AuthorM.R. Barker is a high school English teacher and aspiring author. Archives
April 2019
Categories |
Back to Blog
As I finalize this post, I am coming off the high of seeing Avengers: Endgame. The culmination of a story eleven years and twenty-two movies in the making. It seems ridiculous to realize that I was a senior in high school when Iron Man came out and that I'm now a married high school English teacher currently trying to tell my own story, one that I can't possibly imagine ever having such a huge scope, but one that I am hopeful I will see completed. It would be nice if it didn't take eleven more years, though. It's not the end itself, but how we get there. Reaching the EndSeeing the culmination of such a hugely influential story for the superhero genre and pop culture as a whole always brings to mind the question of what comes after. Who would have ever thought that something so ambitious could have been pulled off so successfully as what Marvel has managed to do with their cinematic universe? Nobody could have predicted such long-term success on these ideas, yet here we are.
Now, I am nowhere near conceited enough to think that I have a story in me that will ever ascend to such heights. Implying anything close to a comparison is insulting to those who have actually managed to create works of such epic scope, and honestly only serves to highlight how little I've done by comparison. Even still, it's encouraging to know that tasks as gargantuan as those that I see play out on the big stage of pop culture and literature are so much more complex than anything I'm trying to do. So maybe I need to cut myself some slack, put things in perspective, and keep on pushing. There's two weeks left to go, two weeks out of many more that will come soon after. What will they bring? Only one way to find out.
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
Often when I am setting up Genius Hour for my students, I go back to the age-old question of how one approaches a seemingly herculean task such as writing a novel. The question: How do you eat an elephant? The answer is simple: one bite at a time. Now, ignoring the fact that nobody in their right mind would or should eat an elephant, the analogy still applies. Something as gargantuan as an elephant cannot simply be tackled in a week, a month, or sometimes even in a year or more. The time required will vary depending on the complexity of the task, but one aspect remains consistent: taking your time and not taking on too much at one time. This week I have been reminded of this wisdom and how important it is to take on the writing process in these small chunks. I haven't been able to do much this week, at least not as much as I would like, but the little bit of writing that I did complete felt so much more rewarding and manageable simply for the fact that I took the time to just sit down and take a few bites at a time. Aww, he's so cute! I'm gonna eat him. Small ChunksFor this week, the biggest chunk I had to get down, and ultimately the hardest one to swallow, was just setting aside my two hours to write and write consistently. It didn't happen every day this week, and there were a few times where just getting the necessary momentum to do anything at all seemed insurmountable. Fortunately, I was able to push through and make some tangible progress this past weekend, which served as a nice confidence booster for me and a reminder that I can get some good writing done even on the "bad days." So, with us now entering the last quarter of Genius Hour and me being quite a bit off from my original word count goal (which I've finally determined was unrealistic for the amount of work I had to complete in the classroom this semester), my goal at this point is just to get in my two hours after school every day. If I get at least 1,000 words written each session (which honestly shouldn't be that difficult considering my work this past week), then I'll be ahead around 25,000 or so by the time the project ends. And if I don't manage to stay on that pace? That's okay too. Despite the struggles I've faced in hitting the same word count as I did last semester, I have managed to troubleshoot quite a few problems with the novel, so forward progress has definitely been achieved if nothing else. There are still quite a few bites left to go with this elephant. But there are fewer today than there were yesterday. Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Back to Blog
In the past couple of weeks spent on the novel, I have broken one of the cardinal rules of the first draft: editing what I've already written. The idea behind just letting yourself write and editing later is that if you get too caught up in the editing process while trying to complete a draft, you'll ultimately end up continuously circling the same point over and over again, never moving forward on the story. So, why did I do that? What was the point? Did I get anything out of the process? The short answer is that it was 100% what needed to happen. For much of my time spent on the book during this project, I've felt stuck at certain plot points, unable to progress because there didn't see to be any clear path to my destination. As such, I've done quite a bit of outlining and have been shuffling my chapter order around to have everything flow just a bit better. I've even gone ahead and completely deleted a couple of chapters that honestly just weren't working at all. After going through this process, I not only feel significantly better about the story I'm telling, but I also have come to the definitive conclusion that the story I'm telling cannot be finished in one book. That's right, ladies and gentlemen; it turns out that I'm writing a trilogy. Cue the John Williams music! A Trilogy You Say?One of the areas i've struggled with the most with this novel is where it's actually going. My ideas for the first act were pretty well defined from the beginning, and I've had an idea for what I considered the novel's "midpoint" from early in the process as well. But the third act? Jeez. That one had always eluded me outside of the broad notion of an "epic battle sequence."
