Now, this may not seem a big deal to some, but for my job I have to know which it is. Nate writes: "Mr. Blank has bilateral footdrops, and weak hamstrings on both sides. He walks with a Cain..." Well, a word processor is not going to catch that, so I do.

[Nateskate]

I applied and won a spot in a workshop with a famous children's author when I was in grade 5. I wrote a story about skeletons, a ghost story. The reviewer liked my writing, but murdered my topic, telling me...
(wait for it....)

.... Write what you know.

I thought, Jeez, I'm ten, what the hell do I know? If everyone wrote what they knew, there would be no genre other than non-fiction and whining memoirs. That discouraged me for a lot of years.

Maybe they thought you were just a savant? If some kid is very smart, I think I've been guilty of pressuming they knew more than they knew.

[Nateskate]

While I think those people put it too harshly, I do think they have a point. I suppose I was as "battered" by school as any kid. I was always the outcast, the poor kid, the country boy who didn't fit in. There were attempts to bully me, to make fun of me, etc. There were teachers who said insulting things, teachers who gave me problems for things other kids did, etc.

So what? That's life. If such things continue to run your life after you leave school, those other kids and the teachers have won.

It always seemed to me that since I had little or no control as a kid, it might be fair to blame some things on others. But the day I grew up there was no one to blame for anything, including how I felt, but myself. And I grew up very early on.

There isn't a thing in the world that will make school "fair," that will make life "fair," of that will change human behavior. Especially pre-adult behavior. I wouldn't say school separates the winners from the losers, I'd say each of us does by the way we handle school and life. It's a decision, and some simply aren't capable of handling the unfairness in life.

I suppose I always had some advantages. I couldn't be bullied. It was tried many times, but there wasn't a kid in school, or any group of kids, up to that task. I knew I was as tough as any kid in the school, and I knew I was smarter than 90% of them, and I knew darned well that whatever happened in my life, whether I succeeded of failed, was my decision, not theirs.

I saw kids who didn't have it nearly as bad as I did just fold up and quit, despite much intervention. I saw others who had it as bad, sometimes worse, just grit their teeth, laugh at the trouble, and move on.

To be perfectly honest, I'm extremely glad school wasn't fair, that it battered me around. School is a fire that tempers steel and melts lead. So is life in general.

And I think I had one other huge advantage. My dad left home when I was three, and I never saw him again. So having no dad, I found myself a surrogate dad, and a great many uncles, in the pages of novels. The dad was William Tell Sackett, the protagonist of several of Louis L'Amours Sackett novels. He seemed to have a lot more trouble than I did, and the way he handled it taught me how to handle trouble in my own life.

I feel terribly sorry for the way school, and life, treats some kids. I've sent three kids through school, and they've all had rough, unfair times. Big deal.
I often think those who have it hardest in life are the few who get through school without any unfair times, without being battered in any way. When they step out into real life, it's often like a deer caught in the headlights. The first real trouble that comes along crushes them.

There comes a time when you just have to decide whether you're going to grow up and move on, or whether you're going to wallow in the past. It is a decision. There comes a time when you just have to decide whether you're in charge on your life and feelings, or whether someone else is. Likely someone else who hasn't given you a single thought in many years. This, too, is a decision. And it should matter that all those unfair teachers and kids probably haven't given you a single though since the last time they saw you. So why waste any time thinking about them?

And maybe I had one other advantage. There's been a saying in my family for more than a hundred years now. Whenever someone says, "That's not fair" the reply is always, "It's not Sam, either."

A grandmother on miner had many brothers and sisters. One brither was named "Pharoh," be he was called "Phar," pronounced "Fair."

You see where this is going. Whenever someone said, "That's not fair," the inevitable reply was, "It's not Sam, either."

It can be infuriating to be told this, but it can also get you through a lot of crap, so the saying stuck around, and we all still use it. Things that happen to you may not be fair, but they aren't Sam, either, so get over it and get on with your life.

Wow. I'm actually impressed with your inner strength. And I relate to much of your story.

