Poem by Tom DeLay, Grade 10

Squirrels scampering out of the way

As a singular car

Speeds down the lonely avenue

The crack of a branch

Breaking

Awakens a rabbit

White fur enhances its appearance

The Gabriel of the morning

Calling out for all to hear

That the night has been ended

Raccoons race into hiding

Nocturnal birds soar through the sky

Fighting to get back into safety

Into a fortress of darkness

So evasive to the light

One streak comes out from the heavens

A small overture

For those who are already moving about

Beginning the day's work

Out the pores of the heavens

Come the beams of life

Containing within them the power

To bring to life all that has

Hibernated through the night

Trying to escape their scope

The amoeba of light

Envelops the entire avenue

Tentacles of joviality touching all they can

And showering everything in the celestial glow

Of the new beginning

The day is here

At last

Have you ever wanted to take a writing course but didn't have the money or the time?  Believe me, I can relate -- sometimes it can be hard to find time in your busy schedule to write for fun, much less enroll in a writing class!  But I've found that just writing for a few minutes each day can really add up to pages and pages of writing -- and a writing class provides structure and ideas to help you stick to your writing goals. 

If money's an issue, there are plenty of writing classes out there that charge minimal amounts, or even nothing at all.  My personal favorite is the program created by amazing teen writer Elisabeth Wilhelm at www.learning.absynthemuse.com.  If you're between the ages of 13 and 22, you can go on the website and enroll in writing courses for *free*!  :) There are all sorts of topics available, from finding your own writing voice to promoting your work to the class I am teaching about writing short stories. 

If you're interested in my class, there are still spots available, but act quickly -- the registration deadline is this Saturday, February 25, as the class starts on February 26 and runs for six weeks.  The key code to register for my "Writing the Short Story" class is "lightening bug."  Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions!

Geez. That's one of my biggest pet peeves actually and I do it all the time. "Finding the Write Mood". Oh how delicious! Do you see what he did there? Instead of "right" he used "write"! It's oh so clever you see, because he is writing about writing and not righting! Oh jolly good. Chuckle chuckle. Grr. Anyway...

I'm not in the right/write mood. I'm working on a play adaptation of... something that will come out in a future issue of READ... and as much as I stare at the book in front of me or hover my fingers over the keyboard, I just know that anything I attempt will come across as unpleasant and sub-par. I didn't even want to write this blog entry about it. That's how much I'm spacing right now. Heh. spacing.                           Get it?

Anyway, something good must come out of this. Someone must help me. Surely you know what I'm tallking about? You have deadlines in school that have to be met. Do you ever sit down to write a paper and soon find yourself face first in your book? Or slamming your forehead into your desk? Or screaming internally? The phase passes in time, but as you stew in it, it seems as if there is no end to the non-creative pit of doldrums you slog about in. Is it laziness? Sure it is. It's also a normal part of being a writer (or any kind of artist for that matter). There will be good. There will be bad. And God help us, there will be ugly. When you're pressed with a paper's deadline or due date and you're stuck in the awful land of nothingness, try something like this.

Just write.

Forget the paper and spout out all your bad feelings. Write about how you can't write. By the time you're done with your tirade, you might actually find that you're rejuvenated and ready to go. Then again, you might feel worse. If that's the case, walk away. Go for a run. Watch bad T.V. Eat a cookie. Eat twelve cookies. Turn up the music and dance on your bed. Play catch with your Dad. Play frisbee with your dog. Go shopping. Buy me something nice. Read a book. Call a friend. Do a handstand. Ride your bike. Take a hike. Eat a snickers. I hear they really satisfy you. Think of new and better slogans for existing products. Post a comment on this blog. Tell us how you can't stand writer's block. How it pains you. What you do to overcome it. What you do when you can't overcome it. Pick a star out of the sky and name it.

Start all over again.

The mood isn't always there and you can't always find it and you can't always fight it. But at least you can write about it. Right? Right?!?!

I dunno. Let me know.

- Short story by Jonathan Miller

The following story was a runner-up in Writing Magazine's Take It From the Top contest last year. The first line of Jonathan's piece "124 was spiteful." was taken from the top of Toni Morrison's Beloved.

124 was spiteful. 132 had big ears. 111 picked his nose. 117 couldn't count very well. 128 drooled. 113 couldn't remember his number. 130 bragged too much about his ability to read Dr. Seuss. And 131 kept a secret.

It had just been one year since they stopped giving people names. No need, they said. Better organized then frivolously creative. This year's first grade class had no need to make the transition since they had given everybody numbers in their kindergarten years. Although the government was said to have been looking for an excuse to help standardize everybody, the court case, which brought it on, involved a simple parental fight over the naming of a child. From seven hours before the child was born until he was sixteen years old, they absolutely could not decide on a name for baby "X." Finally, a lawsuit was filed against them for not naming their son, which went to the supreme court. There, it was decided there would be no more names, just numbers.

It's a crazy crazy winter here in Connecticut. We had one of the warmest Januarys ever last month and very little snow. Oh, except for the Noreaster that brought in over 25 inches this past weekend. That was wild. Currently, it is raining out. But the air is springy and fresh. It's the kind of air you want to breathe, you know? It's as pleasant as a rainy day in February gets.

But you didn't come here to get the weather report. Like the season, I'm just warmin' up. Boo yah!

Heh. Um. I'm just in a good mood. It's Friday and it's warmish out. Most importantly, I'm going to see Shakespeare tonight at a somewhat local college. Ever since I interviewed him for READ (see issue 12), I've had an itchy hankering to see one of his shows. Last weekend, I almost went into the city (of the New York variety) to see Twelfth Night. But something came up, as things tend to do.

Through the magic of the Internet (seriously, how did we ever do anything before the Internet?) I found another Shakespeare play being performed this weekend. It is his comedy As You Like It. I had never read this one before so I took it on the past couple nights. I read the first 4 acts, leaving the 5th and final act a surprise for tonight. Shakespeare is never an easy read, no matter what anyone tells you. In fact, the playwright himself told me that his plays were never intended to be read but to be performed for audiences. So I fretted not upon reading and re-reading and re-reading scenes over and over again. In fact, in this way, you can get a better sense of the action, of the players, of the plot, of the gorgeous language, of the time, of the whole of the essence of the words of the play. But that's just the page.

Tonight, Shakespeare comes to life and I'm so amped for it! Yah! And if you're sitting there rolling your eyes at me... come on... you know there's a part of you that wants to run away and go sing songs and dance and live in the forest. Sound tempting? You can read Shakespeare's As You Like It here.