Stick Figures

I just posted my first adapted book for sale.

Yes, it is Romeo and Juliet as envisioned as stick figures. While you laugh at it, pause for a moment and ask yourself how many times you had to draw something and you resorted to stick figures to figure it out.

Adaptations do not have to be pretty.  But they have to be able to be maintained and archived well. So those little scraps of paper or the fact you adapt on the fly every time for each student is just not efficient. That's the idea behind Project Beta and Project Alpha. Taking away that time you will spend trying to make it new again even for a student who might be in the same academic bracket as another.

This seems a huge departure for me both artistically and as a writer. But I had to put this out because I believe in the power of adapted materials for students with disabilities. I want my student, despite the fact that he or she may make unusually noises in the classroom, to feel a part of their grade, of their classmate's angst, to be held accountable for the classroom's activities. I want staff to not feel stifled at their work because they do not have the best skills in drawing, or perhaps writing. But all these things intersect, here at ParaEducate. That's why I keep working.

And why I will eventually print a new book soon. Something that might not be an entire series unto itself.

50,000 words and 22 days

November is NaNoWriMo: 50,000 words over 30 days. This year, I started 2 days later because I made a promise to my students I would help them with their theatrical performance, where I was on of the 3 directors. Then I had other barriers: promoting my book, the conference I am presenting at, and other social obligations.

As we will find out tomorrow, my daily word could was consistent. On most days anyway. Other things were not so easy: exhibit A laundry, exhibit B the pile of comments formula company blog, exhibit C my working knowledge of anything that happened this month that is not my books.

But it is done.

The thing that weighed most on my mind: I may have outgrown NaNoWriMo. While the thrill is there the intensity was not. I will consider this problem next year. But until then, I have another book to finish illustrating.

I am done!

NaNoWriMo: Movin' Right Along

The thing I appreciate most about NaNoWriMo: I cannot linger if I want to make my deadline. I have to keep my characters moving. The depth I need to make the scenes work comes from the day after I wrote the original scene. My word count comes quickly from reviewing what I have already written and add in detail.

Other spots for me: not to be afraid to write out of sequence or about a character I don't care about. I k ow I spent over 3000 words today in a courtroom. I had no idea I even wanted a court room but that was what happened today. I think it was far better than pulling out the phrase "and then the Ninja monkeys attacked!"

But then again, tea time would be so much more interesting with a horde of ninja monkeys.

I am also still preparing for work, TASH and whatever else is heading my way.

November rocks.

NaNoWriMo, Fame verses Success

I think the thing that has drawn me most to NaNoWriMo simply that is that completing it is success. Getting to 50,000, that's the goal. It's constant. I will get there. I have gotten there for several years in a row. This year has been harder. Between juggling a full dramatic show with teenagers, doing my full time job, doing my part time job, and other assorted crises, words have been harder this year than ever.

So why do NaNo? Because I'm chasing fame? Hardly. My success as a writer isn't tied up in my fame. My success as a writer is in sharing the work and the ideas that I have in my head. It's completing the work in my head that I have half written outlines for. Success is just knowing that it is "done" and then you can find the next thing to accomplish.

Fame is what drives many of my students. After all, it could be a lofty goal. It seems that famous people are more successful. They, famous people, seem to have combined love, fame and success in one fell swoop. Fame can last for as long as possible with some who have managed to make fame look desirable.

But that is not why NaNoWriMo continues to be churned out in little spurts here and there. Success is an easier stick to measure the world by.

Where do those things related to characters come from?

I'm actually not a non-fiction writer. At least I keep telling myself that truth. My first love, still, and will always live in the world of fiction.

Fiction has its uses: No one cares if your details are right. Nobody cares where you did your research (so Wikipedia might just be accurate "enough" knowing my education level that I can skeptically assess some of the entries).

But there is some trouble with fiction: as an author, your creativity is placed at the feet of the world asking the world to believe in your story, even for a few moments.

So I will look back at some of my choices in literary creativity.

"Putting It On The Line" is still my flagship story. Mostly because I have been writing it since I was 14. I grew up with Jessie, though her story started when she was 26, and the story of "Putting It On the Line" didn't manifest itself until I was 21.