However, I'd say there is more to the story. Not everyone has the same basic nature. Not everyone has the exact same story in the same family. It's like the story Rich Man/Poor Man, where one brother goes out and conquors the world, and the other goes out and becomes a drunken wanderer. They were both screwed up, but one used his pain to prove something, the other said, "To hell with the world."

And unless you looked at each story, take into accounts all the variables, something that made you stronger might have killed someone else.

I'm very much like you, in terms of being a strong-willed kid, who said, "I'm going to prove something to everyone who tormented, tortured, insulted and abused me along the way." That's me. But in my own family, some of my siblings never got out of the wringer washer quite as well. Sure, we were all "screwed up", but not equally screwed up. Honestly, I decided one day that things happen for a reason, and that I wasn't going to allow anything to crush me. Some others got crushed.

To some degree, the only way to help someone who falls in a pit is to throw them a rope, not to say, "You got there...figure your own way out." Some people will never figure their way out.

Perhaps you are just more insightful than some of these people. You are obviously intelligent and have strong inner qualities to get where you've got. Some people don't have those same strengths.

Please don't take this as critical, because actually I admire you and think there was some merit to what you've said. But I have been put into a place where I deal with people who have been whipped and tortured for eight hours at a time until unconscious, violently molested, poisoned and hanged (survived obviously). I can tell you real stories that are unimaginable. Some of these people are not able to just get over it. Unless someone helps out, they are pretty much going to flounder. And unfortunately some of them are prone to two steps forward and three steps back.

[reph]

Oh, dear. I skip one or two days' postings and come back to find people were talking about me.

Grammar: nature or nurture? I think mostly nature. I caught on to grammar easily because my mind works that way. When I read a sentence, I'm aware of its structure. I mean "structure" almost literally. I'm aware of the parts of a sentence and how they're related. This one screws into that one; this thing here holds up something else. These two have to be the same kind of thing if you're going to set them side by side. This preposition is the handle that connects the little piece to the big piece. Grammarians gave names to those parts; if they didn't have names, we'd have to call them something else. If I see a pronoun without an adequate antecedent, it looks unstable, unsupported. I have about the same experience as if watching someone start to hang one end of a clothesline from a six-month sapling. "That won't work. You need something stronger!"

Perhaps not incidentally, I've also spent a lot of time making physical things. In childhood, I fiddled around with construction paper and glue, making little houses and whatnot. Once it was a whole "town," mounted on plywood, I think. I can't say that if you want a better grasp of grammar, you should go get a ream of construction paper and start fiddling. Maybe the point is that people who analyze sentences a certain way always liked building things.

[Nateskate]

Oh, dear. I skip one or two days' postings and come back to find people were talking about me.

Grammar: nature or nurture? I think mostly nature. I caught on to grammar easily because my mind works that way. When I read a sentence, I'm aware of its structure. I mean "structure" almost literally. I'm aware of the parts of a sentence and how they're related. This one screws into that one; this thing here holds up something else. These two have to be the same kind of thing if you're going to set them side by side. This preposition is the handle that connects the little piece to the big piece. Grammarians gave names to those parts; if they didn't have names, we'd have to call them something else. If I see a pronoun without an adequate antecedent, it looks unstable, unsupported. I have about the same experience as if watching someone start to hang one end of a clothesline from a six-month sapling. "That won't work. You need something stronger!"

Perhaps not incidentally, I've also spent a lot of time making physical things. In childhood, I fiddled around with construction paper and glue, making little houses and whatnot. Once it was a whole "town," mounted on plywood, I think. I can't say that if you want a better grasp of grammar, you should go get a ream of construction paper and start fiddling. Maybe the point is that people who analyze sentences a certain way always liked building things.

And for this reason, I wish you were my next door neighbor. But then again, you might not like my lawn, and that could get sticky, or my kids might leave a candy wrapper in your flower bed, and I'd be up a creek without a paddle.

"People, who need people, are the sappiest....opps...luckiest people in the world..." Hey, I don't mind admitting I need people. I even ask for directions when I'm lost, long before my wife ever will.

