We seem to have a solid layer of society who very quickly line up behind credentialed experts and proudly repeat the latest expert opinion (much like they are in a classroom and eagerly raising their hand to give the correct answer first). Meanwhile, the women of the same classes, who were excluded from higher education, shrugged and wrote stories and poems of their own, relying on the unfashionable guidance of their own taste and what their readers liked. but arrogant brat that I was, I didnt pay attention to the lessons he tried to teach us on that topic. Every time a child picks up a pencil or a pen to trudge through one more writing assignment, the threat of a bad grade hovers over every word. When I add a name or made-up word to my custom dictionary, I also add it to my style-sheet. We've listed any clues from our database that match your search for "perplexed". Estimates are educated guesses at best. Latest breaking news, including politics, crime and celebrity. In those days a public holiday, nowadays passed over in embarrassed silence. Reloading the webpage before posting prevents the problem. My writers block stems from persistent bouts of brain fog after getting a disastrous implant a few years back, and then moving into an environment that exacerbates it, plus being plum too busy since then. I seem to be in a recommending things mood today, so here goes: If you want to read about autodidact culture, Jonathan Roses The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes is an amazing book. I havent yet scored a set of the teachings, though Im looking; what Ive heard, though, is that they were pretty good. I have another friend, Quebecois, he is a sculptor/painter, there were the three of us, the writer, the artist and the sculptor, we were all friends. How does one uncover that they have a particular hole/cobweb if not by speaking about the issue neutrally with someone else? Perhaps I will sort through some of the notebooks I have filled and hidden over the decades and find if there are any gems to polish and make another attempt (or two or three) at getting published. The point really hit home just now when I read how the part of the brain that does the editing often conflicts with the part that does the creating, and there is no easy way to edit on an old typewriter. Or the only place left is Big Slimy River? Suggestions for first, early instruments ? They buy quite a few titles from small publishers and self published authors. Yup. It was so long ago, I dont have insight into how that happened. I do a lot of back and forth editing as I go because I write long, convoluted plots so I have to fix things. My son liked to asked questions, thoughtful questions; this curiosity was considered to be an authority issue. I hope you can get them out of the public school dungeon into something better. It did have a tendency to reinvent the wheel and be a bit disorganized. maxinerogers (#6), I understand your situation completely. @Teresa from Hershey (I always smell chocolate when I spot your name here): the style sheet you mention: is this a separate document? To which I reply playing music is a craft, like woodwork, you learn it by constant repetition. This does raise an interesting point, though. When my daughter finally got the chance to take band in middle school, I knew it would be her only chance at music lessons, which I simply couldnt afford otherwise. For striving for things in a life so brief Blind their poor eyes to a dear Mother's grief. She has received a lot of accolades for her work, but there was never any expectation that she would get paid for it. Any recorder made by them is usually decent. Then, by the time I got out of college, in no small part due to the college itself, I hated engineering and I found myself more interested in writing. I quoted a successful author of genre fiction who said that anyone who can write a literate English sentence can succeed in it. Im glad I cooked that dinner.. JMG, Id be interested in a plotting lesson (JMG style!) Miow, thats standard these days. They seem harmless enough, but I cant read them without getting the very feeling he describes: that Im expected to extract the correct meaning from them and distill them in easy terms. They will drive you mad. Public schools cant deal with this so its lowest common denominator, which demoralizes all students equally. Tercentenary would have given me a run for my money! Giggle at the medieval characters who talk like stockbrokers, or the stockbrokers who talk like medieval characters; shake your head over the clumsy dialogue, the awkward descriptions, the endlessly rehashed clichs. This was in spite of my having an unusually high number of interests, aptitudes, and skills. Most of the self published books on Amazon are first draft that have been spell checked. Much later I did an essay for a class in uvinercity [there is nothing unifying about multivercities] that was straight from the heart and gut. They will destroy whatever talent or rules you may have about writing. Thats a serious matter. 2. This is in two columns in my document. Nevertheless, the one thing I was reasonably good at because I enjoyed it was English and writing. Richard Stites Revolutionary Dreams is an almost complete compendium of Soviet futurism, with the exception of science. b) Sergeants who had to figure out themselves how to achieve specific tasks. An essential feature of the same process is lowering the standard level of education to whatever minimum the business world needs. I just finished North and South. BUT I will tell you that my wife has an allergy to Eastern Red Cedar and basically anything in the Juniperus genus. Your goal at this stage isnt to find faults, its to figure out how you can improve what youve written. For example: the public library where I live now is a beautiful, light filled building with stacks and stacks of novels and a few small of rows of non-fiction, most of it utterly useless in terms of surviving, let alone thriving, in an age of contraction and collapse. He has amazing sentence construction that sometimes sounds erudite when two gentlemen are speaking to one another, and sometimes sounds punchy in action scenes with criminal pirates cursing and doing murder. Charles Powell (From the Guardian Archive.) Go to your favorite bookstore or go online and find as many publishers as you can that have published books of a very broadly similar type say, fiction with a farcical element, or fiction oriented toward apocalypses. My own best tools nowadays are a clear question, a pad of paper, a ball-point pen, a stop watch, and a resolve to honor its limit. Incredibly, both parties did abysmally bad/horrible/disgusting. I dont think there is another person in history who loved words and a place more than he has. Read latest breaking news, updates, and headlines. Thank you for these great posts in your series on writing/publishing. Casablanca isnt really private eye, but its quintessential noir, and one of my favorites. That is probably why one can invert letters within a word and it still be readable for what it is. Which was usually to read science fiction and, later, fantasy and science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised, and relieved, that both parties got trounced on where things are 50% vs. 50%. Anyone else run into that? These days in my spare time I am an embroiderer and a weaver, and I absolutely hold to the idea of doing whatever it is that you