Sharing:-)

Well, it's September 7th, and it's my first day sharing the classroom. Okay, so it's not as if I've been alone for 24 years. There's always been twenty or thirty of us in the room.

But this is the first time I've had assistance at the front of the room. I'm lucky to have two TAs to work with for ENG 1PI. I've never actually had even one TA before, let alone two. I've always steered the ship on my own. I'm really looking forward to sharing the helm. (That's the end of the ship metaphor.)

So, welcome to Melodiee and Chris! Together with our students we'll figure out how best to make the classroom experience work for everyone. I'm hoping that, between the three of us, we'll have the time to really help people out with their weak spots.

Among other things, we'd like our classroom to be a place where people can all find a space to be curious, creative, and kind. The three Cs--almost.

Here's to a grand semester!

May My Imagination Forgive Me

So, I've been working on my first novel for, oh, five years now--sporadically, mind you, not in any way solidly. All my life, I've always said I wanted to write a novel. Finally, in my forties, I honoured my own wishes.

I've been an English teacher for over twenty years, but that's not really much preparation for writing a novel. The best way to write a novel is, as everyone is always saying, to write a novel. I've been learning so much as I go along. My Writer's Craft students have been some of my best teachers.

I had a first version (very rough) done about two years ago. I nibbled away at a second version over the last two years. At the start of this summer, I decided to devote four to five hours a day to finishing the second version. Now, it's the last two days of my summer. I didn't quite get finished the second version--I have 40 pages to go--but I took a darn good run at it. I'm past the 100,000 word mark, with about thirty thousand to go. I'm really proud of myself for working so hard at it this summer. I thought I might be done by Christmas--but then my trip to Scotland at the end of August happened.

Did I mention that the novel is partially historical fiction? A third of it takes place in sixth century Ireland and Scotland. The other two-thirds takes place in the modern-day island of Iona in the Western Hebrides. I'd been to Iona three times before in my life, one time about six years ago for an entire week. That last trip spawned some of the ideas, settings, plot, and characters for this novel. I'd promised myself that when I was done the second version, and not before, I would allow myself to go back to Iona to do some fact-checking. I saw that as a treat to look forward to. Well, as it turned out, an opportunity to go to Iona this August came about, and I jumped at it. That's also partially the reason why I put such a push on finishing the second version this summer. I came close enough to finishing it that I could justify the trip to myself.

So, this past August 22nd, I found myself on a ferry pulling into the jetty in Iona. That's when I got a shock I wasn't anticipating. All of a sudden, my imagination stood up and said, what the heck are you doing here??? This place isn't real!! This place belongs inside your head!!

At that moment, the last thing I wanted to do was get off the ferry. For five years, the place and the people I'd peopled it with had been safely tucked away in my head. But now, there it was 3-D, right in front of me, and I was stunned. I wanted to rush back to the safety of my own pages and my own imagination.

But, of course, I'd spent thousands of dollars, told lots of people in my little world, and I had a job to do. I had to make sure that the real details in my story were accurate. So, I got off, went to my hotel, and got down to work.

The short and long of it is I had fabulous experiences, the Islanders were wonderful to me, I tracked down tons of useful information, took hundreds of pictures, and the third version of my book will be much more believeable because of it. But, truth be told, a great deal of the time, I felt a little sick to my spirit. I wanted to run away back home where my story would be safely unreal again, where it wouldn't have to live up to the real world, where its questionable plot wouldn't be so glaringly exposed, where I would almost be done the second version, and the third version would be quick and easy.

I soldiered on, though, because I had to. I owed it to myself, and to my learning, and to the people who have supported me all along. One dark night, when I couldn't sleep because my brain kept trying to find ways to refurbish my shakey plot, I wanted to throw it all out, and start a whole different book. But I made myself get up the next morning, and get on with it.

