Letting Go of the Old Story

Two springs ago my district moved graduation to the Friday before the last week of classes, which meant that my seniors were done early, leaving me a few "free" hours during the last week of school. I used the bonus time to clean out 32 years of files, a job I'd been meaning to do for at least a decade. 

I learned a lot. 

I found my first evaluation, when my first principal observed a class 22-year-old me was teaching. It was hilarious to read his description of my lesson (it sounded awesome) and my teaching style (ah, to be young).

I discovered instructions and student samples from curriculum I developed in the 1990's based on OBE and cooperative, project learning. I was amazed at the ambitiousness of the projects. 

Mostly, I sorted through reams and reams of ephemera, lesson plans, and worksheets I created for SO MANY pieces of literature over the years. Many documents were thrown away with fingers crossed that I wouldn't need them ever again. Of course, docs I created in the past two decades are available online, but it was still hard to toss them into the recycling bin.

Note: A few docs were typed on a typewriter and copied via mimeograph. I saved those just to laugh at.

Ultimately, I went from 11 file drawers to 5, which means I really let go of a lot. It wasn't just the physical paper. It was all the accumulated work of a career. The time, the grind that makes up a life. 

By the time I closed the final file drawer, I was feeling some feels.

It was a valuable lesson in letting go. 

I have taught 30+ years of English 12 at my high school, years during which I refined and perfected lessons until I mostly defeated imposter syndrome to the point of pride. Also during this time period our district skipped the curriculum review process several times; as a result, the anthologies out of which we had been teach poetry, short stories, etc. were over 35 years old. 

The books were literally falling apart, and we couldn't even order used copies online, because there were none to be had. Finally our district purchased new curriculum (anthologies), and this past year it was "out with the old and in with the new."

One thing that helped me with the transition to the new curriculum was that experience of cleaning out the files the spring before.

I had let go of the story in my head that told me who I was as a teacher. I invented a new teacher from the ashes. 

The next new story?

The end of my teaching career is in sight, begging several questions: 

* As I transition away from the daily grind of teaching, how will my identity as a writer unfold?

* Is there a path to a full time career as a writer in my future?

* Moving forward, who will the new Ann be?

Dash Away Progress Summary

Let's just jump right in and have a catch up, shall we?

My current writing project is a romance novel titled Dash Away. It's basically a reverse Notting Hill, which is to say a Cinderella story. The MCs are a small town (Minnesota) high school librarian and a famous British actor who meet during a Christmas blizzard. 

January, 2021

The novel began at the tail end of the pandemic, a time during which I was mentally incapable of holding Aelland in my head. Who can remember an entire created world when every single day saps 100% of your mental capacity? Not this girl. 

And so, using a straightforward, formulaic structural framework (thank you Jessica Brody and the Save the Cat series), I began putting ideas together for a romance novel. For about six weeks at the start of 2021, character names were picked and a plot began to take shape. My favorite part of this birthing period was creating an IMDb page for the actor.

And then a thing happened, and there was no more time for writing. I gathered my notes into a folder and left them as a sort of "happy summer!" present to myself.

Summer, 2021:

After weeks and weeks of sorting notes and creating the most extensive outline of my writing life, I wrote three chapters in July. I spent as much time revising as writing, to be honest. Maybe more. Openings are so important. Luckily, Writing Excuses tackled some opening page traps and tips, so I had good ideas rattling around in my head.

The Save the Cat outline worked well for me. To start a chapter, I opened a new doc and did a short meta analysis of what needed to happen in the chapter by filling out this thing:

Credit: Save the Cat story cards

Then I pasted the notes from my massive outline below that and started writing. Although my word count ranged from 200-1700, I generally wrote about 800-900 words a day, which is a short chapter or half of a longer one. The next day, I revised before continuing on. I worked anywhere from one to five hours a day.

In the past, I used a different sort of "What needs to happen in a chapter?" reference page. There had been a computer shuffle in the previous year and a half, however, during which I lost track of that doc. I decided to stick with the new outline.

I was more productive at the start of August. In the first nine days, I wrote nine chapters. An out of town trip interrupted the flow, and it took a few days to get back into the swing. But I did write another nine chapters. 

I ended the summer with around 26,000 words, knowing progress on the novel would not resume until summer 2022. 

Summer 2022

Over the course of the summer, I wrote another 50,000 words. I'd describe those chapters as the MC's courtship. I left the couple just before their New Year's Eve. They stayed there until this summer. 

Winter 2023

I learned three things about my writing and myself at a writing retreat hosted by Pam Houston in February. 

Lesson #1: I have my 10,000 hours in. When we were given writing assignments, I had the facility and skill to pump out decent work. Our goal was process, not product, so I don't know if anything I wrote will ever become more than writing practice. But it will be nice to reflect on the confidence I felt that week when imposter syndrome rears its head in the future. 

Lesson #2: I can write poetry! The only poems I had written before the workshop were Shakespearean sonnets created to demonstrate that form for my students. But most of what came out of me during the retreat was in poem form. It was a surprise, and I enjoyed it.

Lesson #3: I am funnier (on paper) than I realized.

