Month: December 2018

The following is ten minutes of me drafting a yet untitled story. 

Chevy’s grandmother used to talk about rain the way sports fans talk about the great season their team had once upon a time. She loved the rain. She would run outside in whatever she was wearing and stand under the grey sky, pellets of water smacking her skin and rolling into the loose dust where they became mud and muck and then groundwater. She would laugh then and talk about how Arizona wasn’t built for rain; about how they would close roads and sometimes schools because the water came all at once and it filled the streets to the point where nobody knew what to do with it. That was all before the Ghost Dance.

People thought the dance just changed the power dynamic in the southwest, but it did more than that. When the early winter rains filled the skies the ground soaked it all up greedily. When spring finally broke and the moonsoons followed the ground soaked that up as well. Then something peculiar started to happen. The rain didn’t lie in the gutters or pool in washouts waiting for the morning sun to suck it back up into the sky. It took root, holding fast to the earth and soaking through and making the ground fertile again. Grass and brush grew where previously there was only rock and tumbleweed. In the valley of 10,000 horses life flourished.

No one knew it was magic at first. The effect seemed to be even across the deserts of Arizona. By the first summer after the grow many of the places where life had tried to resume were reclaimed by the heat and the dust. Only pockets of habitable earth survived that first summer. These were the lands least affected by shadow. It was thousands of acres and at the edges of the growth it seemed die off quite suddenly, as though you could trace a line around where the earth was fertile and reveal where it was not. His grandmother called those places Rainshadows. They were often the patches of land closest to the mountains and she warned him about those places. She warned that the areas where life did flourish drew their spark from the places where the water fell the least.

A day before my last workshop class period I find myself thinking about the space between good writing and exceptional fiction. The space is not terribly vast. It can be a particular turn of phrase, a unique plot point, even a cleverly structured interaction. More often than not it is character that spaces good fiction from exceptional. Character is the key to everything. Moreover, secondary characters are the most important thing. If Hermione and Ron were not exceptionally rendered then the Potter stories would’ve remained in the rejection heap from whence they came.

I’m serious about the Potter thing. That is the kind of story where most readers can find a richly imagined character they can identify with. On some level the characters are created in a way where they fit into common molds. Likewise, the houses are molded in a fashion to allow us to identify and segregate ourselves as our nature would warrant. 

The secret to story isn’t all that secret. Make us love the people and we will follow the words until the words entirely run out. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Excited to meet with the class one last time. Ought to be a good one.
2. The fact that NFL players wear helmets makes them seem so much more like Knights.

I’m the father to three boys–the oldest of which is a freshman in high school. The drama between the three is often so intense that it ends in fighting, tears, or both. The most recent drama surrounds video games. A new game, Super Smash Bros, came out yesterday and the boys have been fighting over who gets to play, who gets to pick maps, and every little point of the game. Here is what it actually boils down to:

Each of the boys want recognition. They grew up in a culture of youtubers being praised for their success and a culture of instant fame. They want to be seen as ‘the first to win’ or be heralded as the one who unlocked everything. In other words, they want to be top dog and in control. They each want the others to look at them as best. This is intensified by the separation in years and grades and relative positions on the food chain in their respective schools. This is further intensified by the competitive and sports-based culture I’ve bred into them since birth. 

How does this translate to the page, you ask? It all comes down to character motivation. I tend to borrow traits and dilemmas from the people I know in real life in order to develop fictional characters. The two race car drivers pushing against each other in order to be the one the owner notices is not far removed from two brothers fighting for supremacy. What works especially well in this instance is how much the boys are fixated on the newest thing. There is something to be said about fad and the importance of being on the crest of the wave — at least in their mind. That is a character trait/dilemma that works in any story. 

I spent a good amount of time today partaking in christmas cheer. I feel good about that. I feel about as good about what is to come in terms of writing. I am trying to get back into rhythm with the words. 10 minutes is nice, but it doesn’t define a writer’s life.

I also spent a bit of time in anger. I am working on letting go, but it is a hard thing to do. In truth I am filled with anger as I type this post. It is wasted energy. I believe I spend a great deal of time wasting energy on what basically amounts to bureaucracy and high school drama. None of it feeds my soul and, in fact, withers it.

This is a short blog, because these words are hard to get out.

