On Submitting and Getting Work Done...

I think, by far the hardest thing right now for me, as we are expecting our first child and awaiting the choice of a justice of the peace to decide the fate of our niece either with us or not, is sitting down and simply getting  the writing done. Luckily I had Writers Anonymous, the branch of the UCLA Writing Project that enabled me to continue writing by connecting me with people who are not only educators but serious about getting published. To date our leader and mentor, the amazing and wonderful Jane Hancock has published her Jungle Jenny novel. I still remember hearing bits of the story while workshopping the story at UCLA two summers ago. They really have been my backbone in making sure I get writing done, as I will be running out of time, the dreaded commodity that no teacher or parent ever has enough of. Anywho, back to work, gotta get that story written and submitted to Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Another rejection letter should be coming my way soon after it. Another writing artifact to show my students.

Been a long time...

So, as a means of proving to my students that I do actually write when not being in "Teacher Mode" I submitted the Q1 story to Writers of the Future. I humbly await, yet again, their decision to not include me in their contest. But, I've made a resolution to submit something each quarter. Also, I have students that are now of age who will be submitting also. Kind of excited to see what they'll do. My next challenge is to write a story for Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. Hopefully they'll send me a snazzy rejection letter hand written like last time, which I'll show off to my students. Then maybe another to Analog, as they held one of my stories for waaaaay over the expected time frame only to send me another nicely hand written notice. Getting closer. I can almost taste that first story being sold.

Nah, who am I kidding. Oh, wait, me.

Prince of Cats by Ron Wimberly. Just an
amazing read!

So this review was a long time coming. I had to thank my wife for making me do this blog and keeping me up to date on what I was reading. Been a couple of weeks since I've read this and really wanted to write about it. So without further adieu...

Prince of Cats by Ron Wimberly, formerly of the Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm, with Percy Carey, was a damn fine read. At least I thought it was. It took Shakespeare's words and without any prior knowledge as to how this book was going to be written, I was amazed at the fact that it was written in the same time frame. It harkens back to Baz Luhrmann's Rome + Juliet from the 90's, modern setting, but speaking in iambic pentameter. 

 I loved that Wimberly didn't try to dumb down the language and that it was accessible to students. I tried it out after I read it and let students that were okay with language and violence and who I thought would appreciate it take a crack at the book. 

I was shocked that they didn't realize it was the same style of language that they had first struggled with when reading Romeo and Juliet in my class their 9th grade year. In fact one of the three students said that what he had trouble with was the 1980's references and not the Shakespearean language. That just floored me. 

 Now what really brought on conversations was the scene towards the end of the book where Tybalt talks with the reverend. It is there, in that small scene, that you feel for Tybalt. I found myself doing something that I have rarely done while teaching Romeo and Juliet. I empathized with Tybalt. It was almost as if he knew what his fate was, after all this time, he knew, deep down inside that his life would be this revolving door of deaths but with this death there seemed to be a resigned peace. I actually felt bad for the Prince of Cats. Wimberly's tale of the second most prominent Capulet left me wanting to find a way to put this book into the hands of my freshman and sophomores in order to get them to see if it was only me that felt that way.

  The three students that did read the book agreed with me. I did not prompt them, but asked them how they felt about Tybalt's choice in the book, knowing that he could change his fate, and the response was unanimous among them, Fate had made its mark on Tybalt and he had to die, otherwise the story could not continue, but they did also feel bad for him, just like I did.

   That was something I never thought possible. Thank You Mr. Wimberly for injecting Romeo and Juliet with a new flavor and style and a different point of view for students to view this great play!

Zombies afoot

So it's now official. I will begin my great Zombie novel for the 2012 NaNoWriMo. Why? Because I can, and because I'm tired of reading something that somebody else wrote. My setting won't be what people expect and that's okay. I'm not writing for them. I'm writing for myself.

Prepping for NaNoWriMo

So I'm getting ready to begin that month long frenzy of writing called NaNoWriMo. This'll be my sixth year  and I can't disappoint my students who will be participating this year. I even have a former student that became friends with a current student and they've started to do write without me. I love that I had a hand in their enthusiasm for writing. It really did make my year last year when six of my students participated last year, the first day I beleive it was 1500 words from a sophomore. That was a helluva day of writing. More soon... 

So I've been waiting for this book for about two weeks and it finally arrived. So excited to read it.

...Failure to Commun'cate...

So I failed. Miserably. Baby got sick. I am stuck on our couch with body ache and that lovely scratchy-throat-you-can't-scratch feeling while coughing up phlegm. Mmm. Baby viruses are sooo good to the adults who take care of them. But I digress. I failed at my attempt to finish a book in several days. I read all of two pages of The Last Policeman, at least they were two good pages. I've read a lot of crap over the summer but this was not one of them.
 I did start Jay Asher's amazing novel, 13 Reasons Why. In twenty minutes I read the first 50 pages. That was a feat for me. I also began The Princess Bride for a re-read for my classes. 10th grade will be reading this and talking about the purposes and reality of reality. Metafiction, which more and more I find many High School English teachers do not know about, will be prominent. Maybe because I grew up on comic books and Sci-Fi do I know this or maybe Loyola Marymount's professors did a really good job teaching me.
 I am also interested in using parts of Joe Sacco's work. I'm reading The Fixer right now. and as soon as I can find the damn book, Palestine.
 Did manage to finish Craig Thompson's Carnet de Yoyage, which was essentially what I did for our trip to Europe about three years ago (wow time flew) now. Loved it. And I thought I had anxiety!