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Teach: to impart knowledge
Impart: to communicate
Communicate: to give
Love

When I was a high school student I hated English literature. I mean hated.

I hated math too, but I found the teachers more animated and this animation somehow dripped into the equations.

Three days ago I received an email from a terrific journalist. She has a BA in journalism and has been writing polished profiles and interviews for magazines and newspapers throughout Pennsylvania. She decided to go back to college and get a BA in English as well – she figured it’d tighten her writing even more. She thought it would be interesting, fun even. The email she sent me was dire. In her desperation she asked relevant questions:

“Why are PhD professors allowed to teach without first taking any teaching classes?”

“How and why do English professors teach the greatest creative minds of humankind in the most boring way possible?”

“Why am I receiving C’s and D’s on all my writing assignments simply because I’m not using MLA exactly? Shouldn’t clear, creative prose be more important than a missing space in the works cited page?”

In the hours I’ve spent mulling over her email, my emotions moved from angry and upset to bothered and annoyed.

I reflected on myself. My college English professors are the ones who made me fall in love with reading and writing. They had a strong “hard” knowledge base, but their soft knowledge (aka emotional intelligence) was even stronger. They could tell when students were frustrated and hurting. They could tell when students might be getting bored or antsy. More importantly, they could adapt their lessons when they noticed these things. They cared. They were aware.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world.

Allen Ginsberg

Premise One: English professors should be forced to take several classes on how to teach. Why should a PhD and the accrual of more hard knowledge be the path to get the highest, most respected teaching positions in the country? It shouldn’t.

Change one: All current PhD students should be mandated to take one 3-credit course on the art of teaching. Our smartest minds should be shown how best to communicate their knowledge.

Premise Two: Dear English Professors,

Do not assume all of your students find your field of study as fascinating as you do. You must strive not only to show them the beauty of your field, but also do so in imaginative, creative and engaging ways. Lecturing is outdated and not nearly as effective as we once thought. Read John Dewey. Read Louise Rosenblatt. Spend some time studying the art of teaching rather than devoting 100% of your time to studying field knowledge.

Premise Three: Clear and creative written communication in the English language is slipping. Text messages teach us to lowercase the letter i –like this. Twitter forces us to abbreviate and fit feelings into 160 characters. Fast-flickering television shows and billboards create an environment (even chemically in our brains) that makes it hard to settle down to the slow static of a book’s pages. Aside from passion for your field, shouldn’t passion for literacy matter too? From ProLiteracy:

18 million adults in the U.S. don’t read well enough to earn a living wage

and

Low health literacy costs the U.S. 238 billion per year

PhD professors usually love their field. It’s the reason they’ve spent years and years of their life studying it. But the thing about love is that it should never be assumed and it should never be taken for granted. Love should be shared and to share love often takes work. The best way to share is to communicate. Teaching requires effective communication. Am I approaching an equation here?

Cameron Conaway, NSCA-CPT, was the 2007-2009 Poet-in-Residence at the University of Arizona’s MFA Creative Writing Program. He is the author of “Until You Make the Shore,” (forthcoming January 2012 from Salmon Poetry) and “Caged: Memoir of a Cage-Fighting Poet,” (forthcoming Fall 2011 from Tuttle Publishing) which has received endorsements from UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock and renowned writer Dinty W. Moore. Visit www.CameronConaway.com for more information.

I can hardly believe that in one month, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will be here again! Although I’ve attempted NaNo three times, I actually finished my NaNo novel for the first time last year, at a whopping 65,000 words. It’s my favorite of my novels to date. Unfortunately, it’s not revised yet, but with a little work I think it will definitely be publishable.

I just started prepping for this year’s NaNo through an activity at Writing.com. I wouldn’t have been able to do it last year without the prep. It really helps to go into November knowing the storyline and having a feel for who your characters are. In the end, you manuscript will probably need less revision, too. This year’s prep is acting as a way to slowly introduce me back into writing. Since I’ve started grad school and re-joined AmeriCorps, may days are pretty much non-stop, and October is especially crazy.

How will I do it? I don’t know yet. But with the magic of NaNo, I will.