[WerenCole]

This is a funny topic for me because I recall posting something on this in the old boards, I called it the Eigth Grade Math Problem. . . . though maybe it was in seventh grade. . . Any way the situation went like this, when I was in middle school I was one of the smarter people in a grade filled with very smart people. It is like that growing up in yuppy-ville Maine, my class of 130 people sent kids to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Darthmouth etc. . (somehow I missed this boat, so is life) In all the standardized tests I was in the top percentile, and I got A's in all my classes. In our school system there was a group of kids that got put into the accelerated classes, "the geeky group". My very own twin brother was put into this group, though despite my academic performance I was left out. When I inquired as to why I was not allowed in the smart group I was told that I was not ready for it, or something of the sort. I had a attitude problem with adult male authority figures (a problem that has been tempered with time though still exists) and I believe that they held a prejudice against me for my insolence. (I also believe, that although I was a starter on my basketball team that year, I was cut for the very same reason)

This is a problem with the current academic system in America. The students who get labeled with low expectations are not motivated to achieve, and often find other outlets for their mental energies. In my sake, and I am not alone, neither then nor now, I started doing drugs, then selling drugs and performing poorly. . . thus my current situation, stuck as a chef because I shunned my education after it shunned me. It wasn't until I was out of highschool a couple of years that I began appreciating academia for what it is worth, but by then the boat to Harvard had sailed and I am stuck at my local community college, doing well but still unlikely to get into the local university. (UVA)

I am of the notion that if kids believe that they are able to enter the accelerated class and achieve then they should be given the option to do so, and if they fail then at least they know they tried and find other routes for their mental energies. Teachers should not be the individuals to choose these routes for children through whatever reasons they summon, it's just not right.

I could go on. . . but I think I am starting to ramble. . .

Weren
-"Those who make declarative statements are more likely to look foolish in retrospect." - Quentin Tarantino in Four Rooms

[Ella]

Maybe they thought you were just a savant? If some kid is very smart, I think I've been guilty of pressuming they knew more than they knew.

You've hit the nail on the head, but for me, in the reverse way. We, as children and even as adults, presume that the authoritative figures should know what they're talking about, when quite often, they just don't.

Thanks for the great feedback, guys!

[Medievalist]

I am stuck at my local community college, doing well but still unlikely to get into the local university. (UVA)

Actually, if you do two years of community college, concentrating on taking GE classes, and you do well, you have a better chance of being accepted than a senior in highschool with a high average. You're a proven risk. Depending on how transfer applications are handled at the schools you apply to, you may be given "bonus" points for your community college experience.

Go for it.

[Nateskate]

You've hit the nail on the head, but for me, in the reverse way. We, as children and even as adults, presume that the authoritative figures should know what they're talking about, when quite often, they just don't.



Isn't that the truth. I've said, "If I knew now what I knew then, I could rule the world." Well, I don't have any desire to rule the world, but I was naive back then.

The benefit of age, (for some) is that you learn a great deal through experience, and you get a sense of perspective. Now I'd laugh at the insults that seemed so wounding in 7th grade. And I can say WITHOUT ANY HESITATION- sorry, I'm venting a bit (but not at you) THAT STATISTICS S*CKS, and no, contrary what schools have told me, I've never EVER needed it in my life. In fact, people scarcely use them except to propogate lies, "9 out of 10 dentists"-working for a gum company- recommend chewing gum. They didn't allow the 10th to recommend it or the survey would have seemed too stacked and too much like an outright lie. Heck, they didn't poll my dentist, I'm sure.

And contrary to what my math teachers said, "I've never needed much math beyond adding and multiplying." I was good at math, but the point is that teachers are puffed up (sometimes) with their own self-importance, and say these indefensible emphatic statements.

[Nateskate]

Actually, if you do two years of community college, concentrating on taking GE classes, and you do well, you have a better chance of being accepted than a senior in highschool with a high average. You're a proven risk. Depending on how transfer applications are handled at the schools you apply to, you may be given "bonus" points for your community college experience.

Go for it.

I agree, Community colleges are a great deal for the most part. You can get your credits transferred to most schools, and it is easier to transfer with an academic track record.

