Friday, March 28, 2003

Staying Humble


Last week I spent a day at the University of Connecticut leading a workshop at the Third Statewide Student/Teacher Writers Conference. Nancy Springer gave the keynote address. Now, Nancy Springer and I were both at the same literary tea sponsored by Penguin Putnam in New York City a couple of years ago, and I am a hundred percent certain we actually met. Briefly. But nonetheless. So I, who am not a naturally outgoing run up and greet people sort, decided I would make a point of speaking to her. I saw her for a moment at the beginning of the day, missed her address because I felt my workshop needed a little revising before I led it again in the afternoon, and caught her, literally, on my way out the door that afternoon. I stopped her in the hall, told her who I was, and said that I thought we'd met at a literary tea for Penguin Putnam. Well, of course you've probably guessed that she didn't know me from Adam. No recollection of me whatsoever. That's because in addition to not being very outgoing I'm also not very memorable.

Why do I find this story so funny?

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Ethan Allen and Me


The presentation last Friday went...okay. I put the first class to sleep. I suspected that others wouldn't share my obsession with the Puritans, and I was right. I should have trusted my gut. The other presentations went better because I'd practiced the material enough that I was able to flip around and cut, cut, cut. All the kids had read the book, and there were some very sophisticated questions. "Why did you put Pokie in the book?" "Why did you put Peggy and Deborah in the book?" I thought those were deep questions since everything in a piece of fiction should be there for a reason.
I also used PowerPoint for the first time. That went very, very well.
This particular presentation needs work, but it's promising.
I just noticed that the March 5 entry was posted twice. Some day when I have time I'll fix that.

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Suffering


I'm not accustomed to working very hard so I'm finding this month overwhelming. Work on Happy Kids! has ground to a halt because of writing angst. I have a day of presentations this Friday, and the school asked me to combine both my presentations, which means I'm prepping for a new presentation. I'm teaching a workshop next week that I've thought about but need to do some work on. I've been asked to submit a short story to a themed anthology, and that's due April 1. There's a reporter from a local newspaper coming here tomorrow morning which means hours of work on the house as well as on myself.

This entry is short for obvious reasons.

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Read Across America Day


Monday, March 3, was Read Across America Day, and I actually had someplace to go and something to do. Usually when things like that happen, I find out after the fact and wonder why I was home alone. This time I was invited by a Future Business Leaders of America group to speak to the third graders at an elementary school. This particular high school FBLA has sort of adopted a grade school in their city and do things with the younger kids 3 or 4 times a year. Their president was extremely gracious, competent, well-mannered, etc. etc. The event they planned was bigger than I expected. I was impressed and had a good time.
Now I'm worried about whether or not I'll be invited somewhere for next year's Read Across America Day--which will be March 2, 2004.

Read Across America Day


Monday was Read Across America Day, and I actually had some place to go and something to do. Usually these kinds of things happen, I hear about them long after they're over and wonder why I was sitting home alone again.

Sunday, March 02, 2003

Blog Insecurity


Here are two blogs that look way cooler than mine: The Reverse Cowgirl's Blog and rabbit blog. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue what they're about.

In case you haven't guessed, I don't have much time to do a decent posting and haven't for more than a week. But when I get back to this I'll have news about a forum I joined, my visit to a school, and a book I'm reading.

So even though this blog doesn't look way cool, you can tell what it's about. Or you can tell what it would be about if I did a better job of maintaining it.