So as I was working this past week, I asked myself where I wanted to take the text. Where did I want to place big revelations about characters and their various backgrounds? Where do these pieces of information carry the most weight and have the greatest impact? As I started figuring that out, I began to see where a few crucial details would best be integrated into the plot, and I also started to see more clearly that some of these plot points would be too rushed if they were squeezed into one book. Therefore, trilogy! I have some tentative titles and loose plot points worked out for all three books now, which is quite exciting. I've also figured out more of the context surrounding this final "epic battle sequence" that I've been working toward, and I'm quite excited about fleshing out a few more of these details over the next few days. Also, in case you're curious, here are the tentative titles for what I'm imagining for the three books in the trilogy that I'm currently calling The Arc of the Bloodborn.
Dang, I'm excited! Now back to work.
Back to Blog
As this week comes to a close, I find myself once again not much farther along in my draft than I was at my last update, and at this point it's threatening to become laughable. I've been at the same spot, more or less, for not only the duration of this Genius Hour, but also throughout the months following NaNoWriMo. The days of hitting a consistent 1,667 words every day feel a distant memory at times, and there's a part of that knowledge that is definitely disheartening to think about as I reflect on my progress. Have I worked? Sure. I'm getting things done and I do have good days, but scheduling time to write has been such a nightmare the past couple of weeks with grades being due and my obligations to school and family still superseding the development of my writing. I know that at this point a lot of what I'm writing is bordering on repetitive and depressing considering the relative lack of progress when I look at my word count. Of course, this past week has also brought with it a few surprises, as new weeks inevitably do, and despite what my tone might imply so far, I do still have relative optimism regarding my ability to make progress on the draft, though I'm increasingly more convinced that I might, in fact, have much more left to write than I anticipated at the beginning of this project. All that aside, though, if there's one lesson I've taken away from my work this week, it's the importance of support in finishing any kind of creative endeavor. This support comes in multiple forms, and in my case those supports were both technical and relational. Yeah, are you entirely sure "relational" is a type of structure, Barker? The TechnicalA couple of cool developments have happened this week in relation to not just this novel but also my overall journey as a burgeoning writer. The first of these happened while I was spending a couple of days trying to fix up my outline (a document which is about 25,000 words long amazingly enough, including all of my world building and brainstorming since October 2015). As I was looking back over my draft and forcing myself to summarize each chapter to have an "at a glance" version of the novel, I found that while the first act was flowing quite well and filled with multiple dynamic action beats, the second act had a long gap where not much happened at all besides talking. Chapter Fifteen? A conversation between three characters. Seventeen? Even more of that conversation. Nineteen? Another conversation, but this time in a different room. Twenty-One? Yet another conversation because why not. You get the idea. It was a bit disheartening to look back on these chapters (all written during NaNoWriMo, mind you) and realize how much I had been leaning on conversation to carry these chapters and fill out space for the sake of word count. But all was not lost, my friends. In looking over these summaries and forcing myself through the process, I started to see the novel through different eyes. All of these events were important, but they didn't need to be where they were. So I moved them. I started rewriting summaries for chapters and cutting out whole sections of dialogue and placing them in new areas. All of a sudden, I had forward momentum; I could see the story congealing into a form that was much more recognizable as something with a logical progression and engaging moments. And thank goodness for that because I was starting to think that I couldn't write myself back to the right path. And all of this came from simply taking the text and forcing myself to beef up my outline and really examine it from a safe distance. It was amazing to see how much I learned about my own work from doing something not unlike what I might ask my students to do when breaking down a text. It was quite a rush, and as a result of all this, I feel significantly more confident that in this upcoming week I'll be able to start fleshing out existing scenes and rewriting them to put myself in a better position to further progress the story. The RelationalThis week was also the source of one of the coolest moments I've experienced with my writing so far. For some background, my wife and I host a game night at our house every other week, and while in the middle of Cards Against Humanity, one of our friends asked me if I was writing a novel (he had heard as much through the grapevine). I confirmed that I was, and shortly thereafter the entire game came to a halt as everybody starting peppering me with questions about the book. Everybody was mostly playing along with the idea that I actually was a published author, which was fun in its own way, but what was cool was when my friends confirmed to me that while they were playing up the scenario, they were all truly interested in the story I was telling them. They all seemed quite intrigued by the novel's central premises, and a couple even made some predictions about plot points that gave me more ideas for where to take the story.