[WerenCole]

Well, gee. . . thanks for the encouragement guys, but I live here and I see how this system works. . . University of Virginia is not an easy school to get into, even when you get your associates from it's baby community college. If you finish your two years at my CC, the state of Virginia will gaurantees admission to any public university in the state that you want, except UVA. JMU or VCU look more likely in my future, though it breaks my heart to leave CVille.

This is not to say that I don't do well in my CC, 4.0 the last couple of semesters I was there and # 1 on the deans list for the entire last year. . . I just don't trust the sons of #@%*&. To tie this back into our discussion about discouraging words from teachers I will say that my uncertainty is not without merit. . .

-W

[Medievalist]

Well, gee. . . thanks for the encouragement guys, but I live here and I see how this system works. . . University of Virginia is not an easy school to get into, even when you get your associates from it's baby community college.

I'm not talking out of my hat; I've served on admissions committees at several universities, and I supported the database system to track admissions for statistics purposes at another.

The success rate of community transfer students is so high that there are special tracks at higher education conferences about how to take advantage of it.

There are no guarantees, but other than the costs of admission fees and transcripts, you have nothing to lose.

[Nateskate]

I'm not talking out of my hat; I've served on admissions committees at several universities, and I supported the database system to track admissions for statistics purposes at another.

The success rate of community transfer students is so high that there are special tracks at higher education conferences about how to take advantage of it.

There are no guarantees, but other than the costs of admission fees and transcripts, you have nothing to lose.

Considering the cost of most Universities in my state, if I were starting from scratch, I'd definitely go to a Community College first. The Community College in our area actually pays their staff better than the private colleges. So, they get some of the best teachers.

[MillyBecker]

One of my English teachers in High School told me that I couldn't use contractions in anything I wrote, whether it be a term paper or a short story.

[Nateskate]

One of my English teachers in High School told me that I couldn't use contractions in anything I wrote, whether it be a term paper or a short story.

How did you respond?

[Elincoln]

I had several people in my life who didn't think writing was a good idea. The main one was my mother. This really discouraged me when I grew up because it was because of her that I learned to love reading books, usually ones for adults rather than for young adults. When I was in 7th Grade, I decided I would be a writer. Her first comment was, "That's fine, but what are you going to do for a living?" She even went to far as to suggest that I should do something book-related if I was so interested. She was happy when I took a summer job at the local Library. Nice, quiet and reliable civil service job. I hated it. Even when I wrote for contests and teen arts festivals--and got awards for them--she would just shrug and say it was a nice 'hobby.'

I got a boost in 8th Grade. My teacher was a published author of a mystery novel and he took me under his wing. When I got into high school, I knew I would be a writer.

Unfortunately my Freshman English Teacher didn't see it that way. She said my grammar was terrible and there was no way I would ever improve. She was one of those old school nuns who thought that girls shouldn't be writing about ghosts and 'supernatural garbage'. Again, she suggested I should be a librarian. I almost gave up that year. I was just fortunate that the rest of my English teachers in high school weren't in the same mind-frame. They encouraged me to keep working.

In college, I didn't have much better response. They thought I was creative and well written, but genre fiction didn't sit well with them. My professors believed that the only books worth reading were literary or "Oprah's book club" type books.

But throughout my life, I held on to one piece of advise my father gave me.

"If you're going to do something for the rest of your life, do something you love."

And I still do.

-Elaine

[Nateskate]

I had several people in my life who didn't think writing was a good idea. The main one was my mother. This really discouraged me when I grew up because it was because of her that I learned to love reading books, usually ones for adults rather than for young adults. When I was in 7th Grade, I decided I would be a writer. Her first comment was, "That's fine, but what are you going to do for a living?" She even went to far as to suggest that I should do something book-related if I was so interested. She was happy when I took a summer job at the local Library. Nice, quiet and reliable civil service job. I hated it. Even when I wrote for contests and teen arts festivals--and got awards for them--she would just shrug and say it was a nice 'hobby.'

I got a boost in 8th Grade. My teacher was a published author of a mystery novel and he took me under his wing. When I got into high school, I knew I would be a writer.

