On Writing

When I was young I could never really get into writing.  Actually, let me rephrase that: I’ve never really been able to get into writing.  Despite the length of some of my blogs, writing has never been easy for me.  I can never read something I write, because it’s too predictable.  It’s almost like I know what the author is going to say before I read it.  It’s annoying.  When I was young, my mom always tried to get me to write a journal, but I could never remember to write in it every day.  The only distinct time I remember writing in a journal on a daily basis; in first grade, my family made its annual trip across the country to Colorado to go skiing.  I don’t actually remember writing in the little red journal, but I do remember reading it to my class when I got back.  It went something along the lines of: “Today I saw a lizerd and the tumbwed.  Then I went skying.  It was fun.  I went reel fast.”  Ugh. Atrocious.  But honesty, that’s how I feel about most of my writing.  Except this one time.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I always had a love of the works of Gary Paulsen.  In seventh grade, we were required to do a science project.  Now since the science teacher and I weren’t on the best of terms, this wasn’t going to be easy.  Luckily, I had an out.  Old Mr. Jensen, (I’m pretty sure that was his actual name, though I could be wrong) our English teacher knew I wasn’t the best science-oriented student in the world.  And though he wore thick glasses and a hearing aid (we would occasionally get the whole class to hum at a very low pitch so that he’d take out his hearing aid and adjust it.  Then we would all talk at a much louder decibel when answering questions.  Seriously, I hope I never have a student like me.), he saw that I had a penchant for English. He informed me and a few others that there was an English alternative.  All you had to do was read a book, read the author’s biography, and then write a 5 page story, emulating the author.  Well of course I chose Brian’s Winter (slightly shorter than Hatchet)  and read Paulsen’s truly amazing autobiography Guts (seriously, everyone needs to read this book, the dude lived in the wilderness, was an emergency rescue volunteer, decided to go hunting with his own homemade bow and arrows, and has run the Iditarod WITH HIS OWN, SELF TRAINED DOGS         several times! That’s bad-ass!)  Then I wrote the story.  Except, I didn’t write the story.  I wasn’t Brian Clark when I wrote that story, I WAS Gary Paulsen.  It’s like he possessed me, even though he’s still alive. Weird.  But yeah, all of us that did the English project ended up getting over a 90% on the assignment, when the highest score on the science projects was in the mid 80’s. 

For a while in college I thought I could write poetry.  Let’s just call these, “my hippy days” and leave it at that.  At the time, I was taking a poetry writing class at 11:30, which was my first class of the day.  I had also attended the Write Bloody Poetry Slam that the university puts on every year.  So I started fiddling with styles and rhythms, watched a lot of def jam on youtube, and eventually thought I could write slam.  The problem was, I couldn’t read it.  During those days of delusion I would often attend Helicon West, and would occasionally try to read one of my works.  Unfortunately, every time I tried to read, I would, at the exact same time, have the immediate urge to vomit.  I would get flushed, dizzy, unable to read the words.  After much effort, I was able to read some of my works in public, and at that moment, I realized that the poems were utter crap.  Just, seriously really bad.  I’m literally chuckling, in a crowded computer lab right now thinking about how awful those poems were.  But I had a group of around 6 roommates (I say around because I lived in this giant, family sized house where guests would come and go all the time) that said they were brilliant.  Idiots.  We were all idiots.  But I can’t lie, at the time I was loving it.  We were all writing poems and watching beat and slam poetry and making music and painting, it was a great time in my life that I wouldn’t give up for anything.  And despite how bad those poems actually were, they were all really fun to write.  To find the perfect word that will bring the whole stanza together and make the poem pop. 

So, I think when it comes to writing assignments, there are always going to be ones that students don’t like, but I also think that if you have enough variety in the writing, they will appreciate at least a little of it.  I mean, have some personal journaling, have them write from the perspective of someone else (like a historical figure, or for you math-nuts, from the perspective of a number or equation), have them add a sentence to someone else’s writing, have them write like Dr. Seuss, have them write about something they’re passionate about, have them write about something boring in an interesting way, have them write an ad for something.  Really, there are a million ideas, but the important thing is to get them to write.  They don’t have to always like it, but sometimes they might find that they do.