One step at a time

When I was at primary school, in our classroom, we used to have a collection of quick, straightforward books about different inventions and inventors. I loved reading these books. Whenever you finished your work, you were allowed to choose a book to read. Needless to say, I finished early, frequently.

One of my favourites,Thomas Edison, is quoted as saying, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." And for one of my passions in life, writing, I am quite happy to apply that analogy to it. I have tried, over the last few years, to develop and improve my skills.

And this week, I have just finished a short online workshop with Jodi Henley looking at character development. What can I say, I have been well on the way to claiming I know a number of ways which don't work. And at the end of this course, for the first time, I do believe I am now on the right track. I can't quite say that I know what I am doing, and I will do it right now. But I know for certain that I am at the beginning of something new. Something that feels right, something that even though I can't see the end product yet, makes sense. It feels organic and logical, and I am buzzing with the thrill of a possible success. So I am about to embark on another journey, another attempt to accomplish my goal.

Thomas Edison also says, 'I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." - This statement defines writing for me. Writing has rules, some vague, some clear and some evolving, but it is like someone has just explained to me that algebraic letters are just representing an unknown quantity - and with a little bit of exploration, I can fill in the gaps and solve the equation. It's a great feeling.

With her final comments to me today, Jodi Henley said, "To my mind, there's nothing worse than telling someone to do something (because nothing is ever set in stone) without telling them how. That's what I want for people--to know the why and how."

All I can say in response, to both Thomas Edison and Jodi is, thank goodness there are people out there who are happy to share their expertise. I can only achieve what I can, because of their illuminating the way.

What I'm interested to know is: who has helped you on your journey and how?

Techno Chick

I am thrilled to say that I did not give up. I was not happy. I was somewhat despondent. But I did not give up. Rather like learning to write....

And look, the gadgets, widgets and bits and pieces are nearly all there.

You know what they say, success breeds success.

Hope you have a small victory in your life today!

An under statement

I knew I should never have begun to play with this. Blogger promised that if I tried the new format I could revert to the old one with a click of a button.

ONE CLICK!!!!

However, as charming as the new format is.... I want my photos back and the fancy little thingy that poor Courtney spent a very long time helping me insert into the page. And I want my map back where it was.

Darn it.

All because I thought would try and put a novel word counter on.

That's one new blog look missing the two things I really liked.

And no counter.

Missing things - a total under statement!

Missing things

This year our school decided to hold its very first Creative Arts night - great idea. I, personally, am all for creative arts, of course, the fact that I had just dished all the students art work back to them and sent it home, which meant I had zilch amount of art readily available to contribute to said creative arts night was no slight challenge for me to overcome in a very short space of time when the next term commenced.

However, for this art night, my class created a fabulous art piece, a corporate melding of images and words to represent time, space, relationship, religion and society. (It was really cool - I will try and find a photo) but one thing we put on the art work was a scripture, Genesis 1:1 - I'm not really sure, but beyond the shortest verse in the Bible, 'Jesus wept.' This is the kids favourite verse, and it worked with what I wanted, so I used it.

We painted the background black and then I very carefully scribed the verse with the wrong end of a paint brush. The result being a very faint etching. Exactly what I wanted. The kids had a number of concerns about this. We had a very lively discussion about whether it should be etched, painted over or scribed with larger print. All in all, it was brilliant. Exactly what every teacher wants to see - students discussing, listening, analysing and determining their point of view - and all with very little direction needed from myself.

In the end, their concern was that people were not going to see it (remember it was very faint). I pointed out to them that in reality it was right in the centre of the art work - it was there, it was obvious, what was there wasn't the problem...

What I then lead the conversation toward was a life lesson for the students. In that, just like the artwork, often there is something right before our eyes: directions, information, facts or impressions but because we are so distracted by other issues or we are not paying enough attention to detail, we miss what is right before our eyes, and we are the poorer for it. In fact, it probably wouldn't be too much of an overstatement to say that you couldn't even see it for looking.

And now, a couple of months down the track, my little life lesson for my darling students has come full circle and bit me in the butt. Many thanks to Mel for dropping in and leaving me some extremely helpful information about a publisher who was looking for a line I love writing for. But due to my inattention, my distraction by everything else around me, I missed a timely opportunity. I say timely, because darn it all, I have still bitten the bullet for the very first time and subbed my very first query letter and first five pages, even though it is two months past when they were looking for new authors.

Sigh.

But there you go, as Ned Kelly and Ben Cousin's abs (you gotta live in Western Australia to understand that bit) say, 'Such is life...'

Lesson for myself: don't miss what is right in front of your face.

Another year down.

Hey all.....

looks like I have managed to miss a couple of years. Classic. I am just about to sign up with a group to run a blog. Am I nuts? Completely! I do like blogs but I really, really don't ever seem to find the time. Maybe I would be better served by signing up for a time a management course. Anyway, sure it will be another learning experience.

But just so you all know, I did manage to finish uni, and yea I have been teaching for the last two years, and have had my very own class for the last year and a half. Loving it! Just loving it. I have perfected my teacher glare..... dust it off every time they tell me they can't find a book in their desk and I have it! They cheek of it. I've only been guilty a number of times of having one of their books when I said I didn't. But there are so many things to enjoy about teaching, I love going there everyday.

It's funny though, at the beginning of they year they seem so small and young and now, half-way through they seem more like adults and are easy to hold conversations with. I love seeing how some of them understand the complexities around us, how they take the information I feed them and use it, and how those who don't understand the multi-layers of meaning in a subject happily work their way through at their level. It's great. And when they get a concept, seeing their confidence grow is fantastic. I could rave for days about all the positive things. It really is a wonderful calling.... Can't call it job. If you call teaching a job, I do believe that you probably should find a different occupation. It takes so much of your time, energy and thoughts if you considered it a job, you'd be quite despondent at how you don't really get those long holidays, and school hours aren't really only between the bell, or Monday to Friday. So it has to be a calling, so that all your sacrifices make sense!