Tuesday 10 December 2013

Fighting mediocrity: "There Are No Shortcuts"


I came to There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith, through a piece on Rafe by Jack Canfield in his book The Success Principles. It was only a brief mention, but for some reason I kept coming back to it, so I sourced the book (in paperback – a rarity in itself with my kindle by my side these days) and began to read.

As a mum of four bright, pretty standard children, I have a predisposition to worry about applying too much pressure on them, or being too strict, expecting too much or conversely, not laying down the law properly at all. The holy grail of parenting being that sweet balance that gives your children their ultimate happiness at the same time as their maximum potential to succeed at everything life offers them. This mind-set was topped off by my own experiences as a pupil, attending a lovely primary school, but going on to a demanding and ridiculing high school. My tolerance for pressure on children, to perform academically and maintain good behaviour, is constantly wavering in an attempt to find the right balance.

So as I began to read There Are No Shortcuts, I wondered just what the effects were on these children, how the passionate teacher, Rafe, puts in ridiculous hours from 6am to 6pm (plus all his work at home & at other jobs to pay for school supplies & trips) with many of the children doing the same, with further options for music and study on a Saturday as well. His basis, of moving from an American private school where he spent the first 2 years of his teaching career to his new job in The Jungle, an inner-city public school, and realising that the children there would need so much more commitment and excellent teaching to reach the same standard as the children he taught originally, is a foundation I can understand. As the book progresses, the results seem to speak for themselves, but there is that niggle that maybe he is going too far in his efforts and carrying the children along with him, whether they want it or can cope with it or not.

But then we come to Rafe telling us where he fell down, when the systems he had created back fired and children held resentment against him because of it. This was where the book became inspirational for me. Rafe demonstrates something that I’ve known academically for a long time, but personally have struggled to do effectively in practice. He describes how he discovered the problems, how devastated and angry he felt, and then went on to learn from his failure in such an adept way, creating ever more value as a teacher for his students, that the failure became a necessary part of his journey to become the great teacher he is now. He took his failure, faced it squarely and developed himself from it. Harder than he makes it look.

Rafe also talks about the many obstacles, or ‘road blocks’ as Jack Canfield would call them, that a teacher faces – people who seem to deliberately get in your way and can make things almost impossible – and most importantly, how he dealt with them (for better or worse).

Rafe talks to us through his book, mostly directing his comments towards the ‘young teacher’ who he knows will feel pressured to follow the norm of mediocrity to keep their job. He also speaks to us as parents, urging us to get involved, pay attention, know what goes on in your child’s classroom. He speaks very candidly about how his skills grew as a teacher and at what cost. He talks so proudly of his students and all they achieved, but not constantly in the academic sense. He praises their unique characters. He understands and cherishes them as individuals.

There Are No Shortcuts is an engrossing, honest and often funny tale, full of highs and lows through the fascinating life of a teacher determined to create excellence.

Rafe sums it up best himself, “I’m a very ordinary fellow who made one smart move. I would not allow today’s educational fiasco of systemized mediocrity and uniformity to crush me into the robot so many potentially good teachers become.” His passion shows through in his book as it must in his classroom. In essence, he’s the sort of guy I wish my children had for a teacher.

Heather Zanetti

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Practice is not just repeating the same action

In Matthew Syed's Bounce I found, what boils down to, a very simple premise. The simple idea struck a chord so strongly with me, that I think of it nearly every time I'm struggling to move forward in my writing.

I was drawn to Bounce initially as I enjoy the odd extended essay, or paper, on various scientific and psychological topics (I've studied at degree level in both, for my sins). It's quite a fascinating look at how a variety of individuals, musicians, baseball players etc., have achieved great things in their respective fields. What made them special? Why did they succeed over anyone else? Of course, another reason I plucked it off the bookshop's shelf was wanting to know how I could become a champion too. Albeit a writing champion. If there is such a thing.

Syed neatly demonstrates with case studies how some key element of a person's life can present them with an odd, sometimes barely recognisable, opportunity that in the cases of certain individuals, were pivotal to their success. Take baseball players. Syed tells us that many of the major league players had birthdays in the first 3 months of the year. Strange coincidence? Hardly. It was a result of the selection process way back in junior school. At that age, children who were the eldest in the school year were able to demonstrate more physical ability than those born a matter of months later. This was simply a case of children's physical ability changing so quickly at that age, but when selecting teams, this age advantage was easily confused with talent. Those children selected received more coaching as a result and the gap in ability grew wider. This carried through into high school and then adult life when it became a career for some of them. The older children in the year got an unexpected leg up and the younger ones missed an opportunity.