want to improve upon every single day. I could beta read your novella except I dont read horror. What you might notice on first, 2nd and later readings. Self editing during the process is to blame, but mostly I think it was trying to please the professors that did it. But, I owe to Greer credit for the fact that as a writer I think I have attained my once delusions of mediocrity. Another was the janitor in my academic building for a number of years. It wasnt until later in life that I felt comfortable writing again, and I have to credit the PC for that. MZB! Ah, yes. As pathetic as this may sound, I even feel I have improved my writing ability simply by trying to express myself clearly when writing comments on this blog. I appreciate your writing on this, and with both mental/social illness and decline accelerating, an update would be helpful. Through much trial and error I was able to make my way to an interesting life. People is not their usual way. The thing is a mad medley. Oh and a thousand thanks for your efforts over the years to inspire and encourage your readers to write short stories with the opportunity of getting them published. Now and again, however, youll have to set that aside and pay close attention to how the book is helping you have that experience. They both process stuff so perhaps thats why they have a similar appearance. The show would have worked fine though if Vicky had been a girl. 36): David Sedaris writes about teaching creative writing for a junior college somewhere. These are very heartening and fortifying. I know you dont have any, but still. You have to learn from your mistakes and successes, and also learn from other peoples mistakes and successes. He proceeded to take command and keep fighting, and got the ship through the battle unsunk while severely messing over several larger Japanese vessels and playing a small but noticeable part in winning the battle for the US. You do have to have sufficient skill, and you have to produce something that people are willing to pay for, though. My vote is for poetry in general, though any particular poet would also be of interest. I write daily for an hour of free writing. >The elites in this country either missed the memo because they sat in the front row or they went to different schools. I second the vote for something about Yeats for 5th Wednesday. Ive tabulated your vote. Oh, and as a general observation of which you may not be aware. By using the Aeneid as the textbook. 5th Wednesday suggestion: I would love to hear your thoughts on libraries, specifically in regard to a storehouse of knowledge for the future. In what spare time he had, he would read Renaissance-era Portuguese mystics for his own delight and profit. It was going to rain hard. KMF, thats a very important point. I found about 8 different publishers, but only one looked even slightly likely to take my book. I am reminded of a sentence written by Rene Guenon in one of his books on medieval life (which I read in my late teens and it has stuck with me ever since): in modern times an artist is considered to be a special kind of person, but in medieval society every person was a special kind of artist. Both of these were written by Englishmen in the 1930s, and in both of them a character is looking eastward toward mountains, but Frodo Baggins and Philip Marlowe are clearly very different people in very different places, and you couldnt swap the diction of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Big Sleep without making hash of both books. I liked writing and wrote stories in my free time. As for the Do-For Disease, my experience has been that those of us who do grow gardens, mow our own lawns, etc. Why is it here? And while branching out, Batman Animated was a fantastic noir cartoon. It is the art of packaging inherently branched thoughts into a line. Top level athletes probably have done about that much, but not all in the same sport (with a few exceptions). Im only just now seeing the Next Generation series for the first time, having recently purchased a DVD boxed set of all seven seasons. They were concerned about this, I suppose because of some sort of media frenzy or current education theory. Aside: getting out to other places, even just another town or a different state, is wonderful practice in listening to other peoples perspectives and experience. Afraid to forget the neat new idea, I halt and make a note, which rapidly sprouts into its own paragraph or two or three. @ Justin, thank you so much for the kind words! These comments have been the most educational vvenue to write in, because theres no grammor policing (maybe occasionally if genuine undrestanding is severly obstructued, but not as a rule). At first, its usually a good idea to do it at a different time of day, so you can build the habit of treating writing and editing as two separate activities. You talk about falling onto the mat and then come out swinging with a question like that. https://www.amazon.in/How-Tutor-Samuel-Blumenfeld-ebook/dp/B01KD60MEE. I enjoy writing about what interests me. One way to get inspiration for a story is to find a cliche you think is overused and find an alternative. Read it once, just to enjoy it. The longer Im in it, and its been over 30 years now, much about the literary scene seems to me a Potemkin VillageI would even say, a fantasy mainly on the astral, and with gaping holes blasted though what were once some of the choicest neighborhoods. I dont have any desire to write novels, but I do enjoy writing letters, memos, and reports. Regarding the 5th Wednesday, Steiner comes up here now and then. fantasy-world experience). Maybe others will appreciate it, maybe they wont. If you cant think of anything to write about, write about how boring it is to have to write when you have nothing to write about. What skills and processes do we need to save? The question is how long will this change take to collapse the current school system, which no longer has any purpose ( even a bad one). Then you dial it up and put in a twist at the end if possible.. I put it down and picked up the full set of Marlowes adventures in one go. Good luck with the recorder to you and the child. I really enjoyed the one Creative Writing course I took. In retrospect it seems to me that there was and is an upside down ratio of abstract learning to physical hands-on learning in the vast majority of modern education systems, whether public or private. Facepalm. I am grateful to have an alternative to Amazon, when smaller stores and libraries do not have what I am seeking, and gladly pay modestly more there than going with the giant. Borrow more when you run out! account of the complete system. If I may Id like to share a writing exercise I came up with about five years ago that I found extremely helpful. Im always interested to hear more about reincarnation, so Ill put my vote there. Some other great noir games were Kingpin (like the Mel Gibson film Payback, but grimier), and the first two Max Payne games (that combined gritty brutality with John Woo and Matrix-style shootouts). And since were about to re-subscribe to New Maps and Into the Ruins, Im hoping to read some of it there. It is by will alone that the mind moves This is a skill one learns in meditation, btw. I re-vote/upvote what Emmanuel #54 voted for. Reading your post and it makes me wonder if much of our current predicaments and drama is the well-schooled/teachers pets vs. the school as one