General Posts

Thursday Afternoon Ramblings

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Before the separation anxiety created by losing my children, I had never really known anxiety before.  Sure, I’d gotten nervous in certain situations, but I’d never experienced the unexplained waves of fear that appeared out of nowhere and made me edgy.  For the first year after the boys were gone, excluding the times when they were back with me, I lived in a constant state of panic, worried about whether or not they were safe and healthy and happy.  My stomach constantly burned from this fear, and I often awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, trembling.  As I adjusted to my new reality, the anxiety waned, and ever so slowly, I began to feel “normal” again.

Recently, the anxiety has returned.  This time, however, it’s not about my children, even though the sensation is much the same.  I can’t say exactly why I feel this way, but for a few weeks now, I’ve not been able to shake it.  There’s no one specific thing I’m worried about, more like a thousand little uncertainties that gnaw at me.  From the erratic weather to the political sideshow to the sluggish economy, I feel like we’re heading for something bad in the next few months.  While I can’t point to any quantifiable thing and say, “Here’s definitive proof,” I just have an overwhelming intuition that the proverbial dung is about to hit the fan.

I don’t believe in the Mayan calendar and don’t expect the world is about to fly apart, but I do feel like our nation, because of the internal strife and chasms we’ve created through our sensationalist parodies of debate and deliberation, is on the verge of a deep, fundamental shift.  I can’t say for certain what that shift will be, perhaps martial law, perhaps financial collapse, perhaps civil war.  I don’t know.  I just know we cannot continue unraveling at the seams the way we have for the last few years.  And again, I can’t point to any one thing, just a feeling I get from people I encounter who either give off vibes of being frazzled and panicked or seem like mindless drones on auto-pilot.

I hope I’m wrong.  I want to feel positive and optimistic about the world and the future.  I much prefer feeling positive energy, but right now, there simply isn’t much to feel good about.  Everywhere I look, things are just out of balance and eroding into an uncivilized frenzy of self-interest.  People are either mad as hell at those who disagree with them politically, distracted by TV, or apathetic to everything.  Few people seem even content with their lives, and I don’t know anyone who feels positive about the direction we’re headed as a society.  I wish I could look at the future and feel hopeful about it, but right now, tomorrow just looms bleak and ominous as we trudge onward.

I’m sorry for writing such a negative piece, but this is how I feel about our country right now.  I can’t pretend like everything is okay when in my gut I have this feeling that something awful is about to happen.

General Posts

Monday Afternoon Ramblings

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Here’s another illustration of what’s wrong with education today.  For several years now, the trend has been towards more and more reliance upon technology for virtually every aspect of instruction, from attendance recording to delivery to assessment to grade calculation.  The most current buzz-trend is “Mobilization,” which the best I can figure is allowing kids to watch YouTube videos and play games while they are supposed to be learning.  The powers that be tout the importance of connecting with “digital learners” on their level, which to me sounds like “dumb it down and let the machines do all the work for them.”  Then again, I’m a tad cynical.  Anyway, from these trends to digitize the classroom, now, nearly every aspect of our classes is online to some degree.

This morning, on the first day of classes, the first opportunity to make an impression on many incoming freshmen who have been coddled their entire academic careers by All Children Left  Behind and The Race to a Stop, our internet system was down.  Statewide.  As in ALL Tennessee Board of Regents schools had no internet access.

We couldn’t check email, access course content (including syllabi), administer pre-tests, and in some cases, even check attendance.  Fortunately, since I refuse to swallow my dose of Kool-Aid, I was able to collect my first day writing samples by relying on the outdated analog system.  You know, pen and paper.  I go back to a point I make again and again.  We can put all the bells and whistles and flashing lights in front of the kids we want, but at some point they have to learn how to think.  By forcing us to move so much of our materials online, the powers that be have in effect made us dependent upon those systems to function.  I’m certain that many younger teachers, those who only know the “Mobilization” methodology, were paralyzed this morning.  I’m certain the chaos of that paralysis gave the students a terrible first impression, and those children, raised on an endless diet of entertainment and instant gratification, probably now believe college will be more of the same dysfunction they endured in high school.

As for me, since I still lecture and write on the board (I could point to the body of evidence that proves when students write things down in their own handwriting they are more likely to remember it, but why bother?  The powers that be will keep pouring the digital Kool-Aid because there’s more money to be made from grants and such), I was barely bothered by the outage.  My morning class ran pretty smoothly because I don’t need bells and whistles and flashing lights to teach.  All I need is a board to write on and an instrument to write with.  Teachers, you see, old-fashioned, student-centered, professional, dedicated educators, teach from a deeply-rooted love of and passion for their subject.  Unfortunately, however, we seem to be a dying a breed.

General Posts

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings

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My good friend, Stephen Zimmer, tells me all the time I’m too sensitive and need to grow a thicker skin, but negative reviews always bother me.  My rational, analytical side understands that as a writer I can’t expect to please everyone.  Some of the greatest books ever written have received terrible reviews through the years.  People’s tastes range across an infinite spectrum of likes and dislikes.  Rationally, I recognize that worry over a negative review is wasted time and energy.

However, it bothers me on an emotional level.  Each book I’ve written is nearly as special to me as my sons.  I work extremely hard to develop my skills and craft my stories.  Eight years removed from writing book one, I do recognize some of the flaws, especially in the first three to four pages.  However, I still believe it’s a good, solid book that sets the table for the larger series.  There’s foreshadowing in book one (Hell, in chapter one) that I’m still drawing on in book four.  Yes, if I were writing book one today, it would probably be a better book because I’ve improved as an author, but honestly, I wouldn’t make many substantive changes because it’s a good book.

I’m not going to waste my time refuting negative reviews or defending book one point by point.  Enough readers have enjoyed it that I don’t feel like the book needs defending.  I also recognize that most of the recent negative reviews, like the most recent from Allison’s Book Bag, have not been personal, and I don’t take them as an attack on me.  Two of them did feel personal, but I won’t give either of those individuals the attention they crave by responding to their personal embitterment from whatever shortcomings plague their lives.  All I’ll say is after eight years, three published books, and a new one on the way, I’m still here and still expanding my audience.

While negative reviews do sting and do bother me, I won’t allow them dissuade me from following my path and my style.  I will try to learn from them and improve myself as a writer because I do that even with the positive ones.  I’ll also recognize that negative reviews are a sign of reaching more and more people.  The wider the net, the more likely the series will land in the hands of people who don’t enjoy my style.  That’s just part of it.  I’m going to keep polishing book four, keep learning as a novelist, and keep reaching out to more and more readers.  And when the next negative review comes along, I’ll swallow the bitter pill, grit my teeth, and remain professional about it.

As we used to say in sales after getting a solid no, “Next!”