Another, rather amusing, example is that of a ping pong player who had a wicked technique positioning himself much closer to the table than any other professional players. He became legendary for his unique style of play and was praised for his lightening quick reactions when he was so close. Syed tells us how this happened. The player had first learned on a table tennis table in a cramped room that could only fit the table and the players in it with no room to spare. He'd practised for hours of his young life with no option to move away from the table edge. This awkward setup became the reason for his success. No other player was so practised at short range and their reactions were not as fast as a result.

Syed isn't just pointing out that odd opportunities help, (so don't start jamming yourself and your laptop into a phonebox just yet) but that the idea of talent itself may be a fallacy. What is talent? Syed lays out intriguing evidence that the key is not some pre-determined ability we are born with, but simply practice. (Yes, I'm British.) The research he cites concludes that several hours of practice each day, with the key purpose of improvement, over a period of ten years will create a world class musician, sportsman, artist etc. The 'ten year' part may make you gulp, but 'world class' is pretty damn enticing.

I took a few key things away from this fascinating book:

a) Practice is not just repeating the same action, it is striving for greater skill at each session.
b) Momentum and continuity of practice is extremely important.
c) It will take time and concentrated effort, a lot of each, but the results can be impressive.
d) Your unique life experience isn't just important for your style and the choice of subjects you can write about, but also your learning experience and your whole opportunity to be a writer.
e) No matter how awful I think my writing is today or how awful a particular draft is, I know that if I just keep at it, put the effort in and strive to improve, I will get better and so will the book.

The last point in particular gets me through some pretty low "what was I even thinking" days. It feels like a simple map to reaching my goals. It helps me keep the writer faith. Keep working hard and working often and it won't be in vain.

If you need some inspirational, superhuman myth busting discussion too, Bounce is a great place to start.

Saturday 13 April 2013

How to reach the top, by never giving up.

Looking a lot like a diagram of story structure, this great inspirational chart by Anna Vital resonates nicely with the writer in me. Now I'm going to expand on this a little.

'Stay alive'
Yep, 240 shots at success sound good to me. If it takes you a year or maybe two to write a book, that's still at least 30 bites of the apple by this reckoning. All we have to do is "stay alive"! On that note: take care of the rest of you, while your mind and finger tips are working overtime. Exercise! As writers we need this more than ever to counteract keeping our backsides in the chair. If you're short on finance, walk or run, short on time, get some gym equipment at home, short on everything, improvise - you're a writer, use your imagination! Pump a tin of beans in one hand while you type with the other. Attach pedals to your desk and cycle as you write. Do glute crunches as you sit in the chair. Whatever works, right? Exercise is also a great writer's block buster. Clear your head, wash away those doubts with an endorphin rinse and give yourself time to just think rather than continuously create (I've done some of my best plot doctoring on the indoor rower).

'Lower your expectations'
Good point, well made. You'd like some literary equivalency? J K Rowling was rejected 12 times before she found a willing publisher. Brazilian author Paulo Coelho published 4 books before his career as a writer took off. His third book, The Alchemist, had an initial print run of only 900 books and didn't go for a reprint at the time. The Alchemist has now sold over 65 million copies worldwide. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was his fourth book, not his first, with the previous three only selling well once the fourth book took off. It takes time, but it is worth it.

'Stronger'
Yes, you are. Much stronger than you would ever think. If this is what you really want, you will achieve it. Just Keep Going. Crush any doubts before they crush you and be a bulldozer on your path to success. Take pride in every hurdle you leap and every hill you climb. Strength comes not just from knowing your weaknesses, but recognising and remembering that you have overcome them before. Build on your strength and celebrate it.

'Persist'
The weeds could equally be the middle of your beginning, middle and end, or a rough edit, or the 100th rejection letter. Try something new, merge or switch out characters, start your next book, market yourself via a different medium or differently in your current media. Build your momentum and keep on fuelling it. Think of it this way, if you continue doing what you have always done, how can you expect different results? If you feel yourself or your work starting to plateau or stagnate, add something new. And I'll say it again. Just Keep Going.

'Fake it'
Wise words indeed, in fact I'd go one step further. Simply be an author in the present, rather than aspire to be one in the future. I have a whole lot to say about this in my upcoming writer's guide, but for now, suffice to say that if you set your goal in the future, it may always stay in the future. Act in the present exactly as you will act once you're successful. Schedule, work and think as a successful writer and you will be. Put another way, if you continue to act like an amateur, how are you learning to be a professional? Pretending is not pretending, it's practice until one day it isn't practice anymore.

'Don't compare'
This. Yes, yes and yes. Think of anything you have achieved in life. Can you describe exactly how you did it? Or where you got all the knowledge from that it took to achieve that goal? Probably not! You are unique and this is a great thing! No one but you can write the book you are writing. Equally no one but you will take the path to writing success that you are taking, so carve your own path with hope, pride and everything that makes you YOU.