The entire display was truly surreal, but I loved it. I have to remind myself, of course, that because I haven't finished the book yet that I still don't really deserve all the adulation that I was receiving that night, even in a joking context, but it is nice to know that I have people who care about me and want me to succeed. That's sometimes exactly what I need as I work through the bad days where the plot holes seem to keep getting wider and deeper and I feel like I'm falling behind with every step.
Back to Blog
I preemptively gave this post the title "Getting it Done" in an attempt to create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. In some ways this worked out quite well: I have been ridiculously productive this week, particularly in the last four days. None of it was work on the novel, at least at the time of this post, but I was able to make a huge dent in my grading, which has freed me up quite a bit during the first few days of spring break for me to get back on my ideal pace. So, news on the novel is limited at the moment, but I am finding myself in a much clearer head space at the moment, which I am hopeful will lead to some more substantial updates this time next week. Potted plants: apparently quite important for productivity The Plan for BreakOne of the reasons I felt I was so productive with my school work this past week was the fact that I had deadlines that I forced upon myself that forced me to turn over my grades and other assignments at a much faster rate than usual. Considering this, my plan for this week is to give myself a word count goal, one that I think is reasonable but that will also give me the push that I know makes me more productive. By this time next Sunday, I will have at least 10,000 more words added to my draft. This goal will be a bit tricky to meet as I know I will be playing guitar at a friend's church in Roanoke, VA this weekend. I also have a grading deadline to meet, but I am fortunately not in a position now where I am behind on this front, so I don't believe this will be a factor.
Keep me accountable on this one, guys. I know I can do it because I have before, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be up for some encouragement to help things along as per last week's post. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are still a few hours left before bed. I think it's time to write.
Back to Blog
I've been thinking quite a bit about inspiration this week. Where does it come from? How can it be harnessed? What role does it play in the creative process? There's this mythology that has built up around the idea of the author and the artist that their best works are written amidst a flurry of inspiration. This, for all intents and purposes, is not true, yet the idea persists. The consequence is that so many people have a misconception about how stories are constructed, and I think that even though I know that I shouldn't be waiting for the elusive phantom of inspiration, I still find myself waiting for its arrival. None of this is to say that inspiration doesn't have a part to play, and I have found quite a bit of it this week. But in all cases, this inspiration has come when I wasn't looking for it, and only once I was already firmly entrenched in living and breathing in the world of the novel. Okay, but can you write anything else? Moments of InspirationSometimes an idea hits you at just the right time, and two such ideas have done so for me this week as I have been working on the book, both from unexpected sources. The first of these came about via a text conversation with one of my friends. We were talking about how people want things to have happened for them, but they often don't want to put forth the work they need to do to accomplish it. We were discussing a subject unrelated to writing, but in our conversation he likened the idea to the process of finishing a novel, sharing with me an idea that I had heard before but that I needed to hear again: "a lot of people want to have a book written, but they don't want to write the book." Yeah, that one got to me. It was a sobering reminder that while I have made more progress than many people I know, and I have busted my butt to write as much as I have, I still haven't finished. Ultimately, that's the whole point of this project, to give myself a deadline and work to actually finishing the draft. He followed this idea up by sharing with me another quote from author Ira Glass that is too good on its own to not reproduce here in its entirety. “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” Dang. Reading over that quote put a whole lot into perspective for me. I have this idea of what I want my story to be, and when I read over what I have so far I can see a lot of potential. But every time I look at my outline and my other plans, I find myself discouraged by how far away I am from writing something that isn't embarrassingly mediocre at best. And yet, when I look at everything I've tried to write since 2014 when I first started trying to write short stories, I have grown so much in my writing. For all the times I am flustered and frustrated at my own writing, I have a lot of sentences in my chapters that are quite well phrased. I have dialogue that actually makes me laugh, and not because of how bad it is. I have two chapters a little over halfway through the book as well that are filled with action and