Will Technology De-value Our Books?

As I was thumbing through my usual blog quest and twitter scan today, dystopian visions of a Brave New World sort began to cloud my writerly fantasies of what the future will hold not only for me and my books, but for books in general.  Several cyber acquaintances are exploring the ramifications of the electronic world of publishing.  I'm not pronouncing the end of literary days or anything, but I do wonder.  No matter what lay ahead in technology, story telling and books will endure, but will they hold the same value? Or will it simply become our dose of soma, minus the euphoria?  Something to maintain the status quo, fill a void but only with white noise?

Nathan Bransford's post looks at the economic philosophies that drive market evolution and applies them to the publishing world, namely to the bargain ebook phenomenon.  While his post is hopeful, it does leave me wondering if books will be as valuable to our grandchildren as they are to us.  I won't rehash the whole doomsday prediction of the end of paper books, but as technology takes us in a new direction, will books become no more than a disposable blip on the kindle/ipad/computer screen?  I tend to agree with Nathan that quality will always find its way out and the everyman march to mediocre is a myth. (I pray!)

I admit—I'm a book junky.  I hoard them, spend money I don't have on them, stockpile more than I can possibly read, and lie there and inhale the sent of paper and ink and glue as if it were crack.  I pet their tattered bindings and talk to them when we're alone.  Kind of pathetic, I know.  But to me, books are not only my drug, they are my religion, my family, my consolation.

Okay, so ebooks are going to take over the world and relegate print matter to back room "read-easies" or the Antiques Road Show or the antiquities section of the Smithsonian along with the mummies and the salvaged remains of the Titannic.  Let's say that ebooks do balance the market out and maintain the integrity of good reading.  What happens to those oh-so-precious-and-valuable signed editions?

Someone has thought of that.  Autography will allow an author to sign her ebook for a fan and digitize that personal touch for posterity. (Pardon the ironic smile)  So...what will a signed electronic edition of J.K. Rowling's next book be worth in 50 years?  Will electronic signatures be pirated and distributed en masse with a single click?  What would an e-signature be worth, then?  How is it authenticated?  Or does that point simply become moot because that sense of iconic wonder, of religious fervor, of hero-worshipping awe has simply faded away into the everyday blip of silicon-induced complacency?

I wonder...

Gold Star to Nathan Bransford

Just a short post.  If you are a writer and you don't follow Nathan Bransford, you should.  Today he posted a particularly salient piece, given a few recent meltdowns in cyberspace, that reminds us that the artistic temperament and the speed-of-light conduit of information that is the internet often do not mix well.

Miscellaneous Madness

Butler made it to the finals and almost took the championship, tragedies both small and large changed my path more than once, and writing goals took on new meaning over those 31 raging spring days.
Thank you to the March Madness crew and all those who participated for keeping me motivated and inspired.  I didn't quite reach my goal, but I gained momentum that will surely kick some April butt.

The biggest event of the month continues to haunt us as Japan struggles with the devastation and potential radiation contamination wrought by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th.  I continue to get news from friends and acquaintances as I pray for healing and grace for everyone effected by this event.  If you wish to help, Charity Watchdog has compiled a list and some general information about organizations committed to helping Japan.

As for a small tragedy, my dear daughter unexpectedly lost her bunny last week.  Can you remember that first pet that was really yours, that you gave your whole heart to and spoiled with affection every day?  This was hers.  Aptly named "Angel," that little rabbit loved the attention and gave Ghost Daughter so much in return.  The most heart-wrenching part of it all is that Angel died basically in our girl's lap.  She was moving and content one minute and the next, dead.  Our poor girl brought this lifeless body to her daddy and asked, "Is she dead?"  After mourning and keening for a day, and a lovely funeral, Angel was laid to rest.  A heart attack is the most likely culprit.  The first weekend of April brought a 4-hour drive North to a breeder where we adopted Angel Jr. and started a new journey, Ghost Daughter, me, and the bunny.

And the writing goals?  Well I added more than 10k to my WIP, had a few plot/character epiphanies, and kicked up the pace, so the madness led to at least a more focused method.  It's odd, though, how life can show me such unexpected moments of despair and supreme grace that not only give me perspective on reality, but inspire me to want to capture it in a place where we so often go to escape—writing.  The more real it is, the deeper the catharsis.

Perhaps that is just too much philosophizing for a Tuesday...