These revelations led to a resolution to trust myself and to lean into the funny. Dash Away may be exactly as predictable as any Hallmark romance, but at least it will (fingers crossed) make people smile.

Summer, 2023:

Back at it! 

I learned that I start writing in 1st gear (day one), move into 3rd gear (the next day), and then can sustain cruising speed indefinitely until I am interrupted. Even one day off derails my flow and forces me to drop back into 1st gear. So the key is a schedule with as many back-to-back writing days as possible.

And that has worked. My summer started with a full week of reading the incomplete novel on paper. I marked issues but didn't fix them as I read. 

After a short vacation to see theater in New York, I continued the draft. I had planned to do my edits on the first 74,000 words, but it was much more fun to pick up where the story left off. 

This pattern repeated a few times. Write. Short vacation. Write. Short vacation. Write. Write. Write.

During the writing weeks, I revised and wrote between three and five total hours a day, which was more than last summer, drafting about 8000 words per week. Today is my last free day of the summer to indulge in this project, and I am on chapter 59 out of 63 (probably). I really want to have a full draft before school starts, but we'll see.

So, that's where I am. 

On Inspiration

A few weeks ago, I attended a delightful morning coffee with ladies from my neighborhood. I wasn't expecting to chat about my writing process, but someone asked where I get ideas for a novel.

Given my audience was a room full of people casually chatting and not a master class, I kept my answer short: I get ideas while driving. Specifically, while driving to see my out-of-town family. And it's true, if the radio's off and I turn my thoughts toward my current writing project, I always get great ideas. My mother must wonder what's happening every Saturday morning as I pull into her driveway and then sit for ten minutes dictating ideas into a gmail message to myself. 

Later, I open the message and copy/paste the ideas into a Word doc. I bet if I searched my computer for "Car Notes" I'd see a list of 30-40 docs spanning the past seven or eight years, mostly ideas for Lio and Lamb. I don't use all the ideas, maybe just 20%, so this process functions like brainstorming. 

That's the short answer.

The long answer is, well, longer.

I get ideas while reading books, watching movies and television shows, talking to friends, scrolling through Facebook, cleaning and cooking, listening to podcasts like Writing Excuses, weeding, having conversations with random strangers, listening to music, and mowing the yard. Well, not this year. It's so dry that I'm barely mowing. Anyway... 

Here's an example of an inspirational image I saw on Facebook a few weeks ago.

Source:  sweatpantsandcoffee.com 

I relate to many "tiny happy things" on this list, and it made me want my new main character to love some of them as well. I copied the image and pasted it into a Google doc. Then yesterday my main character started reading a novel... and realized she loved that feeling of realizing she loved the book.

This "collection of ideas" is constant. But it is heightened when I'm actively writing a project. My house fills with scraps of paper on which I've jotted random ideas. They accumulate on the kitchen counter until I move them to the chair by my desktop Mac's desk. 

Here's a quick pic of the little notes on the chair today.

The mess on the pink-bordered note is strawberry juice. Apparently I think of ideas while snacking as well.

What I find, and probably all writers find, is that when I'm actively writing a project, I'm in "writer mode." I watch the world more closely. I listen more carefully. And I pay closer attention to the random thoughts that flitter at the edge of my mind.

A Letter to Mary Robinette Kowal

Dear Ms. Kowal, 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

After architecting my newest novel by cramming 50 pages of notes into a 30 page outline, I was ready to start writing the manuscript this week. I don’t usually write the first page first, but the opening image was so clear in my mind. I sat myself down, started typing, and produced two solid pages.

Then I listened to Writing  Excuses episode 16.29. The idea that the opening pages should deliberately raise questions, several of which are answered right away to gain a reader’s trust, was intriguing. I decided to test the practice by doing the final assignment from 16.27. I scanned Amazon’s best selling books, picked four popular novels in my genre, and started reading opening pages. Three of the four novelists demonstrated your “mini-mysteries” advice perfectly. 

Thanks to your tips, I plan to revise my pages a bit before continuing on, adding more solved and unsolved puzzles. 

With gratitude,

Ann

PS We actually met once -- in line for the a bathroom stall at the Minneapolis Convention Center during Nerdcon: Stories. We chatted a little. It was delightful. Sadly, I looked you up in the program afterwards and thought, "Well, I'll never see her doing puppetry after this weekend, so I guess my 'famous person' encounter won't be a great story to tell later." And then I discovered Writing Excuses and you became one of my writing mentors. Life is great; sometimes it's even better than a perfectly crafted plot.

Toni Morrison

I love this, from Toni Morrison: 

In June and the first half of July, I did the following for my newest novel, Dash Away:

* Reread my notes from last winter

* Settled on names and personality traits for most characters

* Made a progression outline following the Blake Snyder model

* Collected more notes

* Rewatched Notting Hill 

* Sorted all my notes into chapters

That work feels like the thinking and discovering and selecting and ordering and beginning to find meaning part of the writing process. I think it has gone well, though I'm sure much will be trimmed and much added. 

