Writing With Abandon

Reflections and ramblings about life as an educator, writer, reader, knitter, and over-thinker. Trying to do the writing only I can do.

Tag: ralph fletcher

  • On Doing the Writing Only I Can Do

    I crack open the notebook I used for the Quoddy Writing Retreat this past August, led by Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard. The notebook I haven’t touched since landing back in Miami, even though I made promises — to myself, to my writing group — to set aside time to write. My streak of Tuesdays got away from me sometime in the early fall. Life happened, as they say.

    But Ralph told me that writing will always wait for you. If writing is important, it will come back to you. The muse will come knocking.

    I hope writing has been patient, as I’ve set her aside these past many months. I hope she doesn’t mind me picking her back up, dusting her off with the fabric at the bottom of my t-shirt.

    Because it’s the third Slice of Life challenge I’ll be participating in, and this time around, I have an even larger community doing it with me.

    I’m skimming these pages and gems are jumping out at me, quotes from Ralph and Georgia and other published writers. I’ll jot them here, in hopes I can return to them on the days when slicing just feels too hard. Reminding me that I’m in great company.

    ***

    Do the writing that only you can do.

    “Tell your stories. You own everything that happened to you.” – Anne Lamott

    Write with abandon.

    “It is, really, about heart; about a human being looking at life through her own lens and thinking and feeling it through and then making something – even something very simple – that says something new and truthful – something that reaches out to the reader in a spirit of commiseration.” – George Saunders

    “Be you. Be all in. Fall. Get up. Try again.” – Brené Brown

    “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write.” – Richard Price

    Let the image do the work for you.

    Revision is like chiseling away at stone, at clay.

    “Revision is not a way to fix a broken piece. It’s a way to honor a great piece.” – Ralph Fletcher

    The notebook is a playground.

    “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion

    ***

    It’s with these writers at my back that I embark yet again on this challenge. I will write with abandon, “just have fun with it,” as my dad says. I’ll do the writing only I can do!

  • When Ralph Comes to Visit

    “Are you ready?” Betsy asked me in the morning as we readied the theater. It was thirty minutes before the second performance of our class’s theatrical adaptation of Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher, and today, not only were the students’ parents coming, but so was Ralph, himself!

    “Ready! And nervous!” I spat out. We still needed the videographer to come to check the new prop placement, and he wasn’t replying to my texts.

    “Tranquila,” Betsy said. “Enjoy this!”

    And despite a little tech hiccup right before we let parents in, I did.

    I managed the changing of the digital backdrops and the sound effects, preparing to give cues if students needed, but mostly, I just enjoyed the show. Ralph and Ana sat to my right, and I kept warming at his audible reactions:

    “Wow, she’s good.”

    “Huh!”

    “That’s pretty clever.”

    When E as Mr. Peacock introduced him, and he stepped up to take his line (the line he wrote), the audience applauded loudly. Ralph! Here! A storyteller that inspires!

    The rest of the day was a whirlwind of professional learning sessions with him, organized by Ana. My brain buzzed with ideas, my pen moving rapidly to catch all of the wonderful things he had to say.

    One has stuck with me all afternoon into evening.

    Ralph says, many students think revision is to fix a piece of writing that’s broken. He sees revision as a way to honor a piece that’s good, a piece that means something to you.

    Flying Solo meant something to us. We went through more than seven revisions of the adapted script, honing it each time, whittling away, adding, molding, sculpting a dynamic play that could truly capture the magic we felt with the first read. And I think we honored that original magic today.

    I’m exhausted, and ready (in a way) to get back to our regular schedule without rehearsals. But mostly, I’m grateful.

    Thank you, Ralph. Thank you for writing this book and all the others. Thank you for giving us permission to adapt it into a play. And thank you for coming to see it, for meeting our students. The smiles on their faces meant so much.

  • Reggio, Meet Ralph.

    This summer, at the Quoddy Institute, one of the other teachers (I think it was Cheri!) mentioned that she and her 5th graders always start the year reading Ralph Fletcher’s Flying Solo, a book about a class of 6th graders and what happens when one day, neither the teacher nor his substitute show up. She told me how one year, they even did their own experiment where she and a colleague didn’t go back to the classroom after recess, instead watching what ensued from the window across the playground. Fascinating, I thought! I immediately went to my Amazon app, added it to my cart, and hit “purchase.”