Project 365

March flew by far too fast, but I will take some time to reflect and blog about the madness in a bit. (A good kind of crazy!) But today marks the 18th anniversary of the day Ghost Hunk and I said our vows and promised to love each other forever. A woman asked me how we managed 18 years. The simple answer is, make love an action and keep doing it every day.

To celebrate, and because blogger pal Just Mom inspired me, I'm going to take a photo a day for the next 365 days and post it on my photo blog. Why not here? I want to keep this place tidy for my writing ranting and reflection. But perhaps I just build another Blogger site for the project.  We'll see.

In the meantime, off I go to year #19!

March Madness and Spring Break...(sort of)

Well in southwest Georgia, Spring has arrived.  I gripe a lot about living here, but this is one lovely perk...spring in February.  But March has somehow hopped right in here and I have a lot to get done.  So I will definitely be a mad hare as I dash through my WIP (ha ha) and get it ready for my awesome agent.  I wish I could guarantee that my WIP will be so awesome, but it's a first draft and a bolder project than the last.

To keep me on the right track, I'm following a fabulous group of writers who are blogging to inspire.  Join me as I check in all month:

Denise Jaden (Mondays)
Shana Silver (Tuesdays)
Angelina Hansen (Wednesdays)
Shari Green (Thursdays)
Craig Pirrall (Fridays)

*I've been told there will be prizes as well as inspiration!  

Drawing conclusions... and a contest!

Check out the interview with Ruth McNally Barshaw, author/illustrator of the ELLIE MCDOODLE series for young readers, over on the MIXED UP FILES OF MIDDLE-GRADE AUTHORS blog.

Sketches and doodles are a fun trend in MG books, and one that my kids can really relate to. Ghost Daughter comes home everyday with a notebook full of adventures and commentary. I can hardly keep the kid in paper!

Tattoo Me...Please!

Is it a mid-life crisis thing?  Or perhaps a need to rebel?  Or maybe just an urge to take control of some small part of my bod?  For whatever reason, I've been aching to get a tattoo.  The big question is, what do I want to etch into my ivory skin forever?  Of course a nice little celtic design would graft my love of Ireland to my shoulder for all eternity.  Maybe a spunky little fairy.  Of course horses are another passion, but I'm not sure I want just a horse-shaped stamped on my shoulder blade unless it's something really interesting.  What about something literary?  I considered a wonderful "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" or something like that, but I think an iconic image would be more up my alley for this purpose. Or maybe something ghosty.

Here's the gig:

• I need a great idea.
• It has to be small.  I don't want it to swarm across my back.  Just a small little accent on my shoulder blade.
• It can be color or monochrome
• I'm asking my blogging buddies for help...HELP!  

If you have a suggestion, post it in the comments along with a link to the image.  OR email me with your suggestion and paste the image right in the email.  I'm open to original work by any of my illustrator buddies as well.

Hit me with your best!  

Obligatory Morals...

Apparently HARPER COLLINS has added some new language to their contracts:

New language in the termination provision of the Harper’s boilerplate gives them the right to cancel a contract if “Author’s conduct evidences a lack of due regard for public conventions and morals, or if Author commits a crime or any other act that will tend to bring Author into serious contempt, and such behavior would materially damage the Work’s reputation or sales.” The consequences? Harper can terminate your book deal. Not only that, you’ll have to repay your advance. Harper may also avail itself of “other legal remedies” against you.

There is quite a wave of response to this in the blogsphere, including the an initial posting from Richard Curtis (quoted above), a spicy offering from Ursula Leguin, and a fun romp from Jock Stewart.  Steve Laube offers a somewhat different take, citing the standard MO of Christian Book publishers.

While I ruminate...what do you all think?

Huck's Audience

With all the flurry over the recent attempt to sanitize THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN for young audiences, one important element of the question seems to have gotten lost. Who was the intended audience? For that matter, consider the newly released film version of Jonathan Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. It is being marketed as a fun "family" film, but Swift's work was carefully crafted political satire aimed at adults.

Now look closely at Twain's book. Consider when he wrote it, not only in terms of the historical time period but also in terms of the stage of Twain's own life.  Though he may have envisioned a boy's adventure book when he began writing it, his novel became something very different by the end.  The end of Reconstruction, the introduction of Jim Crow, and a flood of lynchings as well as personal tragedy led Twain to put the half-finished manuscript on the shelf for seven years before he finally picked it back up. And when he did, he came at the novel from a very different place. There is far more darkness in his tale than today's young people would understand. Does that mean they shouldn't read it? No.

