We have writer’s notebooks, lists of writing territories, explorations, drafts, and poems. We brainstorm, share ideas, model ways to vary our syntax and diction, and how to edit. We share, comment, and reflect on our writing. We share storie, do freewrites and more. But as writing teachers, are we really living like writers?
A long time ago, I thought living like a writer meant you got paid to write and your writing got published. Then I got a job reviewing trendy technology. I was paid 20 cents/word to write a review of iPod-wired Levi’s jeans. By the end of it, I wanted to punch someone. Then I applied to teaching graduate school.
A shorter time ago, I thought living like a writer meant you looked at the world differently. On the sidewalk in October, there is a pile of leaves. Some people walk through the leaves without a second thought. Some people pause for a minute to marvel at the way the four o-clock sun slants through the clouds and makes certain colors pop. Some people walk slowly around the pile, squinting, noticing that if they move their heads two inches to the left, the reds cast a light glow over the yellows. A writer picks up a pen.
Both definitions are true, but it took a blog and a roommate for me to realize the element I was missing. I posted an early draft of my memoir, so early that “rough” doesn’t cover the lack of polished prose. In passing, my roommate said that it had a lot of potential, and I wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. I wasn’t familiar with the fear associated with other people critiquing my writing. It had been three years, after all, since my last writing workshop. Even then, I focused on mainly fiction. This was TRUE. It was my mother, my wonderful mother, who’s in fantastic shape and still somehow needed emergency brain surgery. This was me, sobbing in front of my laptop, setting a timer for ten minutes and letting the fear envelope me as I tried to put it into words. This was less than two months ago, and my roommate thought she could just comment on it in passing, like it was nothing?
In an instant, I knew I would tell this story to all my future students. I ask them to share like it’s easy, like putting your thoughts on display for 27 people is easy, and I’m surprised when making participation 20% of their grade isn’t enough motivation? Sometimes my thoughtlessness alarms me. Sometimes I don’t know how 25 years and God knows how many tears haven’t taught me that it’s hard to put your feelings into words, and even harder to speak them out loud.
That’s what I’m missing. I love my students, but it’s not enough to write for them, and the 6.4 people who read my blog. To truly live like a writer, I need to write in a community of writers. A community of writers where I can swear, where I don’t have to conspicuously leave all the alcohol and sex out. A community of writers that aren’t 10-15-years old.
Most of the writing I’ve done in the past two years has been for my students. When I’m looking for an example of a quickwrite, I do it myself. I have dozens of lists of “My Writing Territories,” geared towards different groups and grade levels. I wrote my own “Relaxing Place” essay. But it’s been three years since took a writing class, three years since I wrote my thesis, graduated, and ended up back in middle school.
The single most meaningful teaching experience I’ve had this year is writing a memoir with my 8th grade students. I used all the brainstorming and visualization techniques, half the drafting strategies, and found myself saying things like, “Show, don’t’ tell,” while revising my syntax. I found the common theme in a dozen rambly freewrites and stitched it together in a way that made sense. The experience of writing the memoir helped me process the experience I was writing about. I learned something about it along the way. It was too valuable an experience to keep to myself. Even though I assigned a pinch reader to take over when I felt the tears starting, even though I still cried while reading it to them, it changed the way I understand and teach memoir, and way I understand and teach writing.
It really made me question everything I know about writing. It made me wonder if, despite all the observing, writing, collecting, and sharing I do, I somehow was missing the point. Was I really leaving like a writer? Are any of us? Are we looking at the way the sun hits a pile of leaves and picking up a pen? Are we writing while crying and laughing and screaming into our computer screens? Are we hurling our words full-speed at the page like we expect our students to?
I don’t think I was living like a writer until I wrote that memoir.
Three days ago I asked a chronically-disorganized student to show me the Table of Contents in his Writer’s Notebook. He smirked, and said, “Fine, but let me see yours.” When I showed it to him, he said, “But, is it up-to-date Miss Wyner?” It wasn’t. Luckily, I managed to talk my way out of a detention.
The next day, I walked into my seventh grade class and held my notebook opened for them to see. “This is my homework,” I proclaimed. I showed them my two pages of memoir explorations, and explained that my half-page detailed list about Franklin Park wasn’t something I thought I would continue writing about, but I thought I might keep working on my exploration of swimming pools in my life.
A girl who often tells me how annoying she finds me looked up from her detailed schedule of scratching hearts into the table and said, “Wow. That’s really cool that you did that.”
Later, I let her teach me how to jerk. I failed. We all laughed as I tripped over my feet trying to do an alarmingly simple dance move. Life goes on.
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