'The dip'
Rejection letters come to mind, or the first novel not taking off as you'd hoped, you may even be flagging at the end of your first draft. Go back to our big name examples above, keep at it because you just don't know which of your books will strike that chord and rocket to the top. Each book you write will take you on this journey many times over on a smaller scale, so it's a ride you'll be getting used to. Learn with each trough and pick up speed for the next peak. Recognise the signs and cut off the troughs before you go too low. Replace a doubt in your mind with a positive wish or celebrate your progress so far. It doesn't matter whether you've written 2000 words, 200,000 words or sold 2000 copies, they are all points along the line to success, as long as you keep on moving along that line. I know you can succeed, as long as you Never Give Up!


Wednesday 27 March 2013

6 things kids can teach us about writing


1.       Scribble

The skill that gives rise to fridge masterpieces the world over. Kids don’t scribble their words intentionally (most of the time), they just have very few inhibitions. They have, initially at least, a confidence that they can do it any way they can and it’ll be great regardless. Just getting some shapes on the paper is a big enough achievement to generate praise from an adoring adult. And that’s what we lose sight of. Getting words on paper is such an everyday thing, something we’re expected to be able to do, that we minimise the achievement in doing it.

Every word you write is one step closer to a whole book. A few paragraphs and you’ve got a scene going, things are happening, we’re on the way. A few scenes and we’ve got a chapter, then an act. We’re looking at the old headlight analogy again, if you’re driving from London to Edinburgh at night, you know you’ll reach Edinburgh eventually, but all you can see at any one moment is the 300 feet in front of you which is illuminated by your headlights.

It’s the same with writing a novel. Concentrate on the present moment you are in and write like a kid with a crayon, freely, uninhibited and deal with any surprises as they appear. Be proud of the fact that you’ve written X number of words, no matter what that number is, because it’s all forward movement. Every author wrote their novel one word at a time. Be satisfied with what you did today and you’ll turn up again tomorrow.

As for writing without inhibitions, Ernest Hemingway would have told you “The first draft of anything is sh*t”. It takes repeated effort, turning up each day and carrying on with it that gets you to the end. You may not get praise for those individual slogs at the keyboard, but mention that you wrote an 80,000 word novel to your nearest and dearest and you’ll find most people are impressed. What they’re impressed with, this time, is your commitment.

2.       Read aloud

Kids do it so we can correct them and help them when they’re not quite getting it. Same rules apply. If you read your work out loud or better still, have someone else do it, you’ll soon see which words are blocking the flow, which ones sound awkward and where the dialogue sounds false. Having someone else read it will also show you how your readers will read it in their heads. You’ll be surprised how often they interpret a sentence differently to you, this may show up by your reader stalling and perhaps re-reading a sentence so it sounds right the second time round. For kids it’s learning, for us it’s editing, is there much difference?

3.       Words are MAGIC

And not just for levitating the lid off the biscuit barrel. Kids know the power of words, they spend enough time mastering each one, not to mention their reactions to “NO”, “I’ll count to 3…” and “Sweeties”.

Francine Prose gives many an excellent example of powerful wording in her book “Reading Like A Writer” (if you’re a writer and you haven’t read it, DO). In the following extract, she shows how a single word (or lack of something to accompany it) subtly alters the opening sentence and also serves as the first small mystery we want solved:

“crucial revelations are in the spaces between words, in what has been left out. Such is the case with the opening of Katherine Mansfield’s “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”:
                The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives…
…if you read it quickly, you might skip right past the fact that there is no object for that temporal preposition after. The week after… what?...By leaving out the object of after in the very first sentence, Katherine Mansfield establishes the rules or the lack of rules that allow the story to adopt a distanced third-person point of view along with a fluidity that lets it penetrate the dusty, peculiar recesses of the two sisters’ psyches.” [pg 19-20]

As author Isabel Allende said “It’s worth the work to find the precise word that will create a feeling or describe a situation”. We often strive for perfect wording, but having written several thousand sentences on a project, we can sometimes get lost in the sheer bulk of it. Sometimes we spend more time crafting the sentences we tweet than the ones we put in our books. Food for thought.

4.       We don’t think the same

Or, what I find interesting is not necessarily what you find interesting. Cardboard boxes, for instance. Kids learn this concept between the ages of 15 to 18 months (this fact from a great TED talk by psychologist Alison Gopnik) and yet we sometimes forget to apply this.