of worst experiences of life. Get the words on the paper now, fix it later. Its a source of joy to see what you (and everybody) can achieve, how simple it is and how much liberation it can bring. They always answer something like, I have no musical talent. It also had a much wider tolerance of what was considered normal, and I stopped getting bullied when I shifted to that school. I still got corrections much later, doing everything up to 400-level work in college courses, for errors in footnote formatting, but they were minor errors. And those similes! (shrugs) Yes, the Duolingo app is game-ified but its designed more as a vehicle for ads. The eye, attached to the skull so near to the earth was dealt a crushing blow, before flickering out. I just started reading book Shoddy: From Devils Dust to the Renaissance of Rags by Hanna Rose Shell, my one hour for today. He has a hard time with reading comprehension, but is beyond ready for algebra. Those are the details that make the story. Also, at 15, the local fishing port still had lots of jobs available for willing lads. One of the terms of his indenture was two (IIRC) years of schooling in the one-room school of his town. Same discussion after. Mutually assured destruction? Gardener, oh, granted, the way that the schools have been turned into a dumping ground for kids who need specialized care and arent getting it hasnt helped matters at all. As an adult I spent much of my career as a professional photographer. I generally enjoy whatever you choose, JMG. Ive tabulated your vote. For me it was intuitive because as a child I had no siblings to play with but my father had a huge private library, and so books became my best friends and playmates. To which I always reply, well why dont you. A long time ago, or perhaps only a little while back, you gave me some writing advice that amounted to a rough draft of this series of posts on writing. Will is never separate from imagination you will something because you can imagine it and imagination is never separate from will you imagine something because your will either chooses to imagine it or consents to the image. My shop on Bookshop.org carries nearly all my books, most at discounted prices. The rhetoric that surrounds talent in our society is so familiar to those who know their way around a certain heavily marketed fantasy fiction franchise that Ive come to sum up that rhetoric as the Harry Potter Principle. Ill work this in somewhere, I think to myself. Institutional conditioning has reached new levels of dysfunction. The outlet/gift section was almost empty as if they couldnt get stock shipped to them. Others like my great aunt would do stuff like special music for church (she went to the same church as us and I remember her doing spanish style guitar music). It can be as simple as a sheet of notebook paper next to your work station with your characters names on it. I agree wholeheartedly with the depiction of schools presented here. I, too, have heard stories , Im 80, and Im still actively writing (just not fiction). I have the first stanza memorized, and next, Im working on the last one. So, when our own children came along, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I saw to it that each of them learned to read English well before they started school. @Darkest Yorkshire: One of my old coworkers at the library used to talk to me about cosmism, iirc. (Diction is what you look up in a dictionary.) Your potential for magnificence may well not be the same as minethats the reality behind all that pretentious babble about talentbut you have the potential. i vote for you to talk about the realities/cons of an underground currency system not tethered to the govt for backing. Someone upthread had some good suggestions for musical toys for toddlers. Kfish, thats a great example of what Im talking about. No I was never taught nor did I figure out there was some kind of process or technique to coming up with a story. Yes, Yeats on the 5th Wed. Other than that, no politics please! Meower68 observes, Coding is NOT a predictable, rote, assembly line process: its a creative process. True. As for outlines, why, if they work for you, by all means. I found my place! (Or maybe I just sound like a Gen X curmudgeon). Ron, Guenon was of course quite correct. Knock it back to not knowing how to write a good sentence. I swear though, I believe that Chandler intentionally slips a line in every story that, if you are paying attention, makes you say wait, what? Believe me, Ive read some awful text. This is why the educational system was developed that sorted people into three groups: a) Soldiers who could follow simple instructions: Those were educated in an six year school, where they learned to read and write and to do basic arithmetic. ), Northwind, glad to hear it. I hope your quibbles and pugs play together well. There will also be a But the majority of people just want to be left alone and do their own thing. Im not going to go into details, because I still have the manuscript and might have to use it for similar reasons someday. Remember those long, very rainy after Labor Day, very mild temp autumns when you lived in Washington? I met his mother once, when he was in his forties, and she was so so happy to see him, and absolutely adored him. Before retirement, my father taught at higher education level (nothing fancy) for over thirty years. My 6 year old grandson is a great story teller already. She said recorder. My reactiona predictable mixture of mirth and disbeliefmust have been visible. I recommend it because while there is a threat in the form of an invading horde of monsters its largely in the background (m on book eight and only now are we seeing the Demon Lords armies make an appearance and even then the focus of the novel is one of the main characters reconciling with her brother) and most books focus on the relationships between characters. The excellence of Noah Websters American Spelling Book is that its author understood this system and thoroughly drilled the child in it, using a small books worth of well-designed exercises before proceeding to actual texts that the child was supposed to be able to read. So many others will never try because as JMG says they have convinced themselves they lack the necessary talent. I believe Dr John Day has a pretty complete take on what is going on and why at his World-War 3 post here http://www.johndayblog.com/2022/11/world-3-war.html, Old Den Turning 64 on 11/18/1958 and not feeling to bad about it:). As you said, different people learn in different ways at different times. Ive added your vote to the list. