Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Maybe I should look before I jump.

When I signed up for the A to Z Blog, I did not anticipate having a shift in how I view this blog. I have another blog which is called SCIENCE LADYBUG . It gets many more hits per day and very few comments. It is designed for teachers and like most teachers they are not lollygagging around with comments. They get what they need and get out.

I wanted to be Science Lady but the name was taken. I was the Science Lady in central Georgia. I have one big talent in life. Children find me entertaining. Believe me, it took me years to reach that point in my career.

My first venture into writing was to collate science activities. Instead I started a novel that I had toyed with in my head. My big talent in life was not being an language expert. The fact I have a command of grammar is the fact I have always been a big reader. The speech patterns I grew up with are truly atrocious. I've been told I write dialect well. My eighth and tenth grade English teacher Mrs. Toshach taught grammar like a math class which clicked in my mind.

Like most people who start writing, I assumed my first work would be the exception. I was lucky enough to wander into a screenwriting workshop. I paid the man to evaluate a script I wrote. Honestly, I knew it needed a criticism. I just did not know where to start. When he burst my bubble with criticism, I was surprised I was so depressed.

 As a teacher, I knew he did not know where to break down the ways the script was bad. Guidance counselors would always ask me to evaluate students with severe academic problems. So many of my colleagues would rate a student with the lowest part of the scale on everything. It was true these children were not functioning. It is just that there were particular areas where they failed. In some areas they did function. I knew my first effort would be weak.

As I learned more, I could see what he meant with particular criticisms. I feel like this man avoids me. He doesn't. It was the first time I fell on my face since stepping out of my Queendom. Teaching school isn't the most glamorous job; but, you can get a lot of respect. I wasn't used to not being the expert.

I would have taught school the full forty. Actually, I would be there way too long because I loved it. I just reached that care-giving dilemma that so many of us face. You are technically in your prime; but, you retire and take care of family members.

So I slowed down and began what I had wanted to do when I was twenty which was write.

I started this blog to begin building my platform. There was a wonderful blog hop called Trifecta which I loved. I have done other blog hops but I realized I did not have a true audience. I wanted to see who would visit. Two of my posts, "I got a solicitation from Chesty Friends" and "Bogus Spam Email" get easily twice the number of hits each month of any other post's total.

Some posts became part of other stories so I have taken them down. My vampire posts which began as a tit for tat with some younger writers had huge numbers. I've since incorporated portions into a screenplay and taken them down.

Well A to Z is my challenge to define myself.  I still plan to post 26 scenes of a play about a Canadian occupied swamp in North Florida for the challenge. In many ways, your work says more about you than if you wrote a memoir.

5 comments:

  1. Work does say a lot indeed. Just have to keep on building and the blog will get there. Good in a way that life shifted as now you can get some writing in.

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  2. I've appreciated your encouragement and attention. It's complex how you can overthink things at time. The learning is good for the mind. Take care, Pat.

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  3. Teachers can shape or demoralize, the outcome differentiates the good ones from the bad. Hope A to Z works well for you. Many have found the rewards of the Challenge.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    A Faraway View

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    Replies
    1. I like the social element of A to Z. My blog is an unguided missile but it serves it's purpose.
      The blog has helped me open up about what I thought.
      I learned too well to keep my opinions to myself as a teacher. It made it so much easier to get along with everyone. American's are "nuts" about their opinions as we see from Congress and how they get elected.

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  4. I love your comment -- my blog is an unguided missile. How great for you that you have a nack for dialect. I'm starting something I think needs it to be authentic. I feel like I'm going to have to develop a code to refer to.

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