To the (Non) Stereotypical Teachers

I was reading Linchpin, a book by Seth Godin, blogger extraordinaire, and came across this paragraph: “Hand in a paper with perfect grammar but no heart and soul, and you’re sure to get an A from the stereotypical teacher. That’s because this teacher was trained to grade you on your ability to fit in….And that’s how school stamps out (as opposed to bakes in) creativity.”

Right then, I stopped reading, because I realized something very important: that was not my story.

I am a creative person. Always have been. Eight-year-old bowl-cut Amy, an enthusiastic little dweeb who wore brightly patterned shirts and a perpetual smile, decided one day that she wanted to be a writer. And people told her she could be.

Also, I was fascinated by everything. This is totally not posed.

One example in particular comes in mind, one that goes against Godin’s entire chapter about how our education system is designed to repress creativity. I got an A on a high school history essay once. But it wasn’t an essay. It was a one-act play about the life of Louis XIV. My teacher, Mr. Gilmer, had me read parts of it out loud to the class.

At the time, I didn’t even know how to read the Roman numeral in Louis’s name out loud without looking at a clock (it’s the fourteenth, just for the record). But I did know that having people fight over roles in your academic paper was pretty cool.

In Defense of Ridiculous Hypotheticals

Have you ever met those people? You ask them a fascinating question, like “What do you think would happen if a terrorist attacked Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World?”

And they give you kind of a strange look and say, “But that won’t happen. They have security.”

“Well, what if the South had…?”

“They didn’t.”

“But what would you do if…?”

“I wouldn’t.”

This person’s motto is, “If it didn’t happen, isn’t happening, and won’t ever happen, why think about it?”

And they almost have a point. Almost. Sometimes, I think we do need to bring a conversation away from frivolous hypotheticals and talk about things that have a direct impact on our lives. But I still think discussions of situations that can’t happen are worth our time. Here are three that I’ve been a part of in the past few weeks, along with thoughts on why they were meaningful.

The Transformation of Boring

Profound thought of the day: Almost anyone can make something interesting interesting.

Some people can manage to make something interesting—such as an epic how-I-survived-a-rabid-jaguar-and-found-buried-treasure tale—boring.

But it takes great talent and deliberate effort to make something boring interesting.

I learned this at an early age from Pixar, Klutz Books, and Steak-and-Shake.

Amy Makes an Educational Poster

I went to talk to a classroom of sixth graders last week. Afterwards, I noticed a cute little poster on the wall illustrating “The Writing Process.” It broke writing into seven nice, neat steps, like the Water Cycle or the Scientific Method.

And I laughed.

When one of the kids asked me why I was laughing, I pretended it was at the cartoony pictures illustrating the steps so I didn’t have to explain myself. Maybe you’ll understand why when I describe the poster.

It went like this: 1. Brainstorm. 2. Rough Draft. 3. First Draft. 4. Share. 5. Edit. 6. Final Draft. 7. Publish! (And, yes, there was an exclamation point next to the last one, even though the illustration implied that publishing was something like putting the writing in a binder with the author’s name written on the cover in magic marker.)

Sabbath Reflections: What Biggest Loser Taught Me About Writing

This week, I was watching the most recent episode of Biggest Loser with my family (I think watching other people suffer makes me feel better about dragging myself to work out twice a week). At one point, both trainers were dealing with a problem contestant.

You know, the person with the attitude who flat-out refuses to do what they’re told. The one who’s always whining that they can’t do it when people twice their age are in the background, turning their complaints into sweat by gritting their teeth and working harder.

People like that annoy me. I rolled my eyes as I listened to them give excuses and said something like, “Okay, there comes a certain point where this is a character issue. The people complaining aren’t the ones who are the most physically weak. They just decide to stop working. Anyone can follow orders and keep going when they don’t feel like it.”

Then, later, I realized that I try the Biggest-Loser-wimp line all the time when it comes to writing. “I don’t feel like it. I’m too tired to write today – maybe tomorrow. This project is too frustrating to continue, because I know I’ll just have to rewrite the first five chapters anyway.”

Writing and Building Snowmen

I used to have a really funny intro for this post.

Yep. It was all about how my ulterior motive for writing this was that I wanted it to snow. I also explained the magical charm needed to bend weather to your whims around Christmastime.

But then yesterday it snowed. So there went my intro. On the positive side, the snow put me in the mood for the actual topic of this post: how writing fiction is exactly like building a snowman.

Okay, maybe not exactly. But there are similarities. If you’re skeptical about associating snowman building and good writing, I have three words for you: Calvin and Hobbes.