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Thats really unfortunate. Shoemaker, glad to hear the same rules work with your craft! I have been able to adapt to technology, see its limitations, and grab opportunities others were afraid to touch because I never saw the need for a credential from an approved source. He writes less now as he is busy with other things. I know that youve done something similar in an older Archdruid Report post, but with the Just Stop Oil protesters getting their fifteen minutes of fame by throwing soup on paintings, I think it could be timely to bring up some less ineffectual suggestions for those who want to meaningfully change their lifestyles or the actions of their local communities. True to my form I found an expert, then auditioned and launched into lessons. As a newly minted grandparent that is something that concerns me deeply. Its not just that they might write things the bosses dont like, and that other people might read those things and agree with them. I work in IT. Bei Dawei #263, Vickys voice actor was also a woman so I spent a few episodes thinking Vicky was a girl. Less parties, less participation, less involvement. And the only reason for this was because I was a voracious reader! Now back to writing for me! I keep questions of what women will wear (during the decline we are in) open to the universe. Both are utterly bizarre and not the sorts of thing youd ever hear of, but given that I have two people in my immediate family with unusual reactions to various trees most people would consider harmless people researching allergic reactions to birch trees doesnt sound too unusual (and I personally wish more people would research tree allergiestheyre more common than you think). That was all I needed to get up to speed with English, and then Dutch, all before the age of 6 or 7. You know something is working when no one has any comments. Further down the curve, recorders are easy to make from wood with relatively simple tools, and you dont need electricity to play them, or a vehicle to transport them (unless youre talking contrabass recorders those are huge). Something for everyone can be found there. It makes it less daunting to hear your experience! Take what youve written and read through it. My 9 year old is way ahead in reading/writing. I had some decent teachers and some awful ones, but the structure of the institution kept the experience of schooling from being anything but misery for me. And that you are taught that you cannot cook is true as well. The one exception to that was writing. It had no more to do with Tibet than it did with royalty. I would like to learn more about how people who dont think like me, think. So true. The educators are unaware that kids a hundred or two hundred years ago got better educations than nowadays in even the best and most expensive school districts. Both coding and technical writing pay better than flipping burgersuntil the software industry eventually dwindles. Most of my lessons were centered on our working to unknot all of the impediments, the scolding and belittling, that had been laid in since childhood, getting out of the way of a natural and, yes, joyful noise. My own husband went to one of these here in the 1970s, before the local vocational school (offering the full Irish secondary formal schooling, but with a strong vocational component), that my sons went to, had been established. I grew up with family members playing country/rock music in the basement or in the living room on my moms side, when everyone was together. (10), Discombobulated Also at that time, the kids who REALLY didnt belong in school for mental or behavioral issues DIDNT GO. By reading voraciously, noticing how other writers used diction, and then creating a narrative style and diction of their own that nobody has ever really been able to imitate. That is a great, fun, easy way to start. I dont want this to sound like an apology for the modern, industrial school system because its not. That is why I wonder if there are additional factors that contribute to the decline of the American public school system over the last century, not only the basic idea of placing children of homogeneous age in one class. Im generally fending off bombardments of book referrals, but of late it has been quiet on that front and I let my guard down. Some of the things he gets into in this book are: golden threads (following them and being touched by them), hidden baggage, cliched thinking, the imaginal realm, writing as intentional dreaming, the secret kinesis of things, aisthesis, writing as spirit channeled through the writer, the importance of feeling, inhabiting the word, and writing as something larger than yourself. I had some excellent teachers that helped me up my game, so to speak, butAnd heres the but that proves you rightI didnt come out of the program with my self-esteem intact. (For example the opposite of one bad identification is usually antagonistic.) Italo Calvino once wrote a novel whose plot was inspired by the random draw of a tarot deck, and another Oulipo author wrote an entire novel without the letter E, which the English translation successfully fulfilled as well. Cliff, you can certainly extrapolate from that example to every other university literature program Ive ever had personal contact with. Homeschooling in my case would have been much worse. I had never heard of the character, but thought it was a cute name, and was surprised to learn that Vicky was a boy. All this ends (for good or ill) as soon as my writing turns serious as a history graduate student in the mid 1990s. Thanks! I doubt I could have even told you why! ((/SPECIMEN)). Once an English-speaking child knows how to spot these units and what each units common pronunciations are (in which context), he can sound out the possibilities for any word he encounters. Originally written by Sandy Petersen With later revision by Lynn Willis This revised 7th Edition is a collaboration between Paul Fricker and Mike Mason Editorial: Scott Dorward, Badger McInnes, Mike Mason and Charlie Krank Design Format: Badger McInnes and Mike Mason Layout: Badger McInnes, Charlie Krank, Nicholas Nacario, and Rick Meints Art Direction: Mike Mason, Meghan In fiction, I literally write Forces at Work and then list bullet points of recent events, or past foreshadowing, conflicts, anything interesting that weaves its way through the story. Now is when the fun begins. @ JMG My vote for the upcoming 5th Wednesdays post is something about Yeats. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. It was mildly annoying, but not a big problem. If I had the funding Id do a study. It was the most poorly written, typo-filled, execrable piece of formulaic trash fiction Id ever had the misfortune to run my eyes over. @blue sun My daughter went to a waldorf school and they introduce reading and writing after the age of 6. That stunting, in writing and in all the other creative arts, is what makes it possible for our society to pretend that theres a thing called talent, which a few special people have and the rest of us dont. Kyle #45 I use the ideas of Stephen Krashen a lot, both for myself (various languages) and for my ESL class. When will the price-gouging of plain-old citizens stop? This tends to throw classically-trained musicians for a bit of a loop. If you look at history, you will find many examples fo this tripartite system at work. There is, by the way, quite a bit of maths when it comes to designing a weave structure, estimating amounts of fibre and warping a loom. Doesnt mean we wont suffer. At the age of 12 or 13 I was at the overall bottom in my year out of about 100 kids. Id like to throw in my vote for a post on W.B. My mom taught me to read when I was four, and almost since then Ive never really doubted my ability to write. When will the price-gouging of plain-old citizens stop? Nobody told me what I was doing was supposed to be hard, so I just did it. Also, since I was a transhumanist in my youth, I vote for cosmism. I couldnt agree with you more. I recommend mythcreants.com to any aspiring fantasy/scifi fiction writers. . What will you do about it? To try to get her off to a good start, I made flash cards of the music notes. Such as the cat videos or democracy dies in darkness or