However, it does mean that we should treat it as what it is.  This book has been a point of contention on school reading lists for decades primarily because of the language, yet teachers want to share this eloquent indictment of Southern Honor and Post-Reconstruction realities with students of all ages. Why? What abiding truth resonates with the young reader? I think the problem is that many teachers don't really answer that question, if they ask it all all, before they plunge in with a group of unsuspecting 8th-graders.  Does a popsicle-stick raft really demonstrate an important theme in the book?

I'm not saying we shouldn't include this in our school reading list or ban people from teaching it.  I'm just saying don't be careless with it because you think it was meant for kids to read and learn a lesson about racism and don't let a sanitized version of the text lure you into a complacence that fails to address the true issues in the book.  An adolescent main character does not always mean a book was written for kids.  Is THE LOVELY BONES a book for young readers?

You can look around and find a host of classics that have been turned into graphic novels or abbreviated versions for young readers and that is not a bad thing.  We teach books written for adults all the time.  But if you wish to teach a book like HUCK FINN, don't assume that because one offensive word has been extracted or painted a different color that it is somehow more relevant or more acceptable to a young audience.

Kids can learn a lot from HUCK FINN.  Don't boil it down to a single word and don't assume that it was written for kids.  Think about those abiding truths you want your students to glean and start there. After all, if we want them to learn how to think about the hard questions, we have to be good models and ask them ourselves.

"Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You"

Yes, it's time for another round of literary sanitation in the name of political correctness.  If you haven't heard, an English professor at Auburn University is protecting us from ourselves in order to preserve a classic for generations to come.  How does he plan to do that?  He has replaced the word nigger with the word slave in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.  All 243 times it appears.  His hope is to make the book more palatable and less taboo to parents, teachers, and young readers alike in order to preserve a classic.

While I understand his aim, I have mixed emotions about the ramifications of such a cleansing.  My guts tightened and my brain shuddered when I heard the news.  Who would dare?  But I'm sure many teachers have grown weary of explaining and testing the cultural climate before attempting to teach the text and have abandoned it altogether in the name of job security.  It's a delicate business and believe me, I understand. But there is something more to this issue beside censorship and the political conscience of a modern audience.  For me, it's as simple as integrity.

I taught HUCKELBERRY FINN in the 90's and my students truly "got" it.  Now, keep in mind, I didn't just fling the book at them and dive into it without any context.  That would be ludicrous.  But then teaching any classic without context is not only asinine, but borderline criminal.  In his New York Times article, Michiko Kakutani sums up a crucial point here:

Never mind that today nigger is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.

I was teaching high school juniors at the time, and when I announced our next project, several sighed and said, "We already read that in 8th grade."  These were gifted students, mind you, and they had little tolerance for repetition let alone something that has been dubbed a "kid's adventure story."  Yes, that is how it was presented to them the first time around.[shudder] Of course I set them straight and then presented the historical and cultural context, complete with disclaimers about language.  Also consider that the demographics of this school were 49% caucasian, 48% African American, and 3% other (Indian, Iranian, etc.) Moreover, the socio-economic scale reached from the poorest to the wealthiest (children of pro football players and heart surgeons, etc.) who made their own cliques to often surprising ends.  When we had finished, several students remarked that they had read a completely different book. They had no idea that that is what the book was about.  They loved it and each one of them took in the truth that they found there.  


Prof. Gribben hopes to introduce more young people to Huck by sterilizing part of the very social comment that Twain was addressing.  Of course we have seen the term pass through different usages and through its evolution, we have cringed and cursed at the sound of it.  But what is really at the heart of good literature?  Truth.  No matter how ugly, uncomfortable, or embarrassing, if we seek it earnestly, we shall find it.  As teachers, isn't that a large part of our job, to help our students discover their understanding of the world and its naked truth?  


The primary problem is not the text.  The problem is that so many teachers get it wrong.  If you think that boiling down a social commentary like HUCKLEBERRY FINN to nothing more than a jaunt on the Mississippi, than you should not be teaching it to anyone.  The rich, beautiful, harsh story says so much about Twain's understanding of a country that had just come through a firestorm, not unscathed, not instantly wiser, and certainly not romantically mussed up, but truly, brutally scarred.  This isn't a book about friendship and acceptance.  This is a book about honor and truth and clarity.  Where is the honor and truth and clarity in eviscerating the text and subjugating the context? 


