Tales of an Anthropologist in TeenWorld

Let me start by saying that I LOVE me some post-apocolyptic literature. It's one of my favorite subgenres. There's something so exciting about tossing out the society we have now and starting over. There's a sense of desperation and adventure that keeps me up and reading as long as I can keep my eyes open.



My first introduction, way back in high school, was The Stand. OMG, do I love that book. Nick Andros is by far my favorite character, with Frannie a close second (though I can't say I loved her character in the movie). It's such a good book, so many fascinating characters, a classic tale of good vs. evil. One of the elements that I loved/hated about the Stand was Larry singing a hit song right before the end of the world. That's so...horrifying for all those artists out there (Stephen King knew what he was doing) Having someone acheive a seemingly impossible dream...right before the world as we know it ends. After Handcuffs sold I was somewhat sure, deep down, that the world would end before it came out. But, it didn't. :)

A great thing about The Stand is that it makes the end of the world at least a little bit fun. I mean, not when you think about everyone you know dying, or about some of our favorite characters dying tragically, and Randall Flagg being pretty scary (those jeans, avert your eyes...avert your eyes). But still, there was plenty of food, and people met other fun people. It seemed like a pretty fun adventure in a lot of ways. More fun than high school, for sure.





Next up on my voyage to the end of the world was Swan Song by Robert McCammon. I read this is college, and it was quite a shock. A lot of people died early on in this book. And there were some really vile characters. The first time I started it, I couldn't make it through. It was  too dark. Years later I made it through, and was glad. It isn't one of my favorite books, because I didn't have a strong connection to any of the characters, but it was well worth the read. The thing about Swan Song is that it paints the human race as pretty ugly characters, but in the end, there's a sort of redemption for the good people.



The last entry in my post is The Road. From page one, I was terrified of continuing this book. Terrified. What I was most afraid of didn't happen, but there are a few scenes that will haunt me for a long time. Unlike the Stand and Swan Song, there are no assembles groups of survivors getting together and hanging out and making connections. There wasn't a lot of action in this book, but I was tense from the first page. It didn't make the end of the world seem fun at all. The hope was there, but it was hard to come by.

So, the paperback version of Handcuffs comes out in a few weeks, and I'm planning how to tell people. I'm so excited about the paperback, I might buy like a zillion copies for myself, or a zillion copies to give away. 

I'm excited about the paperback because it'll be small enough to carry around, and a nice low price. 

In other news, I'm almost finished with the screenplay, just a little tweaking on this draft, I have agent notes on The Fall, and I'm going to dig into that this weekend. 

Stay tuned for some paperback give-aways, and some other book give-aways (my shelves are falling down). 

Also, I'm excited to say that I'm teaching two creative writing classes this semester, woo hoo!
 

Next week I'm getting back to posting about writing and about being an anthropologist in teenworld and all that.

This week, I'm totally inundated with stuff that I have to do. How do you get out from a mountain of to do lists? You get a snow day!!!!!



And that's what happened today. Exactly what I needed.



And one last shot...the obligatory me taking a picture of the cat through the window shot



And you know what? It's COLD out there. We could be out again tomorrow.

I'm back! And I'm here to stay, with a schedule I can actually work with. Gonna post three times a week, more if I feel like it, and it's gonna be awesome, if I do say so myself.

So today's post is all about looking forward to 2010. Wow, 2010. I really can't believe this decade has passed so quickly.

In this decade...

I had Ezra and Noel, the two most amazing things to ever happen to me.
My first book was published :)
I moved to a new school, and I am SO happy and satisfied and excited to be there.
I got my rank 1 in secondary Ed (this is 30 hours past a Masters)
I got three pairs of new shoes (no wait, that was THIS morning in 2010.) I'm pretty sure I got closer to 300 pairs of new shoes in the last decade, but who's counting, right? Oh and before you decide this is a chick lit blog, many of the shoes were Clarks and Doc Martins. And lots of converse sneakers from Target.
Also in this decade
I lost my grandmother, and I'm going to be missing her for...a long time.
I actually lost both of my grandmothers, but Mamaw was an everyday part of my young life, and a weekly part of my adult life. They are both missed, though. I wish I had known the other grandmother better.

I'm not even going to start thinking about the next decade (at the end of it Noel and Ez will be 15 and 16) I'm focusing on next year.