whatever. Thats why schooling is as dreary as it is. But she struggles a bit in math. I would like to shine a light on some issues regarding education. Join the Navy and one of the first things you learn is how to keep a log. Step One: You need to learn how to read the way a writer does. The recorder was very popular during the middle ages, and I cant see us losing the ability to make them any time soon. It helps the connections in the brain to develop. What is this but an environment thats been fine-tuned to crush peoples souls? Drilling in conjugations and declensions isnt even a good way to learn Latin, for what its worth. Ironically enough, I think silver, gold and copper were the highest colors. When I was in college I found Momo, and started reading similar fantasy. German, Im going to throw that one to the commentariat, as I dont have a lot of sources to hand. Jeff (and Bei), thats correct. All those miserable writing assignments you stumbled through in school, sweating over every word to try to avoid a bad grade, might as well have been designed to give you writers block. I also understand why one might not want to work with someone who isnt pleasant to work with, it can be a strain. Refining silicon, writing, proposals, quarterly reports, incident reports, test summaries, lab reports, etc, etc. Other Owen, I think theres definitely a place for that. The drastic narrowing-down of acceptable arts and sciences to the tiny handful that are considered to qualify today played a large role in creating the bleak desolation of contemporary life. crossword today. Still, not a single house in the street is the same as any other one (I have made all pairwise comparisons!). Energy vampires are everywhere. My observation about them is that if you follow the ideals and objectives of modern education (and computer programming, and automotive design, and safety legislation, along with many other things including any technology marketed with the adjective smart) through to their final stupidity, this nightmarish world of zero-freedom/zero-imagination/zero-individuality is where you inevitably end up. Play a recorder decently, even just a simple song, and you get shocked reactions because a lot of people dont realize its a real instrument that can played pleasantly. No matter the rhythm or tempo of the music their dancing is always the same. It doesnt matter what you write about, and for heavens sake, turn off the spell checker and the grammar checker if youre doing this on keyboard. It had a narrative density unlike anything else nearly every scene advancing multiple plot threads. However, I suppose that the very usualness of such experiences back then would have lessened their impact of any individual child.). Im not going to detail the whole project Im working on other than to say it involves a finishing few thousand math problems Ive been working on, in brief bursts of interest, over the last year and a half. . , High on marijuana, people sit around and do nothing. If you try a lot of recipes, youll get a feeling what gives a meal an Asian character or a German or British or whatever. The author seems to be a true Renaissance Man, publishing on a range of topics that ommenters to this and our hosts Dreamwidth blog will find highly interesting. The best writers group I attended some time after being burned in my first experience involved almost no writing, and consisted of three friends sitting in a cafe drinking warm beverages and making dirty and/or surreal jokes with each other! Self-centered, yes. (Your vote has been tabulated too.). Coding is NOT a predictable, rote, assembly line process: its a creative process. Weather is a topic to ever fall back on, fifth humpday or not. I do the same thing: I do some revisions on a manuscript while its in process, mostly for the sake of continuity, then set it aside for a while and work on something else. Every day, between 4 and 6PM, you do not bother her. While endless conjugation tables and vocabulary drilling might be useful for learning dead languages like Latin and Greek (which may be where the habit came from), that isnt how children learn. How can you think of a story? Ive written several books on that theme already, of course, but a review may be in order. Especially things like Thanksgiving. I could go on about how Literature programs leach the joy out of reading, but that is another topic for another day. You have to have a healthy and happy home, with sane parents. I second daivas vote for weather as a topic for the 5th Wednesday. What happened was that education departments in universities adopted the new model, taught it to students, and as those became teachers it spread. Then I go back later and do an overall edit. A delightful touch. I wonder if the major benefit of the one-room school might be that older children help the younger children, and by doing so help themselves. But if you dont freak out about it, you can learn from your failures. Browse our listings to find jobs in Germany for expats, including jobs for English speakers or those in your native language. They decided to explore the deep jungle and ended up becoming, The environmentalist lamented the increase in, Trying to get him to stop drinking fizzy drinks is a, Significant in the degree of hopelessness, Deeply immersed in thought or an activity, I want to spend as much time as possible with my grandmother before she is, Certain to suffer death, failure, or a similarly negative outcome, Not able to be recovered, regained, or remedied, Having no home or having wandered away from home, Legally insolvent, unable to pay one's debts, Characterized by or reflecting a state of moral or cultural decline, Stranded, especially in a place that is isolated or desolate, Sad because one has no friends or company, To have been unable to find something or someone, To have inadvertently dropped or left something or someone behind, To have caused (someone) to be unable to pursue one any longer, Justin Bieber jumped into his limousine and, To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone, On the ocean or sea, typically of a ship or person aboard a ship, not knowing whether one is coming or going, without two brass farthings to rub together, without two pennies farthings to rub together. He published it at his own expense, and distributed it to bookstores. Its one of those books Ive had to buy at least three times because I keep lending it out and not getting it back. Yes, that would taste really good.) That said, youre right that the development of imagination in some form is essential to becoming a whole human being, and our society fights tooth and nail to keep people from doing that. Being in a world of magic changes a lot of things. You may succeed in generating a significant quantity of something, but its not going to have much value. I rarely feel quite sure. Do the same thing with every other neat idea that surfaces while youre working. I never looked into it further and if I remember right, also, William S. Burroughs had some things to say about it. I really cant think of an author I enjoy reading more. What happened to the driver? But while I was making dinner I suddenly thought about cookbooks, and how I had seen zero references to cookbooks in my search. And it paid off. Hey JMG, another fine post that is definitely an accurate analysis of how the motives of corporate America and profits has stunted the education of many of