In the end, Huck doesn't necessarily see all slaves as equals, but he does see Jim as a man—an honorable, brave man—and a friend.  Mark Twain simply asked that we look at him, that we look at ourselves, that we see this country as it was, warts and all and consider the truth.  Don't look away now because it makes you uncomfortable.  You'll miss the most important parts. 
  

Tales from the NaNoWriMo Trenches, Part II (The Emotional Melée)

My first friend made it easy—a sort of halfbreed cross between Inspiration and Determination.  With my lower lip clenched tightly in my teeth, my fingers warm and nimble, I launched into my WIP with a vigor I hadn't seen it quite a while.  This was it.  Time to bang out that novel in 30 days and then spend a few months making it over for the real world.  She carried me high through the first week, nudging me closer to sun with little bursts of enthusiasm.  Of course another mosher was constantly tugging at me from behind.

Hello, Guilt.  Oh yes, this little friend was high-spirited and relentless.  "Ghost Girl, you're neglecting your family!" he shouted.  "The kids can't survive on frozen salisbury steak and applesauce forever!"  I swear he even brainwashed the tater tots who glared up at me from their grease-stained paper plates and chanted "saturated fats...saturated fats...you're killing your children!" I covered my ears and pressed on, but that nasty little mosher rallied the rabid dust bunnies to revolt.  But I just closed my eyes and flung myself deeper into the pit.

Aha...halfway through the month, I felt myself slipping, tumbling in a rock slide of dwindling word-counts.  200 one day, 150 the next.  Suddenly, a toady little critter tugged at my pants leg.  Fifty more stood arm-in-arm behind him, salivating through their smug grins. Yes, it was Defeat and his minions.  Their triumphant taunts rang throughout cyberspace:  "I hit 28k today!"  "I'm almost done and I have 15 days left!" "I'm finished...time to revise!"  Yes, there I was caught in the tightly clenched jaws of defeat, clutching my meager 12,000 words in my tiny fist.  A new pile of ENG 1102 essays mocked me from the corner.  Even the Thanksgiving turkey betrayed me!  "Time to write...," they taunted.  It wasn't their fault that others were more on the ball than I was.  

But somewhere in the midst of my grading haze and my post Thanksgiving stupor, another voice sifted through the darkness.  "Look what you did!  You broke through!  You taught your students, fed your kids, and broke through!"  She grabbed me by the ear and pulled my face in close.  "There..." She pointed her bony finger at the bottom of my laptop screen.  Blinking back at me from a tiny grey box was a small but admirable figure.  Perhaps a little lean, but very well-formed and even beautiful in places.   13,340, you're not so bad.  I gave my tiny sense of Accomplishment a little pat and said, "Welcome to the moshpit, now let's go dance..."

Tales from the NaNoWriMo Trenches, Part I

As promised, it's time to spill my guts about the whole NaNoWriMo whirlwind.  First, there is a very specific kind of mental gymnastics you have to do to commit yourself to this process.  I decided to do NaNoWriMo primarily to kick-start my new YA WIP and motivate myself passed whatever obstacle was keeping me from breaking through.  I won't call it "writer's block" because I had a fair idea of what I was writing and where I wanted to go.  It's more like a supra-sensory overload that left me spinning in neutral.  Perhaps it was even one part fear of failure.  After all, I had just written my best work yet and somehow it still didn't break out (not that it won't, soon).  So I told myself that it didn't matter if I didn't finish the book in 30 days, just as long as I made some real forward progress.

Okay.  All set, right?  Not exactly.  I had to stretch something else, a muscle that is strung so tightly it just might rip in two if I'm not careful.  I'm talking about the meta-writer, the constant editor that lives in my head and refuses to let me just vomit on the page.  But if you are going to write 50,000 words in 30 days, you have to let that baby fly!  Ouch!  Not so easy for this perfectionist.

Flexing.  Stretching.  Laying out the outline before Nov. 1st.  Check.  Hey, I even spewed some real stupidity on my awesome Scrivener note cards.  All right!  And then the righting began.  Frozen dinners, too much TV, not necessarily bathed on time—that was my kids' side of the bargain.  Ghost Hunk is rarely affected by these bouts of creative diarrhea, but he does eventually step in and man the standby parent booth when necessary.