As a teacher our success is often a reflection of the success of our students. When students who “aren’t supposed to make it” do well, it makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we are part of something larger, that we’ve done a good job, and above all else it makes us feel good for them. We become protective and want them to experience continued success. Unfortunately, students are not going to be successful in every environment or with every type of teacher. Unfortunately, once we start down that slope of belief, anything that stands in the way of our belief gets knocked over. That’s where we are now.

Here is the situation in a nutshell. A group of teachers rallied around a student with special needs. The student is smart and really has an opportunity to be successful. The student wound up in my class where the teaching environment did not suit the student’s style of learning or comfort zone in any way. My class is a learning community with myself and another teacher. The structure and temperament of the class was contrary to the expectations and comfort of the student. As a response the student consulted their circle of teachers and began to point to my partner and I as the problem or obstacle to learning.

People want to feel they way the want to feel about you. The worst part of that is confirmation bias, which is the psychological way in which we interpret (or exclude) information in order to reinforce our existing beliefs. The people involved in this story want to see the student be successful and anything viewed as an impediment to that by that student is bad. By deduction, I am bad. My partner and I are the problem–bad teachers who don’t facilitate student learning. Of course in the shark tank politics of community college some instructors, some want to see you as bad because of their own cliques or interests or what have you. This situation plays into that pre-existing situation.

Here’s the thing. I am good at what I do and only want to get better. I don’t want to be part of the politics or the cliques. I want to teach and impact student learning. I’ve gradually pulled away from social interaction on campus and this situation encourages me to do so even further.

Alright, we got 10 minutes to sort out a whole lot of stuff:

Let’s start with the Chiefs. They cut the #5 RB in the NFL and replaced him with… nothing, actually. This is a trend. You cut a guy who is great on the field (or don’t ever sign him) and then act like you didn’t need him in the first place. Sure, there was a great reason to cut the dude, but I am pretty sure he isn’t being replaced by the likes of a RB that was unemployed only days before the Chiefs played. No, they are just gonna take this one on the chin and it will likely ruin their chances of winning the AFC. 

Bills cut Benjamin. However, that seems like a good culture move. He was not vibing with the QB. He named some QB’s he thought he could roll with and maybe one of them is interested (Giants, anyone?). It isn’t like the Bills are going to the playoffs or anywhere else upwardly mobile for a few years. 

Speaking of upward mobility, the Redskins do not have it. They lost another QB. Did they run out and sign Kaepernick? nope. Politics? Given that they’re resting their hopes on Mark Sanchez, I would argue yes. However, they are a pro-set team and it might take too long to bring him up to speed. Then again, it might not… See, Colin replaced Smith in SF. So, the argument that he isn’t the kind of skill set that can follow a Smith offense is BS. The entire thing is BS. They’re just gonna run out the clock on his career because he is in a star position and he made a political statement. Sucks. Well, sucks for Washington, but I wanted them to lose anyways.

Go Giants!

A question popped up in my last CRW workshop: How do you effectively write characters who are nothing like you? This one is near and dear to my heart as I tend to write characters who are racially and sexually different from me. I write a ton of Asian, Native Tribal, and white characters, though I am not any of those things in any significant way. I write women and I am a man. Still, I like to think the writing is both believable and meaningful in spite of not being connected to those cultures in a native way. How do I do it? I try to find common ground and go from there.

My partner is from the south and over the course of our relationship we’ve discovered that black culture and rural southern poor white culture is basically the same culture. The foods are the same but the slang is often different. The struggles are the same, but the focus of blame is sometimes different. The conditions are the same as often is the relationship with the law and the deep rooted familial instinct that governs both cultures. There are threads of sameness throughout the two cultures, because in many ways they come from the same place. They were just raised different.

I feel the same can be said of any gender or culture. At the root of all of it are the same wants and needs. The way we are taught to respond to such things differs, but those things can be sussed out through example. A rich kid wants the same basic things a poor kid wants–power and respect. The differences lie in the expectation of such, the level of such, the means through which it is gotten, and most importantly, the rules and language of engagement these power interactions have. Most of that requires some basic research but if you go back to the core emotional need (respect and power) you will see similar motivations. Start there. 

Any cultural interaction is to me like playing a game. There are rules specific to every game as there are rules to the interactions, and everyone wants to win. As a writer it is your job to determine what winning looks like, how much it is worth to the character, as well as their ability to adhere to the rules of the game.