We’ve all read books where we’re tempted to skip entire chapters because we want to know what’s happened to our favourite character and he/she isn’t in this bit. Other times we want to skip because we’re just so bored of a character. The trouble is, your favourite may not be your readers’ favourite.
Now, we can’t please all the people, all the time and we shouldn’t try, but we can make sure we work on the balance of our stories. This is where a good editor or beta reader comes in handy. Remember that your subplots should support, be relevant and be crucial to your main plot. Don’t wander so far from the main action that your plot stalls along with your readers’ interest.

Robin Hobb’s solution to this in her Farseer Trilogy was through a type of psychic link she created called Skilling. This enabled her to show subplots through the eyes of her main character, FitzChivalry, occasionally with the audience understanding more than he does. Look at J K Rowling’s Ollivander. Sometimes a single meeting with a character can create a familiarity, if not a love, that makes us go “Look who it is!!” several books later.

There are many ways of keeping things balanced and intertwined, but maintaining your readers’ interest is key. Just remember that the necessary scene you’re rushing through may be the one that your readers were most eagerly waiting for… still give it your best.

5.       Description is boring

If you’ve ever read a school book with a child, you’ll know the danger signs; the glazing over, the fidgety bum syndrome and the excuses not to read that soon follow a dull passage. I’ve noticed it nearly always happens after a description. To be fair, kids have an incredibly short attention span and little tolerance for things that bore them, but reading is supposed to be enjoyable as an adult too, so we shouldn’t have to be tolerant of dull writing just because we grew up.
My general rule is, if you notice there’s description, then there’s too much. This is, of course, presuming you are engrossed in the forward motion of your book and not analysing it. One or two sentences are fine, but description doesn’t have to stand alone. Incorporate it into the action. Have your characters interact with it. Give the description a point. If it has to stand alone, don’t take too long over it. A publisher once said “I’m sick of hearing all the different ways you can describe a night”. Enough said.

6.       Everyone lives happily ever after

Unfortunately they don’t, but that’s not the underlying reason kids like their happy endings. No, they don’t want to be traumatised, but equally, they don’t want to be disappointed. This doesn’t change as we grow up. We don’t mind a surprise, a well done twist can be very satisfying, but what really gets our goat is disappointment that the story either doesn’t dish out appropriate levels of justice or it doesn’t live up to its promise.

Justice is an easier one. The horrific baddie should pay for his deeds accordingly, not suffer a merciful death or get away with the girl and the cash. The hero can die, but if he fails to meet his goal as well, that just doesn’t sit right and the reader is left dissatisfied.

Promise can be the trickier part. Much in the way you carefully set up the tone, style and premise of your story in the opening scene, your ending needs to match the rest of your book. Yes, especially if there’s a twist. Whilst you need to bear this in mind as you go, this is something that is best checked ‘in post’, during an edit, because your knowledge of, and your relationship with, your characters and the world they occupy will no doubt have changed as you write your way through your novel. It takes a while to get to know characters. Reading through your story as a whole, and asking others to do the same, can help pick out any discrepancies. Would your character really do the things you’re making them do? Your protagonist needs to have grown since the start, but a sudden change at the end won’t make sense unless you’ve built up to that. Making sure your ending lives up to your book’s promise will keep your readers satisfied and eager to return your next book.

HZ

Monday 25 March 2013

NaPoWriMo

http://www.napowrimo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/logo-napowrimo.png

Well, this is a new one on me. But I do love a challenge.

I was a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo back in the day and whilst this is a similar style of challenge (as you can see from the title, it's modelled after National Novel Writing Month) it's different enough to pose, well, a challenge. You see, I'm not a poet.

I am, however, an advocate of challenge writing. Challenges get us to break our usual routine, or perhaps even form a routine for the first time. They make us step out of our comfort zone and give us a reason to do so. They quite often come with a built in community, which can open doors and usher in friendships through the bond of crazy challenge hardships. (Trust me, crazy is the right word when you're in the thick of it - you all go a little nuts doing these things.) And it makes you show up and write each day.

NaPoWriMo is a growing challenge community, with over a thousand participants last year, a number they're hoping to beat in 2013. April is the month of the challenge and your mission, should you accept it, is to write a poem a day for 30 days, starting on the 1st.

You can join in by submitting your website or blog address where you will be posting your poems, so that everyone can enjoy them, or you can just join in without posting. Either way there's a Facebook page and Twitter feed in addition to the NaPoWriMo site, so there are plenty of routes to get involved.

If it sounds like your cup of tea, I'll see you there!

Heather

Friday 1 February 2013

Thank you for your order

Congratulations and welcome to coaching!


Thank you for booking your coaching with Heather Zanetti. Heather will be in touch soon to compare diaries and book your sessions in.







[Natasha Francis trading as Heather Zanetti.]