And there I was, stoked and stretched and all warmed up.  I spat out 1200 words the first day.  Logged another 800 the second day.  Stumbled through about 250 on day 3.  Then I hit a 2K day and danced a rather conspicuous little jig at the café, though I saw very little of my family and spent the wee hours of the night preparing for class the next day.  But my main concern was...is this crap?  No matter how much I screwed up my courage and my resolve, I still could not fight the urge to spend 20 minutes searching for the right word or go back and add that certain something to the previous scene to connect the dots.  But I did manage to throw down a few painfully nasty tidbits and move on just to keep the momentum going.  I'll come back later!  My mind couldn't help itself...it kept wandering off to the revision process already. Scratching that itch just enough to distract me from my forward motion. Back! Back, I say! (kkkaccchhhh!)  And on I marched.

By the time I got to November 20th, I had more than 13,000 words down and the satisfaction that I had indeed broken through.  By that time, however, I had also lost that sense of reckless momentum and had a new stack of papers to grade and a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare as well as a significant ghost kid crisis to diffuse.  And 37,000 words to go?!!  Oh the pressure!  It was either vomit or take a long nap and sleep it off.  I chose to sleep it off.

I'm all for NaNoWriMo and applaud those who whiz through it, some hitting 50k by Nov. 15th!  I might do it again, but I don't think I can ever kill my meta-writer or even bind and gag her long enough to spit out 50k in 30 days.  But the whole experience gave me two awesome gifts...a breakthrough and a new bit of writing software that kicks some butt.

Next:  The emotional melée of NaNoWriMo...

 

Crafting a Story vs. Writing a Story: Tales from the NaNoWriMo trenches

Coming soon...

Halloween and NaNoWriMo...Oh My!

Well it's here. NaNoWriMo, and I greeted it at 3:00am with a firm resolve and a bad case of insomnia. So what the heck! I wrote 500 words. Not my daily goal, but it's a start. More to come later.

Now what about the Ghost kids and Halloween? Ghost Son is officially a teenager, so no pictures could be had of him and his banana-toting buddies, but Ghost Daughter can safely say she was the only Falcon on the streets that night:

Countdown to Chaos!

Less than 48 hours until NaNoWriMo begins and I'm not ready yet. Egads! I'm taking today and most likely tomorrow to get my plot straightened out and get myself poised for the attack. My students are doing poetry, which will make it a little easier on me as far as my reading and prep load.

I'm hosting a Write-In and believe or not, I think at least 3 people will actually be there! As far as I know, however, I'm the only kidlit writer in these parts. Anyway, ELEMENTS Coffe Co., crank up the expresso machine and the teapot and get ready for us!

Full disclosure, I am picking up my WIP for this one, but since I'm scarcely 4,000 words in, I'm taking it as a reboot and not vying for a win (if you know what I mean). Lots of buddies are participating this year, so I hope they have their extra powerful motivational boots on so they can kick me in the pants with wild abandon! Now, if you haven't yet checked out Nathan Bransford's awesome advice for NaNoWriMo prep work, get your buns over to his blog and drink it in.

Write on, folks!

NaNoWriMo...Why Not?

I admit it. I'm a NaNoWriMo virgin. But I'm putting it out there this time around, hoping that the community and the deadline will give me a little extra momentum as I try to get this next YA banged out. I've resisted in the past primarily because I was already well into a project and making steady progress. This time, however, I could use a little pick-me-up. So here I go.

I'm looking to my writing buddies and acquaintances for further encouragement, and they never let me down. Many of the gals from The Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors have participated and they're good at spreading the fever.  Stephanie Ruble has also offered some helpful tips for newbies like me.

So stay tuned...the counter should be cranking at top speed in about 2 weeks!

Thank You.

This summer, Ghost Daughter attended a fabulous American Girl Summer Camp at Darton College.  As they learned about Kit and what life was like during wartime, they thought a lot about the service men and women who are protecting not only our freedom, but that of others around the globe.  To learn more about money, the girls put up a lemonade stand and used the money to put together CARE packages for some troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Not too long ago, we received a lovely surprise in the mail.  Warrant Officer Phillip Kelliher and his troops were so touched by the girls' notes and cards and thoughtful gifts that they dedicated a mission to the girls and sent along the flag they had flown over that mission as well as a certificate the named the date of the mission and its dedication to the girls.  The flag and the original certificate will be displayed in the Office of Continuing Education at Darton.