2010. A year for futuristic flying cars and world peace... or well, maybe not. I did get my very first new car last year and it does get 41 miles per gallon, that's almost as good as flying (actually just give me teleportation and all will be well, I hate the travel part of travelling)

What do I want to do this year

1. Spend more quality time with the kids
Noel's new years resolution is to write a book with me. We will do this. Ezra's new year's resolution is to record a song with Lee. I know he'll do that, too.
We're going to have a great birthday party for the kids. We're going to rent a cabin over spring break (lee doesn't know this yet) we're going to a beach, probably Cancun, this summer, we're renewing our zoo passes and getting amusement park passes, and generally making this year count for all it's worth. The kids aren't babies and they still like doing stuff with us. We MUST take advantage of this!

Noel at Chuck E Cheeses last Wednesday

2. Reading/Writing
I know I don't have control of the industry, so I will only resolve to do what I can. And that is to write two good manuscripts a year. I need to write, I can't not write. I will write two manuscripts and make them the best I can. I actually already have two ideas right now.

Reading- I need to read more than I need to write. I won't neglect that need, also I will keep track of the books I read on this blog so I have some record of how many books I've read.


What I'm reading right now.

3. Teaching
This year I took a student teacher, and I did this because now that I'm done and have been done with my Rank I and don't appear to be going back to school anytime soon, and I don't want my teaching to get stagnant. Having an enthusiastic student teacher is going to be so great for this resolution. This is my third year teaching English II. I want to make English II the best class it can be, to be organized and helpful, to keep parents in the loop at all times, to follow through in all ways, and to respond to student writing more.


My desk!!!!
4. Organization
I'm going to keep the house clean and clutter free for my own peace of mind. It's something I need, my dad's genes, I'm sure. I'm going to take lots of pictures, organize them and print them in books or for albums. I'm going to journal regularly right here on this blog. I'm going to do whatever book promotion gigs come my way, and keep a high profile on the internet, when I can, and when I can't I'm not going to stress out about it. I also want to eat healthier, spend less, and feel good about the world in general.

There are more. And there will be more. But this is where my head's at right now. 2010, here we come...flying car or no.

Regular anthropologizing and blogging has been put on hold for Nanowrimo (national novel writers month)

But I do bring you this bit of Nano-Writer-Mama angst

So, today was beautiful, so I took my manuscript and took the kids to this awesome park. I was like, yeah I'm a great mom. Then this other mom came in and kept running around with and talking to and playing with her kids. While I was crouched over my manuscript muttering to myself, whispering lines of dialogue, being mildly creepy and insane. Thanks awesome mom for making me feel like not as much of an awesome mom.

An excerpt from something I'm not talking about yet. Except my mom read everything I'd written, but then when I asked for her opinion she had reception problems and had to go (In all fairness to my writing, her phone doesn't work more than it works)

The rooms are huge, and the low ceilings give them a cavernous feel, they are full of corners and shadows, with open places where you can see that there are more rooms, and more rooms still, like a house of mirrors, except instead of reflections you are looking at some warped version of reality, in which there are more rooms here than could possibly exist, even in a house this huge. I step over a headless doll. Blocks are strewn across the floor as if a child might be returning to finish his castle. A broken toy drum lies in the corner, a drumstick has been thrust through the leather membrane.

     A spider the size of my hand scurries across the room and into the mouth of a lifelike baby doll. The (name deleted) children of the past certainly had an abundance of dolls. Mother never bought me any, though I had a stuffed pink rabbit, once.

     I walk, slowly, through tea sets waiting for eternity for a tea party. Ropes of paper flowers and stars and moons have been hung from the rafters. I stand on tip toe to peer at them. The fluttering paper is attached to heavy rope. Odd.

     In one of the dormers, a low area where the ceiling matches the slope of the roof above, I find what I am looking for.

     Ugly black manacles, and a mattress.

     That’s all. I wonder why they didn’t get rid of this, burn the mattress. Otherwise, the room is clean, and empty.

     The house groans, and I hear footsteps creaking through the attic. There is a staircase, leading down from this room, a thing of wrought iron, with a flowing design of roses and barbs. I don’t wait for the footsteps to reach me. I run, across the room, stepping once on the mattress. A noxious smell blooms from it, thick as a cloud. I don’t inhale, just grab the banister, iron thorns piercing my hand, and bound downstairs.

Okay, change of plans. Today I'm doing a bit on Horror. I bought several really interesting looking horror YA books this summer, as well as some classic stuff.

As much paranormaly stuff is out there, there doesn't seem to be much real horror. I don't really know if this is a genre that we need...I love Stephen King, but I tend to love his more fantasy stuff (The Stand, The Dark Tower, my personal favorite, The Talisman) though I do ADORE It.