Now I'm home. I've found the strength to get back on the horse, mostly because I couldn't face my friends, my students, and my husband if I didn't (and, grudgingly, myself too), and I'm slowly beginning to let the island of Iona slip back into my head where it belongs. The shock of seeing my internal world made real is beginning to subside. Soon, my imagination will forgive me, I'm pretty sure. Soon, I will feel peaceful again.

I must admit that if I were to start all over again, I would seriously consider not doing historical fiction or using a real place for my first major piece of writing. But I'm not starting all over again. I'm going to finish the darn thing. And I know all of these experiences are helping me to become a better writer, and to become a better teacher of writers.

This is my lesson in perseverence. I may have bit off more than I can chew, but I will not let myself choke.

I'm already dreaming of a second novel . . . first person, completely absolutely modern and fictional . . . I will finish #1 by my fiftieth birthday (June 18, 2011), and then next summer, I can leap into #2 . . .

On the Night Before Second Semester

It's a strange feeling, the night before second semester. I'm about to meet ninety new students tomorrow. But I don't feel the same beginningness as I felt in September.

It's true, I recognize a lot of the names on my new class lists. And so for those students and me, it will be more like a welcome-backness.

But it's not just that. There's something about the momentum that we've all built up over the last five months. It's not as if that all comes crashing to an end with exams. It's more like we all gradually slowed down over the last few weeks to an idling--and now, tomorrow, we all begin a slow revving up again.

It won't be as shocking as September is. That's good. But it may also be true that it won't be as exciting as September can be.

I hope that's not the case. I'll do my best.

Real Theatre

Boxing Day, 2009. South side of the Thames. London, England.

I'm standing in the pit, front row, of the Globe Theatre. I feel as if I've been transported back 400 years, and William Shakespeare might actually show up at any minute.

Of course, the real Globe Theatre burned down in 1613, and then was rebuilt, and then demolished by the Puritans in 1644. The theatre I'm standing in is a replica built nearby the original site and as closely as possible to the original dimensions.

I've come to see a farce, a pantomime of sorts, in the style of the day. As I stand in the pit and look up to the open sky, and then to the three rows of tiers behind me filled to capacity, I can't quite believe I'm here. For twenty-three years I' ve talked about this theatre, I've taught plays that were performed in this theatre, I've had pictures and cardboard replicas of this theatre set up around my classroom. But now I'm in the centre of it, and it's as real as can be.

The show begins. The players are magical and bigger than life and they're traipsing about through the pit and up on the stage. They throw bits of bread at us and we respond. I'm reminded of the day less than a month ago when my own 2D class had a hoot throwing oranges at their fellow classmates at the front of the room who were acting as Chorus from Romeo and Juliet. Those kids that day captured the intimacy (albeit messy) that live theatre can be.

The play is a dog's breakfast of spoofs and mime and music and laughter. The actors are in outrageous costumes and are less than a foot away from those of us in the pit. Their spit shoots out over my head. They play off our laughter and our calls and our groans, and we reward them with grins as wide as the grey sky above us. I look around me and I see grown men and women with such childhood joy plastered all over their faces, and I know I look exactly the same way.

I can't remember the last time I felt such unadulterated JOY. This is theatre.

Later that night, my husband and I went to see Phantom of the Opera in London's West end. It was perfect, and a spectacle--and lifeless.

Not one single moment of it came even close to those two magical hours standing in the pit at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

A NOVEL IDEA

Well, it's the last weekend of Christmas holidays, and I just finished marking my Writer's Craft students' novel excerpts. 4U students are required to produce over 5,000 words of a novel, and 4C students are required to produce over 3,000 words of a novel. And I've got to say, they are a delight to read.

As I move from a horror piece to a romance to a fantasy, I am reminded of the incredible potential we all have if we're just given the time to develop it. When most people think of high school, they remember being terrified at the thought of a 1,000 word essay, let alone something three or four times that long. But, given time, and a room mostly silent, filled with other people who are busy creating, high school students can do remarkable things.

I'm not sure if they realize how wonderful what they've done is, or if they'll really believe me when I tell them so on Monday, but I do know that their willingness to leap into their imaginations with both feet makes me very proud.