upon a reread are surprisingly entertaining and captivating. These are all good signs. Part of this project is pushing past the inner editor who keeps telling me that something isn't working and keeping me from getting anything done. Considering all of these ideas, I suddenly find myself with significantly more enthusiasm for writing compared to what I've been dealing with over the past couple of months. This is promising, but my concern is whether or not I'll be able to sustain it once this excitement dies back down. What Now?I kind of hate to ask this, but I really need some encouragement. I have done a better job in the past couple of days of motivating myself and forcing myself to get work done on the novel, but I am struggling. If you have any ideas or anything that I can do to keep my eyes on the prize, I am definitely open to suggestions.
I recognize that inspiration is not enough. I know that I work best when I have a deadline, but even knowing that was true for me last year, the only reason I stayed on top of my word count then was because I was doing a very public writing marathon challenge. Maybe I need that same kind of structure and public accountability. Maybe I need to know people are actually checking on my progress. Regardless, I think that I'm definitely starting to have a mindshift on the matter, and I'm looking forward to having a much more productive update in the upcoming week.
Back to Blog
In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character, Phil Connors, has found himself stuck in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania reliving the events of the titular holiday over and over again. Every day is the same. Nothing ever changes except for his awareness that he has been here before, and as the movie enters its darkest hour, Phil has resigned himself to the fact that he is trapped in a cycle from which there is seemingly no escape. He knows now that no matter what he does throughout the day, he always wakes up at 6:00 AM to Sonny and Cher's serenade, destined to relive these events once again. That description of the early parts of the movie definitely makes it sound a lot more depressing and nihilistic than it actually is, but these moments are still a key part of the film's narrative, and it is these scenes that were at the forefront of my mind as I sat down once again in front to write another blog post about how little has changed from one week to the next on this project. Sunday has arrived once again, and again I find myself with not much to report and wondering how long this pattern will continue. Last week I stated that I was going to stop making excuses for my lack of writing and was going to make progress no matter what, yet this past week felt an awful lot like the week before, and even more so like the week before it -- a lot of work and no real progress. In many ways, I feel like I'm starting to get trapped in a loop, and like Phil Connors I'm wondering if I'll ever get out of it. What do you do when nothing changes? But First, Some ContextSo, a lot of what I've written here so far might seem like a bit much, but it is a true representation of what I'm feeling at the moment. But it's not all pessimism, I must say. After all, Groundhog Day is often cited as one of the best comedies of all time despite its subject matter (and despite the fact that it doesn't really fit that well in that genre, or any for that matter). You see, all I've really discussed so far is the first section of the movie. Though the comedic trappings of the movie's first act give way to the lows of the second and Phil's repeated suicides, the film transitions seamlessly into a third act that is filled with optimism. By the end of the movie, Phil has finally embraced the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for what it is and has dedicated himself to self-improvement, an important component for the story to work the way it does. As the film concludes, Phil has begun working consciously to master a multitude of complex skills, ice sculpting and learning the piano being two of his most notable endeavors. Beyond this, he even starts working to get to know everybody in the town, to the point that he not only becomes a better person by being there, but the town as a whole has benefited from his presence. Not only does Phil learn to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to him by this seemingly eternal recurrence, he also ends the movie having finally escaped from this pattern. He did it all again and again, but over time he learned to do it better than the day before. The day didn't change, but he did. It is that optimism that comes in the film's final act that I am really working to hold onto as I consider the fact that I'm a quarter of the way to my deadline for finishing this first draft. The past three weeks have looked an awful lot like each other on the surface. But there's much more going on than meets the eye, and while the weeks may not be changing, I am. I can control how I manage the time I have, and I can control how I cope with what seems like a never-ending workload. Weekly StatsWhile my progress was not to the level of what it needs to be for me to meet my deadline, I did complete more work this week. It's not a win, but it's not an abject failure either, so that's progress. In keeping with my promise to maintain accountability, I will list my raw stats below.