As an anthropologist in teenworld :) I really think that teens would like more horror. The Cirque de Freak books remain popular even in high school (not sure about the movie, I only saw part of one preview). I sort of think the trend might be really dark books.

Tomorrow I'll be posting a teaser tuesday, and wednesday, thursday and friday I'll be posting teen opinions on horror fiction.

Yay! Spooky stuff!

On second thought, I'm not posting the bullying scene from Handcuffs today. For one thing, I hate to post something that a lot of people have read, so I don't want to bore people, plus I don't have time today to post on the other teaser tuesday stuff. Somehow life has overwhelmed me this week. I hope to get caught up with posting stuff tomorrow. Crossing fingers. Dreaming of getting some sleep!

My small children know what a bully is. In fact, my 6 year old has asked me before, what he should do if someone bullies him. Luckily we haven't had to deal with anything like that. But chances are that someday, we will. Most kids will, at some time, deal with some manner of bullying.

My favorite depictions of real life middle school take your milk money style bullying are from Christopher Paul Curtis' Watsons Go To Birmingham. The descriptions of Byron and Buphead, and Larry Dunn playing the role of the "carp" are both sad and hilarious. This is a type of physical bullying that I never went through. I did get little girl bullied. In fact, learning how to act like a little girl was a painful process for me, since I was more accustomed to hanging around with boys. Being pushed out of the "club" was a common way to feel bullied in third and fourth grade. It was also terribly painful, and pretty effective.

I was asked in an interview (yesterday, actually) if the bullying that takes place in handcuffs was based on stuff I had seen as a high school teacher, and (despite my claim of being an anthropologist in teenworld) it really was not. Cause what I was going for in the scenes I wrote in Handcuffs, was the moment when adults aren't present. Yeah, plenty of stuff gets said in front of teachers and other school personnel, but the really nasty stuff happens when adults aren't present. And if adults don't think that kids these days can sexually harass one another in a way that would  turn your hair white, well, you haven't heard much. Or you have really fade-resistant hair.

I don't think you see much in YA lit that really plumbs the depths, and I don't think you need to.

I've been criticized a few times on goodreads for the depiction of bullying that I put in Handcuffs. Here's how I wrote the scene (I'll post the scene tomorrow for teaser-tuesday). I wanted Parker to be mortified. Totally and completely mortified. She is cornered and sexually harassed in front of an entire class, while the substitute teacher (no offense to substitute teachers, I adore substitute teachers)  reads the newspaper.

Was the scene painful for me--yes. For that reason, I believed that I had acheived what I set out to write.
I'll be writing about cyber-bullying this week, too. It's a scary reality out there.

So, I was saying that first day of school/high school, is considered sort of a cliche', but...I can't really think of that many books where the first day stood out to me. I don't know if that's good or bad, does it mean that I skim right over those parts, or that maybe there aren't that many? 

I'll have to be on the lookout as I keep reading.

I will announce my next few week's blog topics.

Next Week- Bullying in YA, and school, followed by cyberbullying/issues in YA and school, followed by cliques.

Cyberbullying week, I'll be giving away a copy of Handcuffs, Cliques week I'll be giving away a copy of Fanboy and Goth Girl...did I get that backwards, I typed it twice, both ways... look right and wrong...Okay, on clique week I'll be giving away a copy of the Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl. Great book! All you have to do to get in the contest is comment on my blog of highschool world anthropologist awesomeness.

This is the first time I've opened this manuscript since...2006...it was my first YA manuscript, ever, and I never revised it, I just took what I learned and moved on. One big problem is that one of the three main characters is a 21  year old student teacher, so obviously too old for YA. It kind of had that anthropologist vibe though, putting an outsider into high school.

I plan to rewrite this as a screenplay sometime in the not--too--far--off future.

This is Chapter Three and is called the Sureality of the First Day of School for Kate Burroughs, Unprepared Student Teacher...

     The school looms up out of the darkness, a big square block of a building. Some windows are lighted, some still dark. I can’t believe how sick I feel, it isn’t like I didn’t come here twice a week for observations last year. I had to watch a teacher teach for two hours twice a week, and then write a paper telling what I saw. Hence the name observations.

     The street lights in the parking lot pool precious bits of light into tiny circles. The only sound is the click of my heels. The feeling that this is not real sets in again as I get a weird vibe that I am late, that I will be tardy, that class has already started and when I walk in everyone will turn and stare.

     Then I open the door and all of my thoughts vanish, eclipsed by the brightness. There are voices all around, greeting one another, and there is a noxious cloud of hairspray and cologne, visible to the naked eye.