But things like her name, I don't know why I latched onto Jessie right away. There were some qualifications. I needed her name to have a diminutive, a sign of affection, and I didn't know how important it was that she have that until much later in my process. I searched baby name books. I did not have much of a choice back then, it was 10 pages in the back of one of our dictionaries. And so I looked, the names A-Z and I ended up finger pointing to target myself. And then up came 'Jessica'.

Things that helped solidify that fact, Madonna has a song that helped in early days, "Dear Jessie" and that had helped things.

Music does help me determine a lot of things about characters, major moods, and directions I want to lead my characters through.

So Music and random picking.

Sometimes though, the character will come to me, their name firmly attached and nothing I can do will change that.

To date: I have never written (and published) someone from my life into my fiction, probably much to the relief of my business partner and some close friends.

Character traits are driven by the character's motives. I have many moments when my characters are very introspective and self-aware. I like those moments, knowing what my character wants and needs. They are truly self-determined and want their goals and whether or not the goal is realized or not is a part of the character's journey.

I spend much time in examining the tradition of the "Hero's Journey". I don't have much formal training in this concept, but it is basic at the core that I know most stories follow this rise and fall of the long story.

I purposely over write. I write about sequences I find that are very private to the character, that I am embarrassed to know about. Usually these parts don't make it into the things that I write, but that's how close the characters and I get.

I find that writing is really the way that my brain processes information because I will get many, many ideas at the same time and they will all converge and writing is the frenzy that happens when there may just be too much. But my mind is always writing, always wanting to be at the computer, watching letters form on the page. It may not be directly cathartic. I'm often as anxious as my characters are. I know better than to stop writing when I am in a groove, too many grammar issues occur and that I will lose track of the real goal.

So I'm back to where I'm headed, writing with the goal of getting the ideas to be clearer.

50,000 Words. 30 Days. 0 Excuses. (Well maybe...)

As a writer, I hadn't cut my teeth on anything serious. I didn't have a genre I was writing for, I didn't have regular discipline.

And then 8 years ago, I was introduced to the idea of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writer's Month. It was a little idea back then: start writing. aimed for 50,000 words and get it done in November. The idea being, instead of just talking about all the writing you want to do was to make it a priority and just write. And get it out. Make all the ideas real.

For the next 7 Novembers, I wrote like I had never written before. I was given introduction into the world of self-publishing, and then I published 3 books through the same venue.

I went from just talking about the book and being satisfied that the information was out of my head in a digital file. And then, I got to hold it in my hands. That feeling of knowing what it looks like and how it feels to hold the thing I have spent the most time on has never felt any better.

So year 8 is upon me. This is more than 2600 words a day roughly. This is about knowing what works, being committed to the outcome above all else.

I have a few more obstacles this year than any other year. I'm always constantly distracted by a lot of issues at hand. I will finish.

50,000 words. 30 days. 19 days left until I can sign up. I cannot wait to get at this. Even though I don't have a plot yet.

They Aren't Always Good Ideas

My primary training is as a designer. My training had me learn ways people figure things out and how to get the results I wanted. Basically, in the world that I now work in, I'm not only leading the horse to water, salting their food, but there is only one (maybe two) ways to get that horse to the water.

So as I work through new projects to engage my students at work, I'm still a designer.

• Are there too many words on the page?
• Did I call attention to the important details?
• Does the font lend itself to easy reading?
• Is the spacing right?
• How many different ideas am I presenting?
• What are the new words that my student needs to learn?
• (and perhaps the most important question of all) How do I get my student to even care?

This is all secondary to things in a standard classroom. But this is the background of evaluation for each step I'm trying to accomplish.  Meanwhile, I'm also looking at things like, what software do I have available (usually just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

And there are good days and bad days. The nice thing is, kids are brutally honest. I will know quickly if they aren't going to be successful at what I have tried to provide.

Bottom line: Project Alpha Volume 3 is being piloted. So far, working well. Need more pictures, need vocabulary highlighted, and now to start ways of assessing if the students totally engaged in the lessons.