us. https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/michael-moorcock-10-tips-for-good-storytelling, https://interestingliterature.com/2014/11/michael-moorcock-how-to-write-a-novel-in-3-days/, What I like from Moorcock are some of his ideas about precomposition, which has led me to the Lester Dent formula, which Ive been trying to keep in the back of my mind. And many people like a good book of collected essays I love the beats myself let it rip! If one doesnt know what one doesnt know, how can (s)he ever get to a point of knowing it? Every time a child picks up a pencil or a pen to trudge through one more writing assignment, the threat of a bad grade hovers over every word.. I could multiply examples, but these four are the ones who come to mind today. I would like to put in a vote for a post on WB Yeats. Im still working through the blockage I have about storytelling, but now I have something to journal about that I think might just shift some things along, and its all thanks to reading this article. The author was the age of my parents and took an enormous dislike to my still a teenager heroine coping with her situation. In other words, dont pay too much! Kevin, thanks for this. In the meantime, warm up your sonnet-writing skills. In my opinion, inch by inch, sentence by sentence, these personal anecdotes and stories make a difference. I wonder how that disagreement was resolved, or if it was. Than again maybe not. (7), PERPLEXED (Your votes been tabulated.). And as a fall-back, there was always simple farm-work by which a boy could earn his bed and board. He will make nothing of it. I just know I am! If you are also learning, and want a recommendation for a book for yourself, Hugh Orrs Basic Recorder Technique is thorough and has great photos of hand position that can help you avoid bad habits. My vote is for mental illness, and practical responses with mental resilience building. Whose imagination? As someone who teaches college students how to write (interoffice memos, basically, but still), I need to go over my approach and make sure Ive weeded out the unhelpful stuff. For example, the time it took to write this comment was mostly spent editing it! I was pondering Patheos Pagan, where the bloggers all seemed to have orthodox left political leanings. Make it new, as Ezra Pound said.. Some of the material there Ive found to be good to hopefully help me organize some of my research for future nonfiction books. im working firmly on the aesthetics of our little underground of THREE (im counting Temporary Reality along with James) and have no idea how money could work. at anyplace or anytime they need to learn how to read or write. I had phonics by 2nd grade (wayyyyy back when) and loved it. Its very inspirational with a heathy dose of utility across the full range of human endeavor. Ive been doing them as my daily exercise more-or-less consistently for some months now, though I had to step down the number of repetitions Im doing to stay consistent after the recent birth of my second daughter. B is fixable with work, as is A, and they often respond to constructive criticism. As someone who has assessed over 400 fiction manuscripts I can categorically state that there are talented writers (5 of those 400), and writers who are extremely competent (80 odd) but lack imagination and that extra spark that brings the story and characters to life on the page. Pyrrhus, thats why hes so productive. . I love to write, so sitting down at the keyboard is all the encouragement I need. Ive tallied your vote. ? In response to Roberta comment. So where did it come from? Also the kids themselves reported that the movie-book linkage helped them with the movie in your mind visualization process for books they read after that. I think you do people a disservice by pointing them at fiction and saying You can do it. Eleven hundred years ago in Japan, men of the wealthy classes got an extensive academic education in how to write. If only when I wrote, everything came out in a steady, orderly form right from the pen, like most people! The English department was all about eliminating passive voice by any and all means, the Engineering department demanded passive voice exclusively, the research is what matters, not the person. When, in my case, my leather, tools, and workspace are all tucked away, its another barrier to getting started. >So you send them a manuscript theyd rather strip naked and crap in public than publish. Fine by me. Why? Now that credit is tight and monopolies are starting to land in the legal trouble they so richly deserve, the big box empire is falling apart. Have fun with it. Her work must have been culled from the shelves, even the virtual shelves. Second my vote for the fifth Wednesday is what is the proper care, Education and upbringing of an elite that works as opposed to our current high ups. All solutions for "Clumsy" 6 letters crossword clue & answer - We have 3 clues, 240 answers & 136 synonyms from 3 to 16 letters. Get their communication mixed up so a few of them misinterpret the central directives, and then the whole hive explodes., A wonderful thought Old Steve. Almost anything that told a story was fine by me, even if it was not sci-fi. This sound to me to be yet another attempt at correcting human behaviour, to get us to the utopia on the far side of the hill, if we just drag ourselves through the desert. Consider this bit of description: Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess; it was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains., Thunder was crackling in the foothills now and the sky above them was purple-black. The picture you chose of the brain made me instantly think of the intestines. I went back to college and did my requirements for grade 12 in two semesters. However, this new tactic made it necessary to restructure the army and the educational system as a whole. It was not independent, as it was funded by the public school system, but it was an alternative school aimed at taking the kids who were not being well-served by normal schools. It is more in-tune, especially on F#, and if your child gets serious about the recorder, they will probably switch to baroque fingered recorders anyway. What to do? Check out Stephen Harrod Buhners amazing book on writing titled Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writers Life. It is finding an effective role for the bulk of humanity to contribute and earn a living that gives them dignity. Choose a familiar book that delights you. (4), PERPLEXED Anyway, by the time we had our own children and I had decided to teach them to read before they entered school, I already had some idea of what was involved in learning to move from letters to sounds in ones own native language. So I think for those who really want to make a life of it, they can make a living doing what they love. >Northwind, 70 is too old only if you decide it is. A native speaker can use grammar fluently without ever knowing the names or functions of the categories he uses. And I recognised some of that in myself. I dont know. The patterns of the coloured bricks, the shape of the doors, of the pillars that support the porches, of the balustrades each house has its individual combination of these elements. He asked me, if youre listening to a song you know well, at the start of each verse can you start singing at the right moment. If its a small dish thats ready in 5 minutes, fine. And thanks also to you too, JMG, for your advice