Yesterday, I posted about Mark Teeters doing a fundraiser for Japan. Today’s the day.

Here’s more about it… I hope you’ll consider making a donation.

Today is March 9th which means it is World Read Aloud Day.

And on this day, lots and lots of people are being asked, “What I would miss most if I could not read or write?”

Feel free to share you answer below. For me, the answer is, well, everything.

Reading and writing and writing and reading are the straws that stir my life’s drink. They literally are my life’s doorways.

They are the doorway to my income, they are the doorway to my entertainment, they are the doorway to s much of what I value. I’s literally an unanswerable question to me as the thing I would miss most if I could not read or write is the life I am currently living.

Reading and writing are inextricably interwoven into my life’s fabric. And I love it!

Challenges for teachers are not hard to find in this day and age. That’s why, once the honeymoon is over, you must remember to execute! Fight through obstacles.

“Who knows the answer to _________________ ?”

Well, as a teacher, whenever I ask that question, don’t I already know who knows the answer to ____________ ? I mean, isn’t it all too often the same kid who knew the answer to ______________ yesterday and the answer to __________________ the day before that?

There’s a better way.

Who knows the answer?

Today is graduation day for the seniors. To see them milling about campus, dealing with everything from turning in overdue textbooks to making sure their graduation gown fits properly, it’s an amazing flurry to watch.

Some students are immensely proud. And rightfully so. When you are the first in your family to ever earn a diploma, it’s a monumentally meaningful event.

On my campus, every year, we get that a lot.

Other kids are nervous. It’s almost as if they have a look on their face of wishing they could have just one more year, a grade 13, so that they could be more prepared to face the moment for which one really cannot prepare.

Life (outside of school) is scary. And today they sense it.

There are smiles. There are tears. There are regrets and uncertainty, confidence and joy, friends one will have forever and friends one will almost never see again.

All in all, however, hope is in the air. And these students have earned that taste of hope. After all, they are the ones who made it. Made it through the bureaucratic hoops. Made it past the siren calls. Made it past the gatekeepers, trolls, foils and fools it to a doorstep of matriculation that will forever elevate them, if only but slightly, yet in a way that can never be taken away from them.

To many in this country, earning a high school diploma is a small, wholly expected achievement. To others, it is Everest.

Congrats to the seniors. My advice: pursue something meaningful in this world. It is the wellspring from which great value in life can emerge and re-emerge as you move through the years.

The private schools smell blood in the water… and they are turning the screws.

In an interesting case of “let’s shore up our finances while the time is ripe to do so”, the Saddle River Day School has taken out ads extolling the virtues of their [private] school while implying that the public schools in the area inferior/slipping.

“Skimping on science isn’t smart” says the ad.

And really, who would disagree that skimping on anything, when it comes to education, is smart?

BTW, who can argue that in public education these days, it’s not just skimping. Sheesh, we only wish that “skimping” was the term folks were using to describe what we are doing in our/to our schools.

Words like “draconian cuts/unprecedented devastation” are more likely to be heard from those in the know… not tepid words like skimping.

In Detroit, they are closing/bulldozing schools.
In California, they have pink slipped more than 20,000 of the state’s teachers.
In Arizona, Texas, Illinois… so I need to go on?

All across the country, public schools are being foundationally eviscerated and private schools – places that cost up to $30,000 a year – are seeing a chance to tout their own institutions by basically saying, “Public school can’t match us, they can’t keep up and if you are a parent that loves your kid and cares about your child’s education, you really ought to consider ponying up the big bucks to send your little angels to us.”

Talk about piling on… WOW!

But the thing is, they have a case to make. The schools of even decade ago are not the schools of today. From NCLB and the insane focus on bubble testing to the economic crisis and the insane amount of “cuts, cuts, cuts,” these private schools are making a very shrewd play.

And a hard case to argue with.

They see the blood in the water and they are doing what they feel they need to do to survive/ prosper.