Unfortunately my Freshman English Teacher didn't see it that way. She said my grammar was terrible and there was no way I would ever improve. She was one of those old school nuns who thought that girls shouldn't be writing about ghosts and 'supernatural garbage'. Again, she suggested I should be a librarian. I almost gave up that year. I was just fortunate that the rest of my English teachers in high school weren't in the same mind-frame. They encouraged me to keep working.

In college, I didn't have much better response. They thought I was creative and well written, but genre fiction didn't sit well with them. My professors believed that the only books worth reading were literary or "Oprah's book club" type books.

But throughout my life, I held on to one piece of advise my father gave me.

"If you're going to do something for the rest of your life, do something you love."

And I still do.

-Elaine

Parents are quirky creatures. And being one, I try to encourage my children to pursue dreams. They are adults now, and I'm seeing this from two perspectives. One is the "A prophet is never accepted in their own home" principle. That means that people who see your flaws, tend to have this innate inability to recognize your strengths. Sometimes those who are close to you can't imagine you being successful. A lot of extremely successful people had to deal with that in their lives.

So don't give up on your dream. Parents can miss the fact that you or anyone has a real gift, and either discourage, or simply not "encourage".

The second principle in parenting is this. You tend to think in terms of making life easy and safe. What kind of job pays well, is reliable, pays health insurrence...etc.

My youngest son plays bass guitar and is dead set at making a living at it. He's quite good, but he can't "read music". He plays by ear. However, not reading, that limits his options. He can't teach. He would be limited from much studio work. So, he's going for the brass ring. It's the grammies or bust.

I don't mind him shooting for the brass ring. However, I want him to have a fall back in case that doesn't work. Anything in the arts, drawing, music...etc is fickle. Yes, some people make a great living at it, but more struggle than not. I think what it will take for him to support a family, have weekends off...etc.

It's hard to have that balance, and as a parent you think "safety/security" first, which isn't really always the best. So, on one hand I want to encourage my son not to give up on a dream. But if that dream means he's living at home with his parents for the next ten years, playing bars on open mic night, expecting to get discovered, expecting us to pay his car insurance, I hope he gets another dream.

[Mike Martyn]

I wrote an essay in the eight grade with a supernatural twist. Our English teacher was a priest. He didn't care for the supernatural stuff so he beat me with a stick! I had to sit down very carefully for the next week. I believe that qualifies as discouraging!

[BlueTexas]

:) You know how I know the difference between homonyms? Repeated knuckle whacking with a ruler. One of these days I'm going to write a story where the nun gets it in the end...

[Nateskate]

I wrote an essay in the eight grade with a supernatural twist. Our English teacher was a priest. He didn't care for the supernatural stuff so he beat me with a stick! I had to sit down very carefully for the next week. I believe that qualifies as discouraging!

That is sad, and it bothers me greatly. In a sense, you have a dual role/ authority figure, being a teacher, and a spiritual leader. If anything, if he had a problem with what you wrote, except if it was a flippant overt attempt to malign him, he could have explained how something offended him, but never in a scolding way.

True story, my brother confessed to a priest at 7 years old, and the priest told him he was going to hell. What was his offence? Something like skipping out on a service to play. I remember how benign the offence was, but his words had a terrible impact on my brother. And his timing couldn't have been worse. It was the same year our grandfather died, who at that time was our father-figure.

[Nateskate]

:) You know how I know the difference between homonyms? Repeated knuckle whacking with a ruler. One of these days I'm going to write a story where the nun gets it in the end...

Sad to say, I still can't tell the difference. Whack, whack, whack...somebody spank me.

No, I'm not looking for volunteers you twisted little...(just teasing)

[BlueTexas]

Sad to say, I still can't tell the difference. Whack, whack, whack...somebody spank me.

No, I'm not looking for volunteers you twisted little...(just teasing)

:ROFL:

[Nateskate]

:ROFL:

Ouch, now can you help me with punctuation?

[Mike Martyn]

That is sad, and it bothers me greatly. In a sense, you have a dual role/ authority figure, being a teacher, and a spiritual leader. If anything, if he had a problem with what you wrote, except if it was a flippant overt attempt to malign him, he could have explained how something offended him, but never in a scolding way.