So, the silver lining when looking back over the data is that I did at least get an hour of work in this week. I need to ensure that I am more consistent this upcoming week. My ambitious goal for this week is to give myself two hours every day to do work only on the novel, and with the amount of homework I have to grade this week being less extensive than the past two, this shouldn't be as difficult for me to manage. Here's to one more loop!
Back to Blog
Remember at the end of my last post where I talked about how much more productive and purposeful I was going to be with the novel this week? So, that didn't happen at all. This is not to say that I didn't spend time thinking about the story or considering the ramifications of certain choices in the text, but none of this made its way onto a document and there has been no change in my word count this week. So, as I sat down to write this blog, I considered why I didn't get any real work done this week and what I actually did with that time that could have otherwise been spent on the book. As it turns out, not all of this time was wasted. Much of it was actually in service of achieving other goals, but much of it was not, and as a measure of accountability, I want to lay out for myself and for others where I have failed and what I'm going to do to combat this. About time to get to the point, am I right? Making ExcusesFalling under the category of "Time That Was Actually Spent Productively" we have the extensive grading that I had to work through over the past several days. Progress reports went out for my students this past Monday, so much of my time spent before that deadline was ensuring that any lingering major grades were ready to go. That meant neglecting other minor grading and miscellaneous work for school that I had to catch up on gradually throughout the week, a task which took up much of my spare time in the evenings. This is the perpetual burden of the English teacher, unfortunately, but history has shown that weeks like these are relatively rare. They do remind me, however, of the necessity of staying on top of grades as soon as they come in. Being that my students will be submitting a major project tomorrow and will be taking a test on Thursday, I will work to input these grades as expediently as I can so they don't bury me like they did last week. As for the rest of my time, however, I honestly just didn't spend it as efficiently as I could have. I worked out this week, spent time with my wife, before she went out of town, cleaned out a closet with old clothes at my parents' house, and spent time with a friend. None of these activities are wastes of time by any stretch, but I recognize that I used a lot of them as reasons why I couldn't get work done, which is not entirely accurate. It's not about the activities themselves, but about prioritizing certain activities over others and remembering that if you have set a goal, you need to ensure that you are working diligently to achieve it. That means squeezing in time any chance you get, even if it is only fifteen minutes. Doing a little bit of something every day is better than doing nothing for an extended period of time, even if you try to make up for it in a marathon session later. This week has reminded me of that, and I am not going to let this mismanagement of time get me down again. What Next?This week I am going back to working on updating my writing spreadsheet that I created and used extensively during last semester's Genius Hour. I will update it with what I do with my writing every day and will report back on it next week to show what I have done. I will earmark at least fifteen minutes each day this week to work on the novel, no matter how busy I am, so that I can get back to my goal of averaging 1,000 words a day though the rest of this month. I am already a bit behind on that goal, clearly, but that doesn't mean I can't dig my way out and get back on top.