    I read the book quickly before school started, then gave it to Kim to read as well. It’s short, around 150 pages, and it was perfect for the first read aloud as it had a great theme about integrity and would give them plenty of practice making inferences about story elements. I figured we’d read it within a couple weeks, then launch into Starfish by Lisa Fipps, a favorite from last year.

    But each day that I read Flying Solo to my fifth graders, I uncover another layer of the book that I hadn’t noticed before. Like how many references there are to democracy, or all the time jumps there are (perfect for teaching about the importance of flashbacks!), or Ralph’s excellent use of figurative language.

    And my students’ reactions have been unexpectedly thoughtful as well. It’s a fun book, a real kids’ book, so they’ve been very engaged from the beginning. But they’ve also shown deep empathy for some of the meaner characters (like Bastian, who teases the other kids, but “is probably doing that because he’s sad about moving and his dog, Barkley,” one of my students said). They’ve made many predictions about Rachel and whether or not she’ll speak by the end of the story. They laugh at Christopher saying “fact” and “opinion,” roll their eyes at lame jokes (and widen them at the can’t-believe-she-just-said-that jokes), and cheer on the students who stand up to the others. They endlessly wonder how Tommy Feathers died, shocked and saddened that it could happen to someone so young.

    They’ve practiced summarizing for their classmates who have been out sick, have distinguished between primary, secondary, and tertiary characters, and have talked endlessly about the plot and how they wish there was a movie.

    This is where the Reggio spark really begins:

    Two of our girls were walking alongside me in the hallway on the way to lunch when one said, “This book should be a movie!”

    And I replied, “I want to make that movie!” (Laughing to myself because the other night, as I told P about the book, he and I both said we could imagine it so clearly as a play!)

    Our conversation continued through the lunch line as we grabbed our plates, then sat at the lunch table with Kim and three of our boys. I opened up the Otter app to record our conversation, and let their ideas bubble up and build on one another:

    “We could do it for a show!”

    “We’d need another person that’s Rachel that speaks for her, because so much is going on inside her head. Like a voiceover.”

    “We could rehearse during read aloud.”

    “We could pick out the characters and think of ideas, act it out, and maybe write our own script. Or you can pick ideas from it?”

    “We might need to cut some of the characters that don’t have that many character traits.”

    “I want to be Rachel!”

    “I want to be Jessica!”

    “I want to be Christopher!”

    “Hold on,” I said, the gears turning in my head. Could this work? Could we make this happen? “I’ll need to email Ralph for permission first.”

    He replied within the half hour: “Yes, you have my permission…that would be really great.”

    We told the students at the end of the day and they cheered! That was yesterday. Today, they’ve been talking about it nonstop throughout the day. Ralph sent us a video of him talking about the book, which we watched in closing circle. This Thursday we’ll finish it and next week we’ll start our talks about writing a script. We’re all a little bit in disbelief… and a lot a bit excited.

    And that is how a Reggio project is born.

  • My Day

    Tea with Eleanor, Campobello Island

    What is it about inspiring stories that make one tear up? I think all of us in the tea room were welling up as we listened to the stories the docents told of Eleanor Roosevelt’s childhood, dedication to human rights, and fierce independence and bravery.

    This afternoon, on our second day at the Quoddy Writing Retreat for Teacher Renewal with Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard, most of us headed out on a little field trip to Campobello Island across the bay to have “Tea with Eleanor” and tour the cottage where the Roosevelts spent most of their summers.

    As I rode in the back seat of Ralph and Jo Ann’s car, our phones switched to Atlantic Daylight Time. We drove out to Herring Cove Beach, collected pebbles and sea glass, then it was over to tea, where I learned so much more than I ever had about Eleanor. (Fun side note: one of my favorite books as a kid was A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young.)

    One of those new facts was My Day, her 500-word daily news column that she wrote 6 days a week for 27 years, only missing a few days after her husband’s passing. The original Slice of Life, I think (and the inspiration for today’s post)!