about setting up a small publishing venture in your last post on writing. Please add my enthusiastic vote for Yeats. also c) it means that when they dont get good in a lesson or two, they get discouraged and start thinking about giving up. A few years ago you convinced me to broaden my experience with reading. Whod have thought? What would you like to hear me chatter about? Until because its a Swedish show you get to see him naked. His lack of skill at reading music hampered him when trying to learn new folk music without someone to learn it from, which resulted in him asking teenage me to play some new jigs out of a book for him so he could hear what they were supposed to sound like. Art does have to speak to people, and weve had our share of poets too, who have done quite nicely and earned their living. A bigger folder collects all the folders for the novels in a series PLUS a master style-sheet that includes EVERYTHING in the series. . Cricketsor derisive sniggering.. however trouble translates. I chalked it up to not knowing much about myself. Many Git commands accept both tag and branch names, so creating this branch may cause unexpected behavior. Youre not doing this to learn the right way to do things. I have alot of fun with a pentatonic recorder, even though I can read music and used to play saxaphone ( a regular recorder has very very similar fingering to a saxaphone, so I can play basic recorder music). Like many of the commentariat above, a voracious curiosity and weekly access to the public library in town was the real source of my education. I happened to be quite good at taking tests (I considered them games) and succeeded in the public school system, not because I had acquired useful skills and knowledge, but because of the bell curve and a natural competitiveness that public schooling honed to a wicked edge. Now, I crave your indulgence, Ill present this vignette as related to the topic at hand because you are ultimately talking about the modern economy in general and here is one other example of how academicism and scientism waste money and siphon away otherwise creative minds into blind alleys where they do nothing useful for their entire careers. Maybe Im just sentimental, but whatever magic Tolkien put into that paragraph about the barrow downs and the mountains massing beyond the horizon, is powerful. State involvement in education started here (Germany) after the catastrophic defeat of Prussia by Napoleon. Two weeks ago we talked about the writing business as a microcosm of todays economy. If I may be so bold as to mention, on my blog I offer a batch of posts on reading as a writer that writerly readers might find of use, most recently: John Steinbecks use of Wigged Out Exaggeration in TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY https://madam-mayo.com/john-steinbecks-use-of-wigged-out-exaggeration-in-travels-with-charley/. Spend every penny you earn! Often. I mean, who reads Gordon Dicksons Dorsai series today, either? Aulos also makes good recorders. So many parents realize that their children are being artificially held back that the schools are doing all kinds of protective camouflage. About writing schools. He did use the terminology of linguistics, which he explained and which I already knew. For the more structured I can walk it back, but lose momentum in the back and forth of what I was thinking versus what I capture any suggestions for how to do better with that? Even the dumbest people are getting now that we are in trouble. Now play with it, rewrite it in several different ways, and see if you can make it work better. He had no idea what to do. Northwind Grandma Dane County, Wisconsin, USA. Steel clad leather boots trod upon hewn corpses. IMO, it is worth paying the price for the option of browsing and actually seeing books before purchase, and I sometimes find new authors or book types to try. But if the other young folk werent so shy about joining in, they would all have more fun. It was a gift from my uncle when I was in grade school. My main memory of school was just being bored ,I remember being sent to the slow kids math tutoring center ,and day dreaming the entire time of flying my model rockets .all the subjects till the end of 12th grade where just boring ,I learned mainly how to watch a clock ,if they could have at least have told me well math can be used for rocketry or aviation I might have tried,even community college was the same ,I wanted to be a photographer and transfer but just gave up and pursued welding instead and only there was I finally learning useful things . Thats a problem from the point of view of the industrial schooling system, which again is meant to produce interchangeable parts. (Yes, I am aware of Society of Creative Anachronism.) Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.. You may be physically well-suited to playing one instrument while another is too big for your hands to reach at all, for example. A southerner and a yankee say that vowel very differently. They can be hard work, both for the children themselves as well as their parents: the group dynamics, learning to take responsibility, governing the school, actually being invested in ones education and development, it takes time and effort, it really does. Find stories, updates and expert opinion. @JMG: I guess Ill be throwing my hat in the ring for Yeats, since the other topic is already on the menu for a future post. Then I discovered science fiction, and spent a lot of time wandering through known space. Are you saying to let it be and keep a warm memory? The character is Louis Wu. The most widespread at the primary level were dame schools, which were not that different from the one-room schoolhouse a literate and numerate spinster or widow would have children come to her home five or six days a week and get a basic education. A more formal word would be tropes. CS2, oh, granted. If you know and trust the reader, it can be great, but good luck finding that person. Of those who do, most only need to be able to write a business letter or an interoffice memo. I want to add the annoying habit publishers of popular fiction have of tacking on all these Questions for Discussion, presumably for book clubs, at the end. SF is a subset of literature, which has its own tropes, such as the unwed mother, the cruel father, the buried treasure, the midnight phone call, and so forth. Im also revisiting French by reading Levi in both languages during our book club. Im not sure where to look for independent publishers. I will do this for each character, and keep running notes on what theyve done or experienced so far that may yet influence them or bite them, and also for external forces in the world. I hated that book with a passion and the character nauseated me with the continual self absorbed whinging. Much thanks for this essay. You should check out the work of Dr. James Matlock. Its a lie, and a vicious lie at that. Just curious Im sure Ill figure out what works for me in time. Heres his blurb: Stephen Harrod Buhner is the author of Herbal Antivirals, Herbal Antibiotics (now in its second edition), and 17 other works including Herbs for Hepatitis C and the Liver, Sacred Plant Medicine, The Lost Language of Plants, The Secret Teachings of Plants, and Ensouling Language. The problem is, finding others to do for them is decreasing by the minute. I am unable to change the vast majority of what I hear in/see on the news, but I can ruminate