     “You going in or what?” from behind me. I pivot my body around, trying to smile, but the owner of the voice has already moved past with a psssst sound like a tire losing air. A sound that embodies all the scorn in the world. 

I don't have Freshmen so I probably don't see any extreme terror. What I see is discomfort, nervousness, and exhaustion. Whose idea was it to have school start at 7:20? When I was in college and I had to do observations for my education classes, I couldn't believe that school started that early. Yes, a mere 4 years, and I had already forgotten the agony...

On the first day they come in really quietly, nervously. They don't want to ask questions or draw attention to themselves. They stick together, especially in the halls, though my classroom in the dungeon is too far away for most of them to get "walked" to class, so they have to say their farewells someplace else.

Every school year is like a new beginning. That's one of the great things about my job (teacher). I can't imagine a job that just goes on and on and on, with each year merging into the next. Of course, I've chosen a career that means I'm in high school forever, but...that's okay.

I think Laurie Halse Anderson said it best in Speak..."It is the first day of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomache-ache." I always make my students get seven new notebooks just for the poetic...okay, I don't really. I did make them get composition books that we haven't used this year, but I haven't heard any complaints (since I dropped the homework assignment that the comp book was supposed to encompass).

By the way, in three weeks, (once I get the revamped blog going, I'll be doing a book give-away. After that I plan to give away a book every week). All posts for the next 3 weeks will count toward a chance for give-away number one!

 

It's a YA book cliche', right? But how much angst is expended leading up to the first day of school? Enough to power, like, all the stuff that needs powering in the world? 



I found this when I googled (image) first day of school. Cute, huh?

Not exactly what we expect from the first day of high school, in fact, I think it's awesome in an ironic sort of way.

First day of high school is filled with anxiety. Will I be able to open my locker? Who will I sit with at lunch? Will my teachers be MEAN? Will my schedule (if it was received before school started) suddenly be randomly changed? Will I be able (if needed) to change my schedule?

And the first day of the first year of high school? That's of course the worst, because everything is UNKNOWN, and unless you're a super-thrillseeker of the masochistic variety, the unknown is SCARY.



How about this picture? Is it sweet and welcoming, or totally sinister? Depends on your overall opinion of high school, I guess.

This week I'm going to be focusing on first days of high school. From the perspective of an Anthropologist in Teen World.

I'll start by sharing my first day of high school. I don't think I was ever so nervous in my life. It didn't help that I hate change. Every year of school I would desperately miss and want to go back to my last year of school. No matter how mean the teacher, how much I hated the work, how annoying the boy who sat behind me was, I remembered it with this sense of complete and total nostalgia. Like, let me go back to that hell on earth and get out of this one, and I will do anything, anything. And then the next year I would be thinking the exact same thing. What can I say, I'm a creature of habit.

Anyway, starting high school was a terriblly scary thing for a social nonentity like me.

Anyone else have stories to share?

I'll be blogging about first day of High School all week!

Week one will be first day of High School Week.

Sunday- Introduction to this week’s topic with some thoughts about it.

Monday- Interview with author, or other person, on the topic at hand

Tuesday Writing Snippet

Wednesday Teen views on the topic.

Thursday- More observations on the topic from the “anthropologist” with links to experts/others

Friday- Book Review.

Saturday – Book Give away and wrap up

Tales of an Anthropologist in Teen-World

Teen World. It’s an alien place. One day last spring I was walking with my small kids, and they wanted to walk up and talk to some teenagers. Some vacant eyed and not very friendly teenagers. I was like, no…no…stay here with mommy. They were intimidating teenagers, even though I work with teenagers, I write with teenagers, I LOVE teenagers. These were really loud and, dare I admit it? Intimidating.

But we want to understand them, don’t we? As parents, as educators, as authors, we’re always delving into the minds of teenagers.

This is a blog experiment I’ve been considering for a while. I mean, anthropologist study groups of people. They’re trained in doing that, but…I’m also trained, as a secondary education teacher, and as an author.

In this blog experiment I will have teenage perspectives on the world and issues in the world. I will have weekly (Friday) reviews of books that focus on the authenticity of the teen characters within the books.  I will have surveys that are answered by teens.  But overall, it will be me, writing up my reports, as an anthropologist in the world of teens. It will be … the Tales of an Anthropologist in Teen-World. Wow, I never thought I would have a (self given) scientific job title. This is so exciting!

So, today I returned home from my third writing conference. With the exception of the confusing expressways in Nashville (totally not the fault of the conference coordinators, I admit), I had a really good time.