    I left the session with the delicious aftertaste of gingersnaps and tea lingering in my mouth, and a desire to learn more. Next we went to tour their cottage, where we saw the desk at which she wrote all of her thousands, maybe millions, of letters.

    At 72, Eleanor renewed her gun license
    The Roosevelt Cottage
    Eleanor’s writing desk
    Dining room with the kid’s table behind
    In the nursery
    A dream view

    Now it’s off to the one supermarket on Lubec to get a bottle of wine to share, and dinner with Ana by the water to watch the sunset!

  • Uninspired

    It’s Tuesday, slice of life day, but I’m feeling uninspired.

    I’ve just gotten back after an afternoon at Sojo Spa Club with a close friend, where we hopped from hot tub to hot tub and sauna to sauna, stepping into the cold plunge waterfall whenever we got too hot.

    And New York is hot right now. 95 feels like 97, the air thick, though at least there’s a slight breeze.

    I’m here for a couple weeks, staying in my childhood bedroom-turned-guest room, until I head to Lubec, Maine for the Quoddy Writing Retreat with Ana and Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard (so soon!).

    On a day like today, where I’m feeling uninspired to write, I start to wonder if I’ll feel like that on this writing retreat. I have a kernel of an idea for what I’ll work on while I’m there, but I’m not sure if I’ll feel inspired to write about that once I get there. The imposter syndrome sets in. I’m not good enough for this retreat! And, what if I have writer’s block the whole time?! (My writing partner, Ana, would tell me to flip it: “What if you don’t? What if the whole time, you can’t stop writing?”)

    My body feels extra relaxed after the spa. Phoebe is lying down at the foot of the bed. I wonder if she’s too hot with all that fur. My mom is on a work call in the next room. The fan spins overhead, the white noise I grew up sleeping to. The shutters are mostly drawn but the light comes in through the window. It’s dark to keep it cool.

    I’ll wait a bit longer and then take Phoebe out for a slow walk.

  • Day 31: Taps

    It’s Saturday evening and I’m watching the sun set behind the buildings across from mine. I was thinking about what to write for my last slice of the Slice of Life Story Challenge 2024, feeling both a sense of accomplishment/relief (one less item on the daily to-do list!) and also sadness, as slicing has become an activity that I have found so rejuvenating this month.

    Last night, Ana and I were sharing with Gi how fun this challenge has been for us. I think particularly about how much more I enjoyed it this year, how I built a stronger sense of community with fellow slicers, how I found blogs that I subscribed to and thoroughly enjoyed reading, and how I felt an inspiration for writing that I haven’t felt in a long time (“big magic,” Liz Gilbert might say).

    “You should definitely do it with us next year,” Ana encouraged Gi. “It’s so freaking fun.”

    As I look out the window, watching the sky change colors, I find myself thinking of the song we used to sing at camp at the end of each evening, Taps:

    Day is done. Gone the sun. From the hills, from the lakes, from the skies. All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh.

    We would play around with harmonies each time, my friends Alice and Claire and I especially. Then off to our cabins to wash up and get ready for bed, have cabin chat, and go to sleep. Every evening ended the same way, and there was a sense of peace knowing that the next morning, after waking up at 7:30, after the day passed with its activities and meals, we’d end it again with some goodnight circle songs, and always, Taps.

    Last year, on the 31st day of the challenge, I reflected on who I was as a writer. I considered blogging more often, writing for the very small audience I’d built, but never managed to do it. I think I wrote one post between then and now. Perhaps it was the focus of my blog that kept me from it (teacher-facing solely), or my imposter syndrome, or the who-cares-what-I’ve-got-to-say, or any of the various life-gets-in-the-way excuses.

    This year, I pushed past the discomfort and just wrote. I learned that a simple post about banana bread can remind someone else of their own recipe, have them grabbing the ingredients from their pantry and baking for the loved ones in their lives. I saw how my friends who followed along enjoyed the stories I told, how they were “insiders” knowing the characters I wrote about. This year, I really felt — feel — like a writer again, in a way I haven’t in years.