True story, my brother confessed to a priest at 7 years old, and the priest told him he was going to hell. What was his offence? Something like skipping out on a service to play. I remember how benign the offence was, but his words had a terrible impact on my brother. And his timing couldn't have been worse. It was the same year our grandfather died, who at that time was our father-figure.

Thank's for your concern but it's not quite as bad as it sounds. We got beaten all the time, so one more whack from the Priest didn't make as much of an impression as you might think. One whack of the stick for each spelling error, for each error in grammar, if they found a speck of dirt in the hallway you'd just mopped etc. etc.

The pedophiles were far more terrifying! I got very good at being inconspicuous.

This was back in the sixties when no one gave a damn about what happened to boys in institutions. Reform schools were the worst.

Against all odds, I've always been an optimist! One great thing about that sort of childhood is that you have lots of material to draw on!

[Casey]

I feel like I was relatively protected from criticism by being an oddball not entirely in touch with reality. Not to say I had a lot of self-confidence (I was pretty ruthlessly self-critical from a young age), but I was definitely off grooving with my own drummer a good deal of the time. I do believe in the protective value of imagination.

In retrospect I understand that the few teachers I had trouble with were not happy people, but as a child you aren't really prepared for these things. One of the longest-lasting bitter impressions I have from my early education was my 2nd grade reading teacher going off on me for confusing the spellings of audible and edible in a definition I wrote for class (I don't really know anything about kids and reading levels, but I suspect any sane teacher would praise any 2nd grader who came up with either of those words, especially in grammatically correct usage!). I'm sorry to say he killed himself not long after.

More than any individual teacher, though, I feel that the environment I was in was discouraging. My little hometown didn't have many resources for education, and I do think the school system saw itself primarily as a producer of future factory workers. There was really no exposure to literature even in high school; I'm always a little shocked when one of those high-school reading list memes goes around the internet and I see all the "real" books my friends from other cities and towns had to read for school! My crazy, naive patchwork of personal reading included Hawthorne and Tolstoy and Murasaki along with Heinlein and Herbert and some real godawful pulp, but for school I read...err, well, nothing to speak of. After that, I think it was probably a godsend to my (already dodgy) college GPA that I opted out of English classes of any kind.

(First post, I think. Woo!)

Casey

[Nateskate]

Thank's for your concern but it's not quite as bad as it sounds. We got beaten all the time, so one more whack from the Priest didn't make as much of an impression as you might think. One whack of the stick for each spelling error, for each error in grammar, if they found a speck of dirt in the hallway you'd just mopped etc. etc.

The pedophiles were far more terrifying! I got very good at being inconspicuous.

This was back in the sixties when no one gave a damn about what happened to boys in institutions. Reform schools were the worst.

Against all odds, I've always been an optimist! One great thing about that sort of childhood is that you have lots of material to draw on!

If it didn't phase you much, that's great...but stuff like this has a lasting impression on other people.

I've seen some people self-destruct because of things like this. Obviously, stuff like this doesn't have as much impact if someone has a really solid family, and they take it in context, "The priest was screwed up and absolutely wrong in what he said..." So, a counterbalance helps. But when you have screwed up kids from screwed up families, trying to figure out their self-worth and identity, having some idiot brand them with a label like "Going to hell" as in "life is futile, I'm toast anyway", some people go, "If I'm going to hell anyway, I might as well just throw my life away and numb the pain."

"You are going to hell" shouldn't be in any spiritual person's vocabulary. It's the most amazingly stupid phrase that rolls off of people's tongues,and is usually only spoken in a fit of anger by judgmental and immature people.

What's the point? Even if that were actually true, which no human has the absolute ability to know, what in the world would be the benefit of making such a proclamation. It's the metaphorical equivalent of tossing another match in the fire. That's my perspective anyway. And I'll say this much, I know that didn't help my brother.

[Nateskate]

I feel like I was relatively protected from criticism by being an oddball not entirely in touch with reality. Not to say I had a lot of self-confidence (I was pretty ruthlessly self-critical from a young age), but I was definitely off grooving with my own drummer a good deal of the time. I do believe in the protective value of imagination.