I’m such a klutz. On Thursday, I fell and sprained my ankle. I knew it was pretty bad, but I was able to get up and walk on it. But then, ouch! I couldn’t get out of bed on Friday. I ended up in the ER, and found out I had chipped a bone and torn lots of little muscles in my ankle. I was given an air cast and crutches and told to stay off of it as much as possible for a week.

You may think that would have given me the perfect excuse to write, but it hasn’t. I’ve been tired, bored and miserable sitting home alone all weekend with my feet propped up. I feel like I’ve been sucked into this void of nothingness recently; injuring my foot was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. My morale is so low it feels like my brain is in a fog and I can’t make myself come out.

I’m such an independent person that not being able to go anywhere is really bothering me. It also means that I don’t get to go out to coffee shops and be around people, listen in on their conversations, and use that to get my creativity going. I live in such a fascinating neighborhood, full of such diverse people, and I can’t even go out and experience it!

The doctor said my ankle should be better in a week. In the meantime, I’m doing school work and only venturing out for class tonight and Wednesday night. Someday, hopefully, I get my mojo for life (and therefore writing) back.

I really don’t believe in “writer’s block.” I don’t usually go for months at a time without writing anything at all. I don’t think I would be a very good writer if I didn’t at least practice writing when my “real” projects aren’t going very well for me. There are always blog posts to write, if nothing else, which is exactly what I’m doing now.

After months of flying by the seat of my pants and writing anything and everything I could think of (including several for themed anthologies, in genres I normally don’t write in) I am stuck. I don’t attribute being stuck to a lack of ideas or creativity, however. I have plenty of ideas. It’s my circumstances that have changed.

I recently moved back to Pittsburgh to attend grad school for Secondary Education (woot!). I’ve only been here a little over a week, but already my schedule is all off and my body feels all out of whack. While I’m readjusting, my writing has been suffering. I even have so many things started that I just can’t seem to find the time or energy to finish. I hope things start picking up soon!

In other news, I’d really appreciate an acceptance letter for a short story sometime soon.

I didn’t drop the Hansel and Gretal rewrite. In fact, I finished it right after I made my last post. Go figure. Maybe I should have dropped it though, because it’s been driving me crazy ever since. I’ve had so many opinions on it, and so many of them conflict with each other, that I really don’t know where to go from here. This is what I get for leaving it hanging for months before finishing it. Now I only have 15 days to get it revised and submitted. It’s the first story in a long time that makes me want to pull my hair out. It’s not really my usual genre, so it was a challenge in the first place. I’m doubting if I have enough time for it to “click” in my brain. Oh, well. I think I might revise it in the way I want and submit it. If it doesn’t make it in, then I can always go back to it and try it somewhere else; there are a ton of alternative fairytale publications out there.

In other news, everyone should check out this Altoona Mirror article on Cameron Conaway, a poet, writer, teacher, and fighter that I went to college with: http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/540867/The-pen-is-mightier.html?nav=738 Cameron is about to have a book of poetry and a memoir published. Way to go, Cameron!

All of the success of people in my life makes me want to turn things up a notch with my own writing, especially my poetry. Publishing a book of poetry has always seemed like a far-away goal, something that could only be achieved after years and years of publishing poetry. But now that I’ve had quite a few poems published, I’m beginning to wonder if it might be possible for me. I know I could self-publish a book of poetry, but that doesn’t feel as satisfying to me. I want someone else to acknowledge all of the hard work I’ve put into my poetry over the years.

I know it’ll take lots of work and is still a way off- but the possibility seems closer. I really love seeing my work in print, holding a book with my name on it in my hands.

Today, I got accused of being “pretentious” because I said I wouldn’t read or write vampire stories/novels. ME, pretentious?

Of course, this comment came from Twilight fan. My hunch is, if I had said I didn’t like to read romance novels or sci fi stories, she wouldn’t have complained.