Back to Blog
Ignoring the fact that my last blog update was while in the midst of a previous semester's Genius Hour project (and that I ended up falling a bit off the schedule), the time has come once again to embark once again on this kick-in-the-pants adventure. Since my last update, I was able to achieve my goal from NaNoWriMo 2018, surpassing my expectations by not only hitting 50,000 words in November, by also by managing to write over 58,000 during the project. The good news, unfortunately, does start to taper off a bit from there. In the time since NaNoWriMo ended, I found myself pushing writing to the backburner and not forcing myself to work on it daily as I had been before. As a result, my word count has been sitting as just around 84,000 since November 30th. Honestly, I made excuses throughout the month of December that I was taking a break and needed time for grading. While this was partially true, I allowed myself to remain in this quagmire for much too long. As such, I am now publicly dedicating these next twelve weeks to finally achieving the goal I have been working towards since just before November of 2015 -- finishing the first draft of my novel. Soon... Where I Am and Where I'm GoingHaving remained stagnant over the past two and a half months in regards to any form of writing, my first step for this project was to figure out how I could move myself back into a daily writing habit and work at a reasonable pace. Pacing, as I discovered during NaNoWriMo, is essential for accomplishing a task like this effectively. This is what NaNoWriMo is best for; it shows prospective writers what it's like to write professionally and in accordance to a deadline. The only issue I had with the process, then, was the fact that the need to compose an average of 1,667 words a day was simply not a sustainable pace for me. As a result, I knew going into Genius Hour this time around that I would need to figure out that magic number for word count that works for me. Currently, I've settled on averaging 1,000 words a day, which based on my previous work seems much more sustainable.
Though I have yet to jump back into the schedule fully (I've allowed myself until March 1st to make the transition), this first week of the project has not been devoid of meaningful work, but it has been more sporadic than is ideal. I spent some time both Tuesday and Wednesday of this week reviewing pieces of my outline and worldbuilding documents to make edits and re-acclimate myself to the story I am trying to tell. In doing so, I have determined a set plan for the questions I still need to answer before returning wholeheartedly to composing my draft. Over the next week, I will seek to answer these key questions through some scene sketches and some spent fleshing out a few key characters' backgrounds. After doing this, I should be in a better position as the first of the month arrives. Hopefully next week will bring about some more substantial updates. I'm cautiously optimistic that I will see some more consistency in my writing time over the next few days.
Back to Blog
NaNo 18: A Goal Achieved11/11/2018 When I was growing up, my Taekwondo teacher would say the same thing to every student who ever came to his class after we had begun. He would see the student walking in with their parent and he would call out to them and tell them to hurry up and join us. Whenever he would do this, he would always add, "It's okay to be late, not lazy." That idea has stuck with me ever since then, though I have of course found that there are times in life where even if you're not lazy, it's still not okay to be late. Regardless, I mention this story because during this past week I achieved a milestone, one three years in the making. As with every NaNoWriMo, the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel. I only made it halfway towards that goal when I began working on this story three years ago, but today I can say that I have finally not only reached but exceeded 50,000 words. The mountain is a metaphor Where I Was. Where I AmHitting the 50,000 word milestone this week has given me reason to reflect on where my life was then and where it is now. It's quite astonishing to think how much it has changed and how much I've learned in that time. Since I first began this manuscript (and sense I did any serious work on it), I have grown so much as a writer and a teacher. I've become significantly better at my time management, and I can already say wholeheartedly that this time through Genius Hour has helped me to further fine tune this skill to the point that I am more productive now than I have probably ever been in my life. More importantly, in that time I have married an amazing and supportive woman who has encouraged me so much and kept me motivated to push myself and achieve my goals. I truly don't think I would be where I am without her encouragement, and I'm forever thankful that she is in my life. It's a good feeling to feel fulfilled, and though I worry this post is becoming far too saccharine for my tastes, these are the thoughts that have been on my mind this week, and I'm honestly glad to have an excuse to brag on my wife. With all that said, I still have a goal to achieve this time around and while I finally reached my first 50,000, I still have another nineteen days of NaNoWriMo and much more work left to do. Even after I finish this draft (something that I'm increasingly certain won't happen by the end of November, though I will have exceeded my original Genius Hour goal by this time), there is still a long road ahead of revision, reconstruction, and editing. It's going to be difficult, of that much I'm sure. This Genius Hour time has only served to reinforce this truth for me. It has also shown me, however, that unlike three years ago, I am much better equipped to handle these challenges. I will finish this novel. It may not be great, and it may never sell. Heck, it may just be one of many I have to write before I even successfully publish one. But I'm going to finish it. Weekly StatsOverall Writing Stats
Genius Hour Stats
NaNoWriMo Stats
|