In retrospect I understand that the few teachers I had trouble with were not happy people, but as a child you aren't really prepared for these things. One of the longest-lasting bitter impressions I have from my early education was my 2nd grade reading teacher going off on me for confusing the spellings of audible and edible in a definition I wrote for class (I don't really know anything about kids and reading levels, but I suspect any sane teacher would praise any 2nd grader who came up with either of those words, especially in grammatically correct usage!). I'm sorry to say he killed himself not long after.

More than any individual teacher, though, I feel that the environment I was in was discouraging. My little hometown didn't have many resources for education, and I do think the school system saw itself primarily as a producer of future factory workers. There was really no exposure to literature even in high school; I'm always a little shocked when one of those high-school reading list memes goes around the internet and I see all the "real" books my friends from other cities and towns had to read for school! My crazy, naive patchwork of personal reading included Hawthorne and Tolstoy and Murasaki along with Heinlein and Herbert and some real godawful pulp, but for school I read...err, well, nothing to speak of. After that, I think it was probably a godsend to my (already dodgy) college GPA that I opted out of English classes of any kind.

(First post, I think. Woo!)

Casey

Amazing story. Wow, I agree totally that your 2nd grade teacher had major issues, but sad to say, teachers like that breed issues in other people.

I'm convinced a terrible teacher won't ruin most people. It happens, and I think some of us were more prone to draw their ire, than others.

The really terrible wounds come when you get kids who come from dysfunction to begin with, whose own parents are asleep at the wheel, or worse, and they are looking for someone or something to make them feel good about themselves. Well, in those cases, screwed up nasty teachers and coaches are throwing fire on gasoline.

Even in my own school, I can remember kids who tried to a point, and then their spirit broke. And it wasn't any one thing, but you add those things up. And some give it a shot, "I think I'm good at..." They're hopeful that someone, somewhere will see something good in them, and they're like Ralphie, in the Christmas Story, when he hands his paper to the teacher, expecting some radiant praise. Well, not everything deserves radiant praise, but when you can see someone gets their hopes up, there are ways deal with them without urinating on their parade.

Well if there's one thing you think you're good at, and you put all your eggs in that basket, and some flippant teacher/coach...etc happens to crush your basket, some people emotionally check out. And it takes years for them to check back in, if they ever check back in.

[Hummingbird]

The worst things a teacher have ever said to me was: Your writing it too happy and it's too descriptive.
The happy one I was told when I was ten. I didn't like the teacher anyway for multiple reasons, so I kept my writing style. My writing now isn't so happy, but I have fun all the same. As to the descriptive problem, I'm now regaining my ability to describe. Maybe my descriptions are better now than then. ;)

[Nateskate]

The worst things a teacher have ever said to me was: Your writing it too happy and it's too descriptive.
The happy one I was told when I was ten. I didn't like the teacher anyway for multiple reasons, so I kept my writing style. My writing now isn't so happy, but I have fun all the same. As to the descriptive problem, I'm now regaining my ability to describe. Maybe my descriptions are better now than then. ;)

If there's anything I want to be in life it's "Too happy!"

Well, I may too descriptive, and if that keeps me from being too published, I won't be too happy.

But this is one of those things where a teacher should mix praise with criticism, otherwise a kid get's the wrong message. You know what I think? Some teachers are concrete thinkers, and can't put themselves into a kid's shoes, to hear how their words might be sounding to them.

For the most part, (with kids) in any creative process, it's always good to look for the good. Always preface a criticism with a compliment. But sometimes you just have to eat your words, and not criticise.

Kids tend to be energised by positive and lose motivation by excessive negativity. It's the dad coach, who has something negative to say after every basketball practice. Even if he prefaces it with a compliment, if that's all that happens, and the son/daughter knows the zinger is coming, he/she stops hearing the compliments. They start hating practice, because they'll only get picked apart again. Smart dads will remember you don't win a war by trying to win every battle. Keeping a kids heart in something takes wisdom, not pressure. Well, that kind of works the same with teaching.

[Mistook]

Going to Catholic school, I had my share of nasty nuns, but never got too bummed about it, because everybody else in the school, and in my family, were put through the same torture by these women, and they were, as George Harrison might say, "well-known drags."