Reading the personal note from CW4 Kelliher touched both me and Ghost Daughter so much and inspired us to do a little something more.  It's not much, but Ghost Daughter wanted it to be personal and hand-made, so I knitted a couple of little soldiers to send CW4 Kelliher.  Perhaps I'll make some more.  I just know that whenever I think of him and his troops, I wish I could hug each and everyone of them and send them a little piece of home.

I have met a girl who truly knows the value of what these troops are doing.  A young woman who had to be smuggled out of Afghanistan before her mother's traitorous act of educating her daughters got them all killed.  She started her senior year (at a high school where I once taught) labeled simply as "home-schooled" and soared to the top of the class.  Other students were upset that based on only one semester, this stranger uprooted a classmate from the top 10.  It wasn't until the Senior Honors dinner that these fortunate young people learned what they really had.

Each student took a turn to stand up and introduce their special guest at the dinner.  Some of them brought teachers, some brought family friends.  This young woman brought her savior.  When her turn came, she stood and told a cynical public how her mother had hidden her and her sister away and educated them in secret because to do so openly could mean death.  That everyday, her mother had risked her own life to give her children a better one.  That this man, her dear honored guest, had risked his life to smuggle them out of the country just so they could be free to learn and live.  This is what an education meant to her.  Something worth dying for.

So for all those men and women who serve, thank you.  Forget all the political diatribes and posturing.  Think of those who lay their lives on the line everyday to protect our lives and our freedom.

Burn, Baby, Burn...

I've been absent from the blogosphere a bit too long, dealing with the sometimes overwhelming tasks of being a writer/teacher/mom/wife with a newly-minted teenager exploring his angst and a feisty 3rd-grader running all over.  But I have been checking in from time to time and read something truly heart-breaking.

Last week was Banned Book Week.  Censorship is nothing new and some of you may already be familiar with Risha Mullins' plight, but I am still sickened that such a witch hunt can take place in modern America.  I fear for our teachers who care about actually teaching our children and even more, about inspiring our children.  I fear for the countless kids who could learn so much and discover a love for reading by participating in innovative programs like hers.  I fear for the future of this country when small minds can level such ignorant accusations and cripple our schools and allow a fascist minority to dictate that No Child Left Behind actually means no child goes forward to discover the true meaning of critical thinking and growth because those are dangerous concepts.

Look at what a sharp, insightful, creative teacher can do and think about why our kids are in school.  Despite the moral majority's opinion, they are not there to pass a test.  They are there to learn and to grow.  Education is not about dumping information into kids' heads and hoping they can regurgitate it on an endless bubble sheet.  The word itself actually translates "to lead or draw out." It's about meeting them in their own space and helping them to explore their world and actually think about the connection between their own experience and all the world has to offer.  YA literature is an excellent place to share common experience and expand it to the uncommon.  It challenges kids to think about what they know and what could or could not be.

Do we really serve our kids by hiding the truth of human experience from them unless it fits neatly into our own little bubble of the unreal or chronologically irrelevant?  Yes, they read MacBeth and A Tale of Two Cities and Night and see some harsh truths about the human condition, but what about Speak and Soul Enchilada and Twenty Boy Summer and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?  While the classics may be great and important literature that will surely live on in English class, AP reading lists, and college courses, can't we make room for the YA experience as well?  If we have nothing to turn our kids on to reading, will they ever even open those so-called classics?

I won't go on and on about this because Risha's case sums it up so well, but I challenge those who would keep books from our students to spend a day or even an hour in the poorest neighborhood in town or walk with a girl on her way to planned parenthood or stand for even a minute in the shoes of a teenager wrestling with the truth of his/her sexual orientation.  Tell me what your experience is in that case.  I know it's not only the white middle class conservatives lodging complaints. Any closed-minded group  can curry oppression.  I once had an African American parent complain about the film The Power of One because it showed the abominable treatment of a black South African.  Never mind that the film actually abhors the injustice Apartheid perpetuated and celebrates the power of even one small voice to make a difference.  This parent couldn't be bothered to actually watch the movie or consider the power of its message for her child.  We certainly could not have read the book, because most of the kids in this class could hardly put a subject with a verb because they had skipped through school all these years without reading anything but the inside cover Cliffnotes.

I wonder if all the kids who read The Crucible in their high school English class have any idea that they are bubbling and burning in a crucible of their own...