Smaller class sizes. A culture of achievement. Diversity of curriculum. Enviable graduation rates. No, it’s not apples to apples at all, but that’s not the case they are making. They are making the case that if you can send you kid to a private school, you really ought to consider it because “we do it better than they do it”.

And less and less public schools in this day and age are able to stand up and say, “No you don’t.”

As a writer, some days I am a machine. I mean words just pour right out of me. I’ve done stretches that begin early in the morning (cause I wake up EXCITED to write) and I’ve stayed up well into the evening with only the owls to keep me company as I hammer away at the keyboard.

Truly, I’ve had days (many, in fact) when I’ve been able to crank out well over 2,800 words. (BTW, that’s 11 or 12 pages of usable novel material… an output that, for me, is spectacular.)

However, on Saturday I just spent about 5 hours in a knife fight with my latest book with the grand word production total for the day being 340.

When I was a younger writer, days like this would really aggravate me. Truly, I’d get steamed at myself.

“You suck. You gotta do more. You are never going to hit your goals if this is all your able to produce.” Stuff like that. The critical voice which live(d) inside my head would just have a field day berating me.

But you’ll notice that I said live(d) instead of lives. The reason is that after years of doing this I’ve learned that some days are just gonna be that way. Some patches of my books are just going to pour right out of me and some are gonna be bare-knuckle, down-n-dirty back alley brawls.

It’s just the nature of the beast.

However, nowadays, instead of allowing my own inner critic to run roughshod all over my own inner world (btw, yes, I have voices in my head and they are in constant conversation — I have a feeling though that this is actually quite normal. And until they start telling to do things like “eat the neighbor’s door knocker then take off your pants”, I try to give them the latitude they need to express themselves.) I have learned to go with the flow.

The writing of each book is its own journey and to try and put preconceived notions about productivity and output on every day’s efforts, well… for me, it can prove detrimental.

In great part though, this is because I have already cultivated the muscle of self-discipline. See, some writers are, as they describe themselves, lazy. They’ll do anything they can to procrastinate. Me, I am the opposite. Give me a full day and I will seize it. This is why my own inner critic doesn’t crush me as much as it used to any more… because I know that even if today was tough sledding, I’ll be back at it tomorrow and the next day and the next and, like trekking in an adventure-filled country, I know that some days will be open road with sun and easy terrain and others will see me climbing uphill through mud in a downpour.

Obviously, the more days of sun the better — but without the tough days, I am not sure that my books will ever be any good. If they are too easy, it means I am taking on too much of the obvious — and I need to look deeper at character (i.e. making them richer), plot (i.e. crafting it in a more complex and emotionally fulfilling manner) and so on.

Okay, Saturday was tough and hardly what I would call “voluminous” (by my own standards). But I made it to safe harbor, I definitely “worked hard at my book” and even if I have to go back and re-write or toss all the work I just did, it’s all just part of the journey towards completing a novel.

And, best of all, I greatly enjoy the work. Even when writing is really hard and really frustrating and really aggravating — heck, TORTUOUS… it’s better than not writing.

Not writing is death.

BTW, this post took me about 20 minutes to write. Word count: 636 Oh, the irony. The Gods of Writing must be laughing their butts off.

And me, too.

I am asked all the time about how to become a published author… so here’s some advice for aspiring writers.

Lots of people, it appears, have the desire to write a book one day. My thoughts: just do it.

Spring Break is here and summer is coming up. At some point in all our lives we must step up to do those things we one day had always hoped to accomplish so if there is a book living inside of you waiting to be born, you gotta ask yourself, “If not now, when?”

I say, do it!

And then do it and do it and do it some more. Will it be hard and aggravating and gut-wrenching and rough? Of course. But will it also be fulfilling, exciting, adventurous and rewarding? Most probably so. (I can’t promise, but it is for me.)

In my experience, the people who are most frustrated as writers are either 1) people who swear they are going to write a book but never actually do write a book or 2) people who do ultimately write a book and then come to believe that the world has failed to recognize their literary brilliance when they don’t sell as many copies as John Grisham while at the same time garnering the same critical reviews as Oscar Wilde.