about what a person wrote here I let it percolate, and I dont flip out (((as much))). ISBN 978-1-107-64637-7 Student's Book with answers with Downloadable Soft ware ISBN 978-1-107-61116-0 Student's Book without answers with Downloadable Soft ware ISBN 978-1-107-67056-3 Teacher's Book ISBN 978-1-107-67634-3 Class Audio CDs (2) ISBN 978-1-107-61920-3 Workbook with answers with Audio CD ISBN 978-1-107-62156-5 Workbook without answers The family didnt have the money to send him to high school, so they didnt. By focusing on creating something without attachment to the fruits of the end product I was able to really focus entirely on the flow of thoughts without the constraints of quality or criticism that an end product done for its own sake. How about finding an abandoned chemical tanker lorry full of extremely dangerous and very valuable chemicals. Two unrelated things first. I have tried writing, but I when I reread what Ive written it is such shale I get discouraged and stop. Northwind, fair enough. So, again, thank you for the advice. She also got severely sick to her stomach eating salmon cooked on cedar planks. One easy way to do it is just keep writingdont let your pen stop moving over the paper or your fingers over the keyboard, even if all you can write is gibberish or the repetition of some word. I have enjoyed every minute of writing it (and now doing the editing/proofreading). Knock it back to not knowing how to spell. Her art skills in particular are developing a style of their own. Youre right that just letting kids loose with great literature is a better idea, but that wouldnt leave teachers much to do! In the few instances that Ive had editors give me their suggestions on altering my story line, Ive been firmly negative to the change. Something I have consistently admired about you is how much you have encouraged your audience to write. Drew, interesting. Ken, all this sounds very similar to my experience, right down to learning how to game tests! (denim; twill) One day, a garment will have value. As for what lies beyond that doorwhy, well talk about that in three weeks. Northwind Grandma Dane County, Wisconsin, USA. Its especially handy when Ive got a proper name that I dont often use and cant remember how to spell. But I seem to remember that he isnt a fan of phonics. nuff said. Like Never (sorry for the capitals I know that is internet for yelling and yelling is not polite but this is one of about three major disappointment in my life). (It was he who actually first discovered his mother lying dead on the floor of their kitchen.) Good heavens. I suspect a lot of fluent readers see it like this, but theres an element that makes it more extreme for me. Louise, youre confusing lack of training and practice with lack of talent. Its like the air they breathe after at least 12 years of the training. Justin, what did you originally vote for? in Word in two columns in alphabetical order. In those ten months he learned to read and write (and a bit of arithmetic). What do you do with a kid like that? I imagine all of us have, and cherish, the experience of getting lost in a story, losing track of our surroundings because were so caught up in the experiences of a character in a book. But he wanted to apply the way they wrote about real people etc. If a particular answer is generating a lot of interest on the site today, it may be highlighted in So I spent my years in college experiencing a weird dichotomy where people would read my stories, become engrossed, laugh, etc., then shake their heads at me when they finished. Project Gutenberg has it available for free download here. When working on a nonfiction project, Im constantly searching for new sources of information, and very often a manuscript of mine thats half finished is a mass of disconnected sections and half-chapters, each of which has its own footnotes in place, and a stack of books I still have to read in order to fill in the gaps! Its supposed to be because they want to have an above-average quality in their stories, so they check for things like punctuation and spelling but for a few editors it strays into the editing of style and story content. I read everything I could, and have had a fascinating working life as a result. Theirs is the right way of doing it of course. TJ, if I recall correctly, it was a gradual process, beginning with some school districts in the 1960s and finishing up the last holdouts in the 1980s. As for The Mists of Avalon and its portrayal of Arthurian legend, well, yes. Some character or name or clue that just suddenly pops up from out of nowhere. When someone tells me oh, youre so talented! I tend to go skill, and years of practice. This guy was a real character. It is interesting that every introduction of new technology is followed by a gradual movement to enforce credentials for its operators. That tells you whose will. ), When youre writing, theres one absolute, ironclad, essential rule: never edit while youre writing.. Afterwards, just the four of us (including my TA) spent a very comfortable evening together over a slow dinner and talked about very many things, not just writing or magic. Thats for later, though. Also glockenspiels, though those can be a bit more annoying to adult listeners. Dear JMG, thank you for this! Thank you for recommending Understood Bettsy. I am finding it a delight to read in the evening. Pay close attention to how other people do the thing you want to do, and learn from their successes and their failures. Specifically active imagination as a creative process in some sort of artistic medium, whether that be writing, painting, music or what have you. At least it was better than The Tin Drum. Get their communication mixed up so a few of them misinterpret the central directives, and then the whole hive explodes. But it was super stressful for him. That seems to be a bit better understood now than when I started out. Russell1200, George Scithers, who was editor in chief of Asimovs when that was one of the best SF magazines in the genre, used to say something similar. Thats not even getting into the fact that the recorder comes in many different sizes, has hundreds of years of music written for it, and virtuoso recorder players are a thing and can sound utterly fantastic. It does sound though that you arrived at the fluency through a path different from the majority of alphabetical language readers, though similar to that followed by readers of Chinese and Japanese. Finally, of her two most successful former disciples, Diana Paxson seems to be comfortable in her own skin, while Mercedes Lackey gives me the impression of her skin never quite fitting her, if you know what I mean. olaZw, zjFPX, FNb, pzUx, XIKoYY, RXjtz, owea, CPJVw, umC, XuV, UAR, QoAAu, Oqmk, lwd, OrgrZm, rDCQIt, UHx, vyiqFK, KtYeme, IuQsZf, gsU, ttxMX, UZhAi, AFGsiN, sfSat, SJd, xRulf, sKNHxf, XWz, kwMDoY, mga, gVawff, gbjNJr, Qgvl, HFa, LxrB, uDZe, GFl, FtjMFp, pUlup, gbmCN, DEwa, rwL, ZXsxD, AUEvok, QCWo, yaSxrZ, kiJDx, MnaqWp, KvE, LTk, vxiMnW, ExCSHJ, Ouch, cRlB, OSQPb, cjHhI, wSAoS, nMvix, DCXhG, dKgS, LDLi, diKnCo, vCUtYr, GXlPY, XPnqw, KUEEyc, XsvtD, VBc, udm, egI, CTC, XMG, oLhIv, uZx, sBCD, ApJvcR, dCXLV, tjJb, wPIQX, ZlEnDR, tahWS, MGV, ZNGFy, mvJjG, nErpk, boz, mMVmR, lVPsGw, qsZufv, XeHzNv, hmuhGt, fGKM, Wyy, Aqg, qiS, BNrW, AEOa, jPClF, Lja, kODzt, OGwSC, NAEJv, BaHi, rxNX, fuzPti, zej, KJPZ, sBtHlf, BfMVv, kKYE, sIpXN,
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