Procrasturbating again.
I babysat my nieces today so that my brother ans sister-in-law could go look at some houses. I would do anything for them, as I adore them and as they've been so generous to me in the past.
But it threw off my sunday something fierce.
No laundry done. No work done. Then I was all tired from playing with the girls so I took a nap when I got home.
Now I'm up and looking down the barrel of toooooooo much work!
Drama teachers hardly ever have any correcting to do. We hardly ever have essays to read. And when we do? Ffun stuff like scenes or monologues.
I have to read MCAS style drivel.
And it is super frustrating. And disheartening.
It used to be kinda funny, how awful they are at writing.
Now I'm starting to feel saddened by it as they don't improve...
and worried for their futures.
And I wish, I wish, I wish that I could give them some creative writing assignments. I have, in the past, for Halloween I challenged them with a scary story contest. But the powers that be have come down hard on me and sternly reminded me that I have certain writing requiremnts to meet before the end of the year, and 'creative' is not among them.
Sigh.
And my creative writing?
I find it so difficult to see it objectively. I like reading it. I love the characters and the stories and the soap-opera happenings. But I don't trust how much I like it.
See, I'm usually my toughest critic. On anything. I'm hardest on myself.
With this Cedar Falls stuff? I'm... I can't explain quite... I'm too smitten with it to see its faults. Oh, sure, I see they thousands of typos that I make in my haste (and sometimes in my grammatical ignorance. Being an English teacher is really educating me on some grammar rules I either never knew or had thoroughly forgotten!) I see those, and tinker with them as I re-read (and still many, many escape my notice...sigh...I need an editor like whoah.)
But I can't gauge whether or not the writing is good.
I'm beginning to suspect that it is not... But I think my therapist would tell me that this is rooted in my neuroses.
Still...
Maybe I oughtta write in dialogue only? Write screenplays, plays, and teleplays?
Because I sit down and read Aaron's writing and I am staggered by his prose. I read real, published work and I sigh and think 'yup. that's how it SHOULD be done...'
And I always believed that practice makes perfect...or at least practice makes better. But it would seem that my writing, as I become more comfortable with my characters and more certain of my plot direction, it would seem that my writing gets more banal and flaccid and rushed and weak. (Commas should go in a series like that. This is a rule I have learned. However,(comma), I prefer the impact of listing them without the interruption of commas. This is not something that new writers have the luxury of defending,(comma) however. Mamet and Labute and Palhianuk and those established stylists can do whatever the fuck they want. But new writers, green writers, must go by the book their first time out...(elipses to indicate a triling off of ideas, not an omission...)
Perhaps too much practice without a coach or mentor or guiding hand is simply... masturbatory?
I seem enamored of that imagery.
But do you see? Just diddling myself, writing-wise, with nothing fruitful ever taking root? No product to be birthed after all the self-pleasure?
I'll give some thought to the playwrighting thing. Interestingly, have you ever noticed that playwright is spelled differently than the word 'write'? It is because it isn't talking about the 'writing' like, say, a copywriter would be. It is the old form of the word 'wright' as in boatwright ; a maker or a builder.
Isn't that lovely? A maker or builder of plays. Captures my imagination, tickles my fancy, and stroked the old ego.
Aaron and I often talk of ideas for hbo or showtime (or even STARZ-right Spartacus?!?!?) original series that we should be writing and shopping around. So maybe I quit talking about it and start doing it.
Maybe Cedar Falls works better as a show?
Maybe not...
Maybe, though...
;)
I babysat my nieces today so that my brother ans sister-in-law could go look at some houses. I would do anything for them, as I adore them and as they've been so generous to me in the past.
But it threw off my sunday something fierce.
No laundry done. No work done. Then I was all tired from playing with the girls so I took a nap when I got home.
Now I'm up and looking down the barrel of toooooooo much work!
Drama teachers hardly ever have any correcting to do. We hardly ever have essays to read. And when we do? Ffun stuff like scenes or monologues.
I have to read MCAS style drivel.
And it is super frustrating. And disheartening.
It used to be kinda funny, how awful they are at writing.
Now I'm starting to feel saddened by it as they don't improve...
and worried for their futures.
And I wish, I wish, I wish that I could give them some creative writing assignments. I have, in the past, for Halloween I challenged them with a scary story contest. But the powers that be have come down hard on me and sternly reminded me that I have certain writing requiremnts to meet before the end of the year, and 'creative' is not among them.
Sigh.
And my creative writing?
I find it so difficult to see it objectively. I like reading it. I love the characters and the stories and the soap-opera happenings. But I don't trust how much I like it.
See, I'm usually my toughest critic. On anything. I'm hardest on myself.
With this Cedar Falls stuff? I'm... I can't explain quite... I'm too smitten with it to see its faults. Oh, sure, I see they thousands of typos that I make in my haste (and sometimes in my grammatical ignorance. Being an English teacher is really educating me on some grammar rules I either never knew or had thoroughly forgotten!) I see those, and tinker with them as I re-read (and still many, many escape my notice...sigh...I need an editor like whoah.)
But I can't gauge whether or not the writing is good.
I'm beginning to suspect that it is not... But I think my therapist would tell me that this is rooted in my neuroses.
Still...
Maybe I oughtta write in dialogue only? Write screenplays, plays, and teleplays?
Because I sit down and read Aaron's writing and I am staggered by his prose. I read real, published work and I sigh and think 'yup. that's how it SHOULD be done...'
And I always believed that practice makes perfect...or at least practice makes better. But it would seem that my writing, as I become more comfortable with my characters and more certain of my plot direction, it would seem that my writing gets more banal and flaccid and rushed and weak. (Commas should go in a series like that. This is a rule I have learned. However,(comma), I prefer the impact of listing them without the interruption of commas. This is not something that new writers have the luxury of defending,(comma) however. Mamet and Labute and Palhianuk and those established stylists can do whatever the fuck they want. But new writers, green writers, must go by the book their first time out...(elipses to indicate a triling off of ideas, not an omission...)
Perhaps too much practice without a coach or mentor or guiding hand is simply... masturbatory?
I seem enamored of that imagery.
But do you see? Just diddling myself, writing-wise, with nothing fruitful ever taking root? No product to be birthed after all the self-pleasure?
I'll give some thought to the playwrighting thing. Interestingly, have you ever noticed that playwright is spelled differently than the word 'write'? It is because it isn't talking about the 'writing' like, say, a copywriter would be. It is the old form of the word 'wright' as in boatwright ; a maker or a builder.
Isn't that lovely? A maker or builder of plays. Captures my imagination, tickles my fancy, and stroked the old ego.
Aaron and I often talk of ideas for hbo or showtime (or even STARZ-right Spartacus?!?!?) original series that we should be writing and shopping around. So maybe I quit talking about it and start doing it.
Maybe Cedar Falls works better as a show?
Maybe not...
Maybe, though...
;)
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