Weekend Writing Workshop

I had the most fun this past weekend:  I spent eight hours writing with Angela Davis-Gardner and six other budding writers at a friend's home.  My friend is sponsoring weekend writing workshops in her home with some of the best North Carolina writers.  The published writers provide writing prompts and exercises, guiding us, the students, in our endeavors.

In this particular workshop, we talked about fairy tales and myths.  Each person was to pick a favorite fairy tale or myth, one that spoke to her, and develop it into either a retelling of the old story or a modernized version of the story.  It was such fun listening to each person talk about their fairy tale and why they had chosen it, and then to see the incredible writing that came out of the exercises that we did.

I chose the story of Snow White for my fairy tale.  I knew that I wanted to set the story in the present, to modernize it, but I had no idea where it would end up.  I like where it's going so far, and I hope to finish it soon and share it in some form.

Carving Out Time to Write

NaNoWriMo starts on Thursday.  That's the National Novel Writing Month, held in November, when folks try to write a novel, approximately 50,000 words, in one month.  I've attempted it 2, maybe 3 times, but I don't think I've never gotten passed about 6,000 words.

Last April I participated in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, which I managed to keep up with within a day or two of the actual alphabet letter and day postings.  I focused on my bucket list, and I enjoyed writing about my possible excursions, endeavors and life dreams.

I've attempted to read 100 Books in 2012 and 2011 and 2010 with a group of mommy friends, but I've fallen short there, getting only half way there one year, and barely keeping up with my blogging and posting in Goodreads.

Once again I'm hoping to start some sort of writing schedule.  I was overcome with topics just the other day, pulling out my notebook and jotting down the ideas, while driving on a fairly busy highway no less.  Probably not the best time to write, but I had to get those ideas on paper.

I've been trying to figure out what's not right with my psyche for the past few years, and I've decided that it's because I'm not journaling, blogging, writing on a regular basis.

So here's to November and carving out some time to get back to writing! 

B is for Book

I've been writing short stories and story ideas for years, but I've never had the guts to put anything together to submit for publication. Other than a few professional articles, I know that I need to pull some of my short stories and submit them to magazines, journals, papers, somewhere for publication. Ultimately, I would love to see the short stories put together in a book. I've also been writing stories, chapters about my Southern girl upbringing that I would like to see put together in a book.

So B is for Book. Maybe you would read it!

Blogs I would write if I had time to blog...

Six months later my running list of blogs that I would like to write grows longer, but the time to carve out to actually write the entries grows shorter and tighter each day. So here's the list of blogs (topics) that I would like to write if I had time to blog:

Risk taking - how taking risks can bring about big results and make one's life more enriching.

Genuine enthusiasm - how the kind word, the sincere greeting, the genuine inquiry and enthusiasm about life is contagious and betters the world

Missing Dixie - how the positive, effective leadership of our now retired principal is so very needed at a time of low morale, budget cuts, disorganization and non-communication

New Year's resolutions - always a good entry to set one on the right course for the new year

Teacherprenuership - the idea that teachers develop their pedagogical talent, “sell” their expertise, and find innovative solutions to challenges facing their students

Digital footprints - making our stamp on the digital world, making connections both personally and professionally in the digital age

NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month and how I once again attempted to get thoughts on the page (I made it to 5000 words)

The Power of Small - a book that I am reading about how little things make the difference

Thanksgiving - a list of 30 days of things I was thankful for during the month of November

Information and Technology Essential Standards - the new document to integrate information and technology into the core curricula and how teacher librarians need to push in to the classroom and push back those that don't get our role in education

Growing up with Elizabeth - how life as a mother puts everything else in perspective

So perhaps over the winter break and in the new year, I will once again reorganize my life, break out my list, crack my knuckles and get to typing and posting new blog entries.

One of My Favorite Blogs, Grocery Store Feet

One of my favorite blogs to follow is "Granny Beads and Grocery Store Feet", formerly "Books, Bytes, and Grocery Store Feet". The blogger is a down-to-earth, no nonsense Southern country boy whose voice and stories resonate with my own tales and the telling of them.

If you don't know what grocery store feet are, you can certainly read the author's explanation of them. I've had my own blissful days of grocery store feet, although mine would probably best be called hardware store feet. I spent many a summer day in PaPa's hardware store with my tender ten-year-old feet bare on those dirty hardwood floors. That makes for some pretty nasty bathwater!

I love reading about life in his small rural town, his Mama and Daddy, and his wife, whom he calls Budge. The stories more often than not resemble my own childhood and some of my experiences growing up in a small town where everybody knows your name, your family, and your business.

Oh, and if you don't know what Granny beads are that's the ring of dirt you get around your neck from playing long and hard outside, digging in the dirt, playing in your sandbox, tromping through the woods. My mama never used this term with me, but she has been known to "dig potatoes" under my neck in the bathtub after a hard day's play. Funny what sticks with you.

I like reading this blog because ultimately it inspires me to write more.

My Writing Staycation

I'm actually taking a week of vacation next week. I usually take off a day or two here and there throughout the school year, but I decided that it was time to do something more for me.


I'm not really going on vacation. It's more like a staycation: I'm staying around town. But I do have some big plans for the week.

I'm participating in a writing workshop all week. No, it's not a workshop where I'll have to come back to school and teach my teachers some new fangled writing process. And no, it's not a workshop that I needed to take any order to get those dang teacher renewal credits.


It's a writing workshop just for me! I signed up for the creative nonfiction session. I'm hoping to get inspired (once again) to get something out there in print, something written to send to a small magazine or publisher. This is actually the third time I've taken the writing workshop. I delved deeper into fiction the first time I took the workshop. The second time I decided to work on personal narrative and realized that was more my style of writing. So the third summer that I signed up for the workshop, I did the journal writing session. Every time the sessions have been fabulous.

So next week, I expect nothing less than a super week of inspired writing and a nice jump start to getting back into the swing of daily writing!

Writing: Publication is not the end of the process

"What we do in school doesn't have much of an impact on the world of writing that's going on around us." --Kathleen Blake Yancey

Have you read Kathleen Blake Yancey's report for the National Council of Teachers of English on Writing in the 21st Century? The report highlights the challenges of writing in the 21st Century: developing new models of writing, designing a new curriculum supporting those models, and creating models for teaching that curriculum.

I had an opportunity to listen to an interview with Yancey on the site Powerful Learning Practice . Yancey indicates that teenagers claim they don't write or like to write in school, but they don't see their writing outside of school as writing. They see it as communicating, not writing, when they are blogging and texting. Yancey asserts that in the past, writing has been dominated by assessment. Writing also doesn't enjoy the same cultural support that reading has enjoyed.

So my question is what does it mean to be a writer in the 21st Century?

I have always held the assertion that to be a good teacher of writing you must be a writer. When I was still in the language arts classroom, I would journal with my kids everyday. I wrote some of the best stuff those few years in the seventh grade classroom. But writing is different for our students now. While they don't call it writing -- texting and blogging -- they are still putting the written word out there online. Should teachers be network and social writers? And if they are, do teachers even consider that real writing?

How do we teach kids to be empowered writers? Kids love writing to someone that isn't a teacher, even a trusted adult, according to Yancey. She shared a story where students' writing was given to the local civic group, a partner for the school. When the members read the students' writing, they wanted to write them back. The act of reading became an act of writing. Should we encourage kids to publish more of their ideas and writings on the web in order to have other read and respond?

The model used to be that we filtered information and then we wrote to publish our writing. Today publication is not the end of the process: the conversation continues about the writing, or published work, thus the learning continues.

Write on!