For the record, I think every reader and writer should try any genre he/she wants. Most of my experiences with different genres have come from an online critique group I belong to, and many of them have been stories written for specific anthologies. I’ve also begun writing for anthologies myself, mostly fantasy stories, but I’m also working on a romantic suspense. It’s a whole wide world out there, one that every one of us should explore in whatever way we feel necessary. I only feel as if people should be mindful of where and how they try to submit their work. Many vampire anthologies exist, and if you write a great vampire story, you could easily be in one. However, if you spend the next five years writing and revising a teen vampire novel, chances are that trend is going to be gone before you can find a publisher.

I’m not one of those writers who puts down genre writing. I know a lot of those writers; now, those people are pretentious!

I don’t think my rewrite of “Hansel and Gretel” for Enchanted Conversation is going to make it. I started it a couple of months ago because I knew it would take me awhile to write, but I never really got into it. Considering it’s due August 15, I don’t think I’m going to be able to wrap it up and polish it before then.

The idea of rewriting fairy tales intrigues me, but I may have been a little overzealous with wanting to write this one. I’m struggling to make it a unique take on the storyline. Maybe one of their upcoming prompts will be a fairytale I feel more comfortable with.

Sometimes, a writing project just doesn’t work out, and sometimes it’s just the timing. I think I might drop this one, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on it forever.

I honestly don’t understand why some writers  get so discouraged by one or two rejection letters. I have a short story that has been rejected five times but I don’t think it’s a bad story or that I’m a terrible writer. No, I’m giving it two more pending markets and then I’m going to take a long, hard look at it, see if there’s anything I can change to make it better, and send it back out again.

Revision never really stops until you hold the final product in your hand or see it published on your computer screen. Writers who don’t revise are only kidding themselves. Almost anything can be made better in some way, with a little work. The best advice I can give to any writer who is serious about publishing is to let other writers see your work and critique it. A fresh set of eyes often sees things the writer may not, simply because they are not as familiar with the work.

I’ll admit that I used to be anti-revision, but now that I’ve found a close group of writers to share my work with, I wonder why I ever felt that way. Their advice has been invaluable, and now I revise each of my short stories at least twice, and poems even more!

Rejection can sting, especially if it’s your first one, but writers must learn to stand up, brush themselves off, and try again. And if that doesn’t work, revise, revise, revise, and when the publication comes, it will feel that much more sweet!

My to-do list is always growing. Since I’ve decided not to focus exclusively on children’s lit, I’ve been exploring more genres than ever before. One of my favorite things to do is go through the deadline list on Duotrope and find interesting anthology and journal themes that catch my eye.  As a result, my current to-do list looks a little like this:

“The Problem with Fairies”- a fairy story for teens- first revisions done

“The Haunted Prom Dress”- semi-scary story for tweens- need to finish

a rewrite of the classic Hansel and Gretel- need to finish

a fantasy story involving food (vague)

a flash fiction fantasy

a rewritten Greek myth

Most of these are due in August. One thing that astounds me about this list is that there’s no poetry on it. While it’s true that I don’t write poetry much anymore, I really can’t pinpoint when I became a fiction writer either!

By the way, I’ve found that anthologies are fantastic ways to earn some $$ while doing what you love- writing! If I’m successful with getting most of these stories published, I will make at least as much as I’ve made on my picture book royalties in the past year.

According to www.bookjobs.com, a concept book is “a picture book for preschool children that attempts to teach a basic concept. Many concept books display illustrations or other art and contain only a few words per page. Concept books frequently focus on introducing children to subjects such as the alphabet, or colors, shapes, and sizes.”

If you think writing a successful concept book is easy, you’re wrong. There are thousands of books out there that teach children their ABC’s. How do you compete with them?

Today, many editors are looking for quality concept books that tell stories in addition to teaching a concept. No more “A is for Apple, B is for Book.” If your book can teach more than one concept at a time, that’s a bonus!

Some popular (multi-layered) concept books:

The Watering Hole by Graeme Base (counting, animals, the rain cycle)
ABC Look at Me! by Roberta Intrater (lift the flap for toddlers, ABC’s, emotions)
A is for Angry by Sandra Boynton (animal, alphabet, adjectives) *Also pretty much anything else by Sandra Boynton
Toes, Ears, and Nose! by Marion Dane Bauer and Karen Katz (lift the flap for toddlers, parts of the body)