As I make a turn this week toward actually typing the manuscript, I anticipate feeling the "awe and reverence and mystery and magic" of storytelling. 

Okay, muse. Let's go!

2020: Part 2

After a productive summer, wherein I did complete the Haven draft (yay!), we started the new school year with plans for hybrid learning instead of full distance teaching. Determined to avoid the mistakes of spring, 2020, I vowed to finish my school work each day by 5:00 pm in order to give myself a break each night. That meant giving up 10-14 hours of my weekend (on Sundays) to prepare for the week. It was a sacrifice I was prepared to make to restore balance to my weekdays. Friday nights and Saturdays became a sacred recovery time with no thoughts of work allowed. My own private sabbath.

Despite fluctuating between hybrid and distance learning seven times during semester 1, teaching did go better. If spring of 2020 earned a D-, fall of 2020 earned a C-. Progress through curriculum was slow and some students were still entirely disengaged despite my and my colleagues' best efforts. But I learned to let go of former expectations and to allow students to make poor choices without blaming myself. 

My new schedule worked, but it once again allowed no time for writing. Or, to be more accurate, I didn't prioritize writing. So I didn't write. Finishing the Haven draft over the summer felt like coming to a natural stopping point. And picking a draft to revise? It felt like too big a job to do piecemeal. 

Still, by the holiday break, I was itching to start something new. 

I had been reading the latest Beth O'Leary novels, modern British romances, after falling in love with her cover art. 

That's what I wanted to try.

So I did.

2020: Part 1

 

A recap: I started 2020 flush with writing plans and goals, primarily to finish a draft of Haven and then circle back to Aco and fix my pace and character arc problems in both drafts. I made some progress, but my writing was (predictably) derailed when the spring musical started up... and then both the musical and my writing met their premature end due to COVID. 

Across America, schools were closed and teachers and students alike were sent home. And so it was in my small district. For about a week. And then, because we are fortunate to have a supportive community that funded a technology referendum to supply laptops in a 1:1 initiative, we began full time distance learning. 

For me, DL meant sleeping in until 7:30 (no alarm clock needed), shlepping to the shower and making coffee in time to check that my Google Classroom lessons had posted (automatically set for 8:00), and then sitting down in front of a screen for the next 14 hours. Seriously. My routine typically included a short break for lunch from 2:30-3:00 and supper with a TV show from 7:00-8:00. And then back at it until all emails had been answered, online work had been graded, and new lessons were ready for the next day. On an "early" day I was finished by 10:00 pm. Sometimes I worked past midnight.

It was physically grueling, and sitting so long in front of the mac messed up my back. 

But the emotional impact was far worse. As a teacher, you strive to meet each student where they are and inspire them to achieve as much as they can. I was able to continue being that sort of teacher for a few amazing students. But too many of my seniors decided their MO for the rest of the year would be doing the minimal needed in order to pass and graduate. And that meant disengagement and rampant cheating. Let me give an example.

Let's say, during the study of Macbeth, I create a lesson on Lady Macbeth in act 1, scene 5. I am thrilled when I find a wonderful (short) video of Niamh Cusack rehearsing the scene for the RSC and create a lesson with a recorded introduction by me (with a funny personal story from a time I saw Niamh on stage), a link to myshakespeare.com so they can read the scene with vocab and explanatory help, and an interactive Google Doc where they can watch the actress dissect and perform the scene and react to her performance choices in writing. It takes me a little over two hours to put together (typical). I guess that it will take the students maybe 20 minutes to work through. That's only half of a class period, but I don't have another two hours to make more content and frankly, within days I realized that students were unwilling to do any assignment that lasted longer than 20 minutes anyway. I have two other preps to address before crawling into bed... It'll have to do. 

I post the assignment. When I start grading assignments a day later, I realize most of the students have skipped the reading entirely and watched maybe 3 minutes of the 11 minute video before composing their reactions. Some of the reactions make no sense as they are copied straight from the internet, probably after they took my prompt question and pasted it into the search bar at Google. And 5-6 students have the exact same personal response, down to the type-o's and grammar errors. 

From a distance, I could not have made the scene more simple and engaging. I was overly proud, in fact, of how clever I had been. They didn't care. And now I faced another 4 acts worth of lessons to create knowing that no matter how I addressed the lack of effort and outright cheating, no matter how clever I was in creating technology-forward, learner-friendly lessons, I would face similar choices by the students. What more could I do? It was emotionally crushing. 

This led to my realization and DL mantra: You can stay up until midnight creating beautiful, detailed maps leading straight to the freshest water, but you can't stop a horse from using Google Maps to find a short cut that leads to a brackish swamp. 

By the end of each week, I was so physically and emotionally drained that I collapsed for the weekend. Teaching, which is usually fun, became drudgery. I was ready to quit education entirely. I spent more than one moment dreaming of early retirement and looking at the help wanted ads in the local paper . And through it all, there was literally NO time to write. 

Until summer.

That's when the pandemic's restrictions became convenient excuses to indulge myself in days of gardening, quiet time recovering from the soul-devouring atrocity of DL, and finishing my Haven draft. 

So that's what I did.