Hogwash.

Real writers write because they can’t not write. If that is you, write, continue to write, continue to read and and continue to keep learning and learning about the craft of writing. Your publishing break will eventually come (mine took more than a decade) and when it does, it’s only going to mean that more writing will be expected of you one day.

This is a profession for lifers. The first ten years are school, the next ten years are learning the business behind the business. Write an average of 10 pages a week for 50 weeks a year (that’s 500 pages) for 20 years (that’s 10,000 pages) and then talk to me then about how no one wants to publish you. Cause you know what? You do that and I can almost guarantee, you will be published.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talks about the 10,000 hour rule. (i.e. it’s takes a ton of time to get really good at something.) Me, I kinda think there is some wisdom in this.

Now sure, you hear stories all the time about first time-authors who just got paid $750,000 for their debut novel… and maybe that will be you. (You’ll never know unless you actually write your book.) However, if you are looking for a quick score, a lottery ticket, I am not sure book writing is the best path.

But if you are looking to write a book for another reason, such as possibly believing that you actually MUST write this book (even if only your mom will ever buy a copy; but don’t worry, my mom bought 16 of my first book thinking she was going to propel it to the bestseller lists all by herself. BTW, nowadays, she waits for me to send her a free one. Sheesh, times have changed.) then do it.

More about the writing process is gonna come next week. But in the meantime, think about tapping at the keyboard. The page is blank for all of us when the sun comes up in the morning. The only question is, are you going to fill it?

The other day I wrote about the importance of dealing with rejection as a writer. Every writer I know or have ever read about (and that’s lots) has faced it.

Rejection is simply a realistic component of a writer’s professional life.

However, there’s a flip side to this as well. As a very reputable writer puts it…

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
~ Ray Brabury

Bradbury is so spot on about this aspect of being an author. While the rejection is brutal, acceptance can be insidious.

It’s not always insidious but it certainly can be.

All authors want approval. And experience tells me that the ones who most loudly say that they don’t want it are the ones who, deep down, want it the most.

It’s basic human nature. We work hard and pour out our hearts and would love to be positively acknowledged for our brilliance and genius and awe-inspiring literary ways.

But deep down we all also know, that it could be better. It can always be better. If I could have a conversation with Shakespeare, I’d love to chat with him about his own take on the work he produced for I have a feeling, he wouldn’t gush as much as the rest of us do about what he was able to accomplish but rather see what most writers see when they reflect back on their works… that “oh, if only I would have done this and added that and cut this, then the piece would have REALLY shined!”

We all think like that. As the poet Paul Valery once famously quipped, “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”

I don’t know if abandoned is the right word — a project has to end at some point — but he makes a good point.

We can always re-write and always try to make it better. Alas, it’s never perfect.

That’s why rejecting acceptance is so dangerous. It breeds complacency and a false sense of accomplishment.

On the feedback front, rejection hurts but if it comes with thoughtful reasons, I can learn, improve and grow. (Writing groups struggle with this because sometimes egos get involved and they offer criticism just to hear their own voice in the room.)

Acceptance is good because, well, it’s acceptance. And I want that. But when my mom tells me how great she finds my latest book, I have to ask myself, “Is she really helping me right now?”

Carol Jago said the other day that: write and find a way to receive feedback from a critical friend.

My response to this was…
A friend is key because you need someone who doesn’t have an agenda to prove how smart they are by tearing down your efforts. Some readers are critical just to be critical. Friends do not do that. We all have weaknesses and the writing gets better when we get to see them (because writing is re-writing).

On the other hand, a friend who is not critical is not doing you any favors. Someone who just says “I love it!” no matter what you put in front of them isn’t really helping you either. They are making you feel good… but how is that going to improve the re-writing?

Because writing is re-writing.

Have faith in your own work to move past the “me no likes” that’ll you’ll inevitably get but also have faith in yourself not to blindly trust the “me really loves” you also get as well.

It’s a fine balance which, btw, I still do not always have the most firm grip upon.

We’re all works in progress, right?