    And then magically, serendipitously, the evening that Ana wrote her slice about whether or not she’d go to Ralph Fletcher’s Quoddy Writing Retreat for teachers this summer, I received an email from him letting me know a spot had opened up and was I still interested?

    HECK! YES!

    So, a promise to myself: to keep at it. A weekly slice. Because there is comfort in writing regularly, like the comfort of singing Taps on a summer evening in the Berkshires.

    Thanks, fellow slicers, thanks, Two Writing Teachers, for hosting, thanks to my readers who encourage me, and thanks to my writing partner (she knows who she is).

  • Day 2: Boy Writers

    I’ve been reading Ralph Fletcher’s Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices and thinking about the different boy writers I’ve had in my classroom over the last three years of teaching writers workshop.

    The ones that frustrate us because they sit there staring at a blank notebook page, or tell you “I don’t know” when you ask them “How’s it going?” during a conference. The ones whose handwriting is sloppy or big or practically cryptic. The ones who only ever want to write about one topic or in one genre. The ones who write stories that don’t make much sense or end with an “and-then-the-world-explodes!”

    But also the ones who bring so much joy. The ones who have such a clear voice they couldn’t hide it if they tried. The ones whose humor comes across no matter the genre. The ones who have a great grasp on spelling and conventions. The ones who write for fun or collaboratively with friends. The ones who engage in a conference and eagerly try out new craft moves.

    Today I’m thinking about all the boy writers I’ve had whose writing has surprised me and floored me. Like T’s final on-demand story about a boy who didn’t have enough words, which has the most beautiful lesson. Or E’s essay about his little sister, inspired by R’s. I’m thinking about the script that L wrote for our showcase last year, and how it brought all these disparate things together in the most hilarious way. About P’s memoir that called out the bullying going on in the classroom, the group of parents who stood reading it together at our celebration. Most recently, I’m thinking about N’s opinion on-demand and his undeniable voice, the way his parents laughed at our parent-teacher conference about how, yup, that kid could definitely be a lawyer.

    My goal for the rest of the year? Not get in their way.

  • Writing Conference with Myself

    If a writing teacher were to come up to me right now, 8:17pm on a Tuesday night, 28th slice of 31, ask me the magic words: “How’s it going?”

    If it were I in the writer’s seat, pen in hand, notebook open before me, I would reply: “Not well.”

    “Not well?”

    “I can’t think of anything to write today. I’m plumb out of ideas.”

    “What tools do you have for generating ideas?”

    “I know, I know. Think of places and people and memories close to your heart. Make a list, choose one, write everything down. Use Ralph Fletcher’s ‘breathing in and breathing out,’ or a photograph, or an observation out my window. But I’m telling you, I’m stuck.”

    “Let’s try. What’s one small moment from today, just an image, that gave you joy?”

    Ugh, I’d think. Fine, I’ll try.

    And close my eyes. And breathe. And think about what moment today was not hectic, not loud, not tiring.

    “I’ve got it!”

    “Great. Now write it down.”

    Tuesday, March 28th

    At recess, my student brought her notebook down to the playground, led me to a bench, and read me her poem about #middleschoolfeelings. Legs crossed on the bench, notebook open in her lap. Voice soft, yet powerful. We workshopped a few possible endings. She borrowed my pen to ink the chosen one. Then went off to share it with a friend.

    Day 28(!!!) of 31

  • Remembering My Love of Memoir

    It’s 7:29 am and I’m waiting for Ana to pick me up to take us to school. I also just finished Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher and I feel like I’m floating.

    What a fantastic book. I read it quickly, within a couple of nights curled up in bed and this morning while eating my yogurt with fruit and homemade granola. Ralph’s stories of his childhood in Marshfield made me laugh, smile, and gasp from sudden surprise. He writes in such a clear, easy way, that you almost don’t realize when you’ve gotten to a poignant moment until you’re in it, and then — shuuup — quick inhale of breath, and a slow breathing out as you savor the mixture of beauty and sadness.

    Something else this book did was make me feel that I can write anything. I can’t wait to share this book (and any writing inspired by it!) with the world.

    So, thank you, Ralph.