Sara said, “I don’t get it. You’ve been on the edge of salty all day.”
She was sitting in Henry’s room flipping through a People magazine she found on the kitchen counter before she came up. Outside it was raining hard enough to hear. To Henry the sound was white noise. He just wished it could shut her up too.
“So, you going to tell me what is going on with you or what?”
“Nothing.” Henry said. It was the kind of lie people told casually; the same sort of thing like when girls said they were fine.
“Nothing.” She repeated. She rolled her eyes and tapped her foot against his. Henry was sitting on the edge of the bed caught between laying down and standing up. He’d have chosen the former had Sara not shown up. Now he was leaning the other way.
“Nothing.” He said. “I thought you had soccer today.”
She raised her eyebrows and slowly shifted her vision towards the window before returning her gaze to him.
“What, it’s just a little rain. My team always practiced when it rained.”
“That’s because football coaches are stupid and sadistic. Besides, the field flooded this morning and the rain hasn’t let up since. Coach Winters said they may cancel the games this week. Arizona really doesn’t know how to handle rain.”
Henry shrugged, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to talk to her—he wasn’t ready to tell her. Still, that didn’t stop her from talking to him. “How about you take me out instead? My mom said I could stay out till 10. We could see that new movie that you were talking about. You know, share popcorn.”
“I have to do homework and my mom will kill me if I don’t get these chores handled tonight.”
Sara’s bright face dimmed a little, the corners of her mouth turning into brackets. She said, “Really? You see what I mean about being salty? You’re going to ditch me for homework and chores?”
He shrugged again. Outside thunder rattled the window and lightening left streaks in the air like the ghosts of a camera flash.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sara said. She crossed her arms over her chest in that way that usually made him cringe.
“Nothing, I told you.”
“Yeah. Nothing. Well, it is definitely something. I saw your mom when I came in and she was like the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Yet you’ve been a dumpy dog since first period. Nothing, right?”
He sighed and asked her to leave it alone, which might have been the worst thing he could’ve said, because she stood up then, arms still crossed, and told him that she would.
Henry thought about going after her. He thought about finding some way to explain his distance and his anger all day but it wasn’t anything he could explain—not in a way that made since to anyone else let alone his girlfriend. Today was supposed to be the best day of his life. Yet at the same time he hated everything about it.
He closed the door after she left. He turned off the lights and sat in the darkness listening to the rain steadily assault his window.

I have rarely been excused for a holiday guy. It took the better part of today (and a helpful reminder from NPR) to realize that I had yet to wish my adoptive sister a happy Hanukkah. Moreover, despite growing up in Manhattan, I still don’t know how to spell that word—or if it should actually begin with a C. I love the holidays, but I’m not very good at them. This I why it helps to have a partner who cares.

Today I made merry. I carefully hung lights—abandoning my tradiotonally rushed and haphazzard placement for patient deliberation and meaningful detail. I helped make the House festive. Though the bulk of the work was her doing, I felt a part of it and through that a part of what makes the holiday joyous. 

The preparation for Xmas ought not to be treated as a chore but a celebration. You get to show off your lights and decorate a tree. You get the privilege of making merry. This only happens once a year. The decorations we use for Halloween have a far more nefarious purpose in design and execution. Christmas is about joy, wonder, and possibility. At one point we all hoped we were nice and not naughty. We wished for a merry Xmas, a happy Hanukkah, a bountiful Nee year. The ritual of preparation is our own hoop dance towards those causes. 

This year I mean to prepare my house with passion. Perhaps it will earn me good tidings for the holidays nd new year, but truthfully what I ask is minimal. I ask only that I can enjoy the moments making the house ready—making the house merry. 

This is about Kareem Hunt. For those who don’t know, Hunt is the starting running back for the KC Chiefs. Well, he was until a video emerged of him in an altercation with a young woman. He knocked down another dude who inadvertently knocked her to the ground. The altercation continued and Hunt kicked her while she was down. Hunt was fired the day the video emerged and now is waiting to see if another team wants to take a chance on him. I’m going to say something that is not politically correct: Hunt was put in a dangerous position and reacted the wrong way. This should not mean he no longer has a career in the NFL.

Here is the video. It has been deemed a brutal assault and drawn comparisons to the Ray Rice assault. However, a careful analysis of both shows but two key commonalities. Both women delivered the first hit and both videos were released by TMZ in an effort to draw in more clicks. In the hunt video the kick was delivered with little to no force in an effort to humiliate and demean vs. do damage. 

That doesn’t make it right, but it does raise questions about whether or not a man can recover from this kind of media coverage.