Check out these links:

The Kids' Right to Read Project
The Book Smugglers
Controversial & Banned Books

Word by Word

That's how it will begin...and that's how it will end.  Yes, my newest is WIP is officially underway and promises to be even more exciting than the last, though this one has had a tougher launch.  Lots of distraction and a little obsession have de-railed my initial plan to blaze on through this one and have a smoking hot YA thriller to send out the door before Christmas.  Ha!  I can hope...  

Summer, car trouble, family entailments, new job—yeah, I can blame a lot of things.  I think the most devastating obstacle, however, has been my own ego.  Yep.  I've been obsessing over my many writing buds who are making their sales and celebrating big deals, while I feel like a failure and put one on the shelf to rest a while and start anew.  

Oh, I will still poke my head into this pity party every now and then, but enough is enough.  My WIP will never get written if I don't start laying down some words, even crappy words.  Besides, my last book is not a failure...it's just delayed.  So, off I go to write a slamming new YA and frankly, it will be awesome.  So to give myself a little kick in the butt, I thought perhaps I might post my word count on my blog.  I know, I know.  I could be setting myself up for utter humiliation, but I need to start somewhere.  So, I start at this moment with a total of 2,775 words.  I have a few more to add today, but that's where I ended up at 3:00pm.  

And that's how I will take this next part of the journey—word by word...

Before I started writing semi-full-time, I taught full time.  Believe me, there are very few teaching jobs that are "fluff" jobs, but lately there has been a lot of debate about the fate of tenure in American universities.  A recent essay by Christopher Shea in the New York Times Sunday Book Review addresses two books that tackle the question — Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — And What We Can Do About It, by Andrew Hacker and Claudia C. Dreifus, and Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities, by Mark C. Taylor.  Earlier in July, the NYT also posted a debate that considers the ramifications of eliminating tenure and restructure higher education altogether, a thought that makes me cringe, though I am no blind disciple of the system as it is.  


I'm not going to rant and rave about why tenure should be protected or why colleges should cutout the bulk of administrative fat that clogs the financial and social arteries of most institutions of higher learning.  However, I find it funny that so many people seem to think the majority of tenured college professors are self-indulgent fusspots who rest on their laurels and do little teaching and spend their time spouting communist propaganda and cranking out fluff scholarship and books that no one reads while the adjuncts do all the heavy lifting with no benefits or job security.  Come on folks!  For every job in America, from sanitation to corporations, you will find that guy.  


As an English teacher, I constantly warn my students against laying out sweeping generalizations to prove a point.  It undermines your credibility and obscures the real issue.  Yes, such examples of vocational gluttony do exist, and I'm sure those professors feel they are entitled because of their own years of slave-labor and hard-won scholarly credentials.  But most of the tenured professors I know do teach full loads AND work on research or scholarship or service projects.  Their extra-curricular work makes considerable contributions to their students as well as their field of study and their campus community.  


As for who gets the money...few college professors I know make more than $50,000-80,000 a year, while college administrators and athletic personnel go well into 6-digit salaries.  And that's where Shea gets it right:  

And if colleges are ever going to bend the cost curve, to borrow jargon from the health care debate, it might well be time to think about vetoing Olympic-quality athletic facilities and trimming the ranks of administrators.

I know that from city school districts to small colleges to major universities, administrations are far too often top-heavy and the distributions of funds less than equitable or reasonable.


When it comes to tenure, let me say this.  In a profession where speaking your mind is one of the most essential tools in your belt, as well as the most dangerous, and where your "superiors" can wield an Orwellian power that could extinguish a brilliant mind just for having an opinion if there were no protections against such dictatorial rule, tenure is merely a safety net that allows a professor an iota of freedom to do his job well.  Without it, education would cease to exist and indoctrination would takes its place.  Yes, that may be a little over-dramatic, but think about what a professor's job is all about.


Now consider the ever-growing complexities of the university system as a whole and the competitive playing field that now encompasses web presence, commercial appeal, financial growth, and social credibility in addition to its altruistic roots of education.


Every college or university has its own agenda...it's own "mission."  For some, research is their claim to fame, while others subsist quietly on the satisfaction of educating eager minds no matter what their next step may be.  So while I sit up and wait for my tenure-track professor husband as he sweats out the next book or the next service project or the next committee meeting along with preparing inspiring class lectures and activities and grading essays and advising students, I'll think about how "overpaid" he is.  Next time I take my calculator to the grocery store and put back six items because they just aren't in the budget, I think about how "overpaid" he is.   And next time I try to plan that family vacation that we have never taken in 15 years...I'll think about how overpaid he is.


At least he has job security...