I think that it's always good to go to conferences, or classes, or other learning experiences. Sometimes (this is more true of teaching conferences than writing) I get good ideas that have little to nothing to do with what the speaker is saying. I guess there's something that sparks an idea, or maybe it's the creative atmosphere?) Anyway, that was sort of the case for me. I had a few ideas. I rethought a few things, I learned some other things, and there were lots of friendly people and some good food.

Next weekend I am luncheon speaker and presenter at the Kentucky Librarian conference, so it was AWESOME just to sit back and relax at this one.

I highly recommend this conference, and plan to go back next year!

Okay, so this weekend Lee and I went white water rafting. It was an awesome experience, but I have to admit that near the beginning, I would have gotten off the raft, hidden in the woods, and been a quitter.

Here are some pictures. I am the one near the back who always looks completely appalled. In my defense
A. I had lost my sunglasses and was squinting
B. They were all taken in rapid succession during a time when I had a horrific look on my face
C. I was appalled.





You may think these pictures are the same, I did, but by staring at the positioning of the boat and the paddles, you can see some minute differences.

Okay, so when I was invited to go rafting I did not feel particularly nervous about it. I wondered if I should spend the money right after our big vacation, I wondered if the long drive to West Virginia was too much for a one day trip, but I didn't think, wow, I'll be scared of doing this. But, I was.

We made it through our first rapid fine, I was like oh this is cool, then on our second rapid, we went back in to "surf" and our entire side of the boat flipped out. I got pulled in pretty quickly, so even though I swallowed a lot of water and felt a bit battered, I was still fine. Then on the next rapid, I went off, came up under the boat, kept getting pushed under the waves, and lost my shoe and my sunglasses. It was crazy, and I felt totally and completely out of control and I panicked. I wanted to stop right then and there.

But of course, there was no stopping in the middle of the river. I had one mini-panic attack, and then we went on, with me in the back, in the safest spot of all. I never flew out again, and the rest of the trip was really fun.

The moral of this story is either
A. I am too old for extreme sports
B. I should stay in my living room
or possibly
C. You should face your fears, even if it means freaking out in public.

 

Since I've been posting from Greedy, I guess I'll do one more before I switch over to Breathless, since that's what I'm sort of actively working on...

     Pippa starts to say something else, but Emma rolls over and suddenly all of my being is focused on her. How does she do this to me?

     I spend the entire night listening to Emma breathe. It’s intense. Intensely disturbing. One of those nights where you’re never sure if you even drifted off.

     At one point in the early morning her soft even breathing stops and I figure she is either dead or awake.

     “Are you awake?” I whisper. Classic stupid question.

     “Yes.”

     I’m relieved that she didn’t say, I am now. That would have been ridiculously cliché. But now I have to say something else.

     “Can I ask you a question?”

     “Yeah.”

     It’s easier to talk to her in the dark, where I can’t see her dark eyes mocking me.      

     “Why are you here?”

     Long pause. Is she thinking of her answer? Hesitating? Wondering where to start? I feel nervous for her.

     “Can I ask you one?”

     I nod. As if she can see me in the dark room. She continues, as if she did see.

     “Why are you here? I think that’s the more compelling question.”

     I roll away from her, so that I’m facing the wall again, letting the unanswered question hang there between us. What does she know about my relationship with my sister? Does she have sisters who never visit her here, who have abandoned her? I know I’m not the best sister in the world, but I hope that I’m getting better. Eventually Emma’s breathing evens out and I get to listen to it some more, while I try to picture Jackson in my mind, repeating over and over like a mantra. I love him, I love him, I love him. Maybe eventually I dozed off for a few minutes. I don’t know.

Why is it that kids want so much to touch animals? Here is a documentary of all the animals they looked at and touched at Myrtle Beach.



This first one is Ezra getting bunny ears from a diver in the aquarium!



Noel petting/touching a baby alligator



Ezra getting ready to touch a snake (I almost couldn't post this I despise snakes so much, I sat in the back row at this show and didn't  go into the snake house, I never do, they give me nightmares).



Here are the kids being cute.... but watch out kids, there's a sting ray sneaking up on you!

Okay, one more one more...



Ezra and a horse shoe crab. I'm afraid I didn't get pics with the sting rays, I was holding his ankles so he didn't fall in and smash the poor creatures.

Okay, and what I have proven in this post is that small children like to touch living animals. I don't actually think the converse is true, as the animals seemed pretty ambivalent about the small children. :)