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December 16, 2005
On not being a cowboy
From Alesia, feeling fine
Today the lovely and talented Miss Graham, who is not only a terrific first-grade teacher, but the Great and Final Word on All Things Educational in Princess’s mind and conversation (and when your child first begins school and suddenly her teacher supplants you as the Queen of All Knowledge, you get a little twinge, but for a truly great teacher you not only get past it, you’re DELIGHTED) invited me into her classroom to talk to the kids about what authors do.
Let me tell you – six and seven-year old kids can be a TOUGH CROWD, but I had a blast!!
We talked about fiction and non-fiction, and about characters and how to play the What If? Game. I taught them the idea of Conflict, and how it means that you need to put your characters in LOTS AND LOTS OF TROUBLE. Because, as I asked, what is the WORST thing a book can possibly be?
Answer: BORING.
I volunteer in class to help with reading every week, so I know these tiny future authors and future readers and future astronauts. One boy told me that he’s going to be a pilot AND a doctor, but if he has time, he’d like to be an author, too.
I told him to go for it.
We talked about cover art for books and how that is created – “Who draws the pictures?” was a popular question. I showed them a manuscript and compared the papers they’d written that morning to the 400 or so pages and 100,000 words that I’d had to write for a book. They asked me how long it took, and I told them it took months and months to write a book; sometimes a year or more for some authors, and one boy smacked himself in the forehead and told me I should have been a cowboy.
Sometimes I think that myself.
Then we “wrote” a book together about a first-grade class who lives on Mars and went to the park with their teacher, the tall and lovely Miss Graham who has short black hair and bright green skin. The class went to the park and found a pink and purple giraffe who happened to have the same name as their principal.
(That got a big laugh -- there’s a lesson in there that’s either about anarchy or about the joy of pink-and-purple giraffes, but it was 8 in the morning and I hadn’t had coffee yet, so don’t ask me to explain.)
And as we created that story, with input from 20 miniature authors, the reasons I love writing glowed on my face as much as on theirs. Because I get paid for playing. Because I get to play WHAT IF? and write stories that make people laugh and cry and think. Because I live in a world where there can be pink-and-purple giraffes any time I want; I just have to dream them up.
Plus, you know, unlike the cowboy thing – no horse poop.
And, in case you hadn’t thought about it lately - Teachers ROCK!
Hugs and happy weekend,
Alesia
Posted by Alesia at 12:16 PM | Comments (2)
Comments
And the conflict? What is the conflict? Speaks one who is always conflicted but can rarely find the conflict for her protagonist.
Holly
Posted by: holly at December 17, 2005 7:27 AM
Ah, the conflict. Well, there was a giant serpent-shaped shark who had an enormous ROAR (they loved that part!) and lots of TEETH who attacked them! but it all turned out okay and they all had chocolate ice cream and broccoli sandwiches on Mars and lived -- you guessed it!! - HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!
Alesia, who is terrific at conflict but terrible at the deep emotional girly stuff . . . (the other Lit Chicks are working on me, though; I have hopes)
Posted by: Alesia Holliday at December 17, 2005 4:45 PM