There were also a hand-ful of very friendly nuns, whose classes we just loved to be in.

But decades later, the real effect of these bad nuns is perfectly evident. The emotional scars have all healed, the knuckles are doing fine, but I still don't know my times tables. One of our nasty nuns was the 3rd grade math teacher, and nobody in my family can multiply in their heads as a result.

I don't write cursive. If I must use a pen at all, I print. My second grade cursive teacher was a nasty nun. Nobody I know who had her class can write in cursive.

So not only are they awful people, but utter failures as teachers. You might call them anti-teachers, because they close-off access to certain human skills permanantly!

Thank God I always had nice-nuns for music, drama, English, and Art.

[Nateskate]

Going to Catholic school, I had my share of nasty nuns, but never got too bummed about it, because everybody else in the school, and in my family, were put through the same torture by these women, and they were, as George Harrison might say, "well-known drags."

There were also a hand-ful of very friendly nuns, whose classes we just loved to be in.

But decades later, the real effect of these bad nuns is perfectly evident. The emotional scars have all healed, the knuckles are doing fine, but I still don't know my times tables. One of our nasty nuns was the 3rd grade math teacher, and nobody in my family can multiply in their heads as a result.

I don't write cursive. If I must use a pen at all, I print. My second grade cursive teacher was a nasty nun. Nobody I know who had her class can write in cursive.

So not only are they awful people, but utter failures as teachers. You might call them anti-teachers, because they close-off access to certain human skills permanantly!

Thank God I always had nice-nuns for music, drama, English, and Art.

My wife had the same kind of teacher in Germany. (She was an airforce brat). She used to get whacked on the knuckles, and as a result had the same anxiety reaction. Years later, my wife wanted to go into medicine, and you simply have to have math to calculate ratios of I.V drips etc. She never did well in math and was petrified of having to deal with in college, but eventually she got over it and Ac'd her math classes.

The point is, for years she was absolutely terrible in math. Why? Not because of inability, but because of associating it with torture and screaming. Sometimes learning problems are a result of anxiety.

[Mike Martyn]

My wife had the same kind of teacher in Germany. (She was an airforce brat). She used to get whacked on the knuckles, and as a result had the same anxiety reaction. Years later, my wife wanted to go into medicine, and you simply have to have math to calculate ratios of I.V drips etc. She never did well in math and was petrified of having to deal with in college, but eventually she got over it and Ac'd her math classes.

The point is, for years she was absolutely terrible in math. Why? Not because of inability, but because of associating it with torture and screaming. Sometimes learning problems are a result of anxiety.

As mentioned in a previous post, back in the early 60's, I was beaten for every mistake I made in school, grammar especially. I couldn't bear to watch Star Trek when it first came on.

"To Boldly Go Where no Man Has Gone Before"


THEY SPLIT AN INFINITIVE!

seriously though, it must have been difficult for her

[Mistook]

As mentioned in a previous post, back in the early 60's, I was beaten for every mistake I made in school, grammar especially. I couldn't bear to watch Star Trek when it first came on.

"To Boldly Go Where no Man Has Gone Before"


THEY SPLIT AN INFINITIVE!

seriously though, it must have been difficult for her


Hey, if they have the guts to explore alien planets far from Earth, you'd better believe they have the nerve to split an infinitive! :)

[Nateskate]

As mentioned in a previous post, back in the early 60's, I was beaten for every mistake I made in school, grammar especially. I couldn't bear to watch Star Trek when it first came on.

"To Boldly Go Where no Man Has Gone Before"


THEY SPLIT AN INFINITIVE!

seriously though, it must have been difficult for her

I was raised in the paddling Era. But I was a schmoozer from the get-go. However, I was only in Catholic school for two years. By the time I was in third grade in the public schools (where paddling was not done) I had to spend my entire 3rd grade lunch period in the Principal's office. So, I'm sure I would have been paddled. And for an A.D.D kid, which I'm convinced I was, sitting at a desk in the principal's office for an hour was torture. I'd have rather gotten paddled.