Writing Rituals

Every semester that I teach, I ask my students to read a piece from the National Writing Project on Writing Rituals, and then I have them do a research study on their own writing rituals. I didn't get to do that this year because I didn't get the job of teaching them until they'd already been in class for five weeks, so they had already done an assignment on "my favorite place to write" (which is not the same as my Writing Rituals assignment, but close enough to not assign it).
I have in the past joined them in writing about my own writing rituals. So, not writing about my own writing rituals this year has thrown me off as well. So, let's get going.
I do know that when I write I need to feel like I have some privacy. I hate when people can read over my shoulder while I'm trying to write. I also hate when people attempt to talk to me while I'm writing. I can't concentrate on what they're saying, my mind is completely involved in what I'm writing, so I tend to look at them while finishing typing what I'm thinking, without hearing a word they are saying to me.
This is a huge problem for me because my computer and monitor are located right next to my husband's, all on the same table. He can lean slightly to his left and read what I'm writing, glance to see what I'm looking at online, and he talks to me constantly when I am online. I am the kind of person who has great focus. I can get so focused on one thing I don't notice anyone else or anything else going on around me. I don't even listen to music when I'm online, or listen to WoW when I'm playing WoW, I just have a good ability to focus on one thing at a time to the exclusion of all else. This annoys my husband and my kids because I'll often answer whatever it is they've asked me without having heard anything they said. I can be looking them straight in the face, but my mind is still focused on the screen and I see their lips moving, I just don't know what they're on about. So, while it's impossible for me to write because Phoe's computer is right next to mine, it's also impossible for me to stop concentrating intently on other things.
I also need to be able to smoke when I'm writing. I don't know why. That's just the way it is. I can see where my writing is very scattered and sometimes makes no sense at times when I wasn't able to smoke (now being one of those times, because I am in my office, which is really a computer lab on campus where smoking is a no-no). I can't concentrate and I've had to stop myself lighting a cigarette about four times. I'm compensating with chocolate, btw.
I tend to write more during or after great emotional upheaval. It's my way of processing whatever it is that's happened. Without someone to discuss the issue, I need to write about it, and I need reasonable immediate feedback. This may also explain why I like Plurk so much, but contribute to Plurk so little. I haven't had much trauma in my life in the past few weeks, so my Plurkarma is down below 40, but I still obsessively read certain peoples' Plurk lines to see how they are coming along. I appreciate the immediate feedback of Plurking.
I have a friend who can only write at 3 AM sitting at her kitchen table with a small 5.5" x 8.5" spiral-bound journal. She also must have a candle burning while the rest of the house is completely dark. She must have a cup of coffee (or iced tea, depending on season), a cigarette, and music playing (usually Bob Seger). Don't ask me how she nailed down her perfect writing ritual/environment, but there you go.
I'm not that specific. I need a good block of time, a computer (I can't write longhand and hold onto a thought long enough to get it on paper), a cigarette, and nobody around for me to talk with. That's really all I require. I can write in an office, a library, my bedroom, anywhere really, as long as the other criteria are met. And even then, I can always run outside to have a quick smoke in between writing (though I tend to lose focus this way).
I don't really have any "rituals" about my writing. Candles creep me out a bit because I'm naturally scatterbrained and just know I'll forget to blow them out when I'm done. It doesn't really matter if I have anything to eat or drink (though chocolate and coffee are helpful).
My ideal writing situation: sitting in my quiet office facing a huge picture window or similar with a fabulous view of the Black Hills, with a lovely antique desk, a really comfortable desk chair, a brand new gaming laptop (who can just write constantly, 24/7? Not I) and a box of Russell Stovers' French Chocolate Mints nearby. I'd probably also have a coffee maker that makes coffee by the cup (Keurig), an ashtray and full pack of cigarettes (never mind that cigarette smoke is bad for both antiques and computers). An internet connection is also certainly helpful, for quick research, as is a television nearby, for something to ignore (which I can't explain, except it's helpful if I have something to ignore while I am attempting to write because it's just enough pressure to make me actually write, not dither).

Writing nirvana has been achieved (if only in my dreams). Now the bigger problem: what to write?

Writing

It's been pointed out to me (in a totally non-confrontational, not-a-comment-even-meant-for-me-personally, way) that for a writing teacher I sure don't write much.(!) So I'm going to go about fixing that by writing here, in my comfortable old blog (4 years, and possibly this is the first time I've written here all THIS year), hopefully on a daily basis.
My husband is participating in NaNoWriMo this year. He has been rather smugly emphasizing the total number of words he's accomplished daily since Sunday. He won't let me read any of it, but I haven't really got the time between student papers, keeping up with WoW, and my current protest of Second Life (long story, I'm just sick of people in Second Life, pretty much the same way I grew sick of people in real life 5 years ago and joined SL), plus just regular life (kids, work, teaching, preparing for teaching, taking care of house, cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving people around, worrying about money and lack of vehicle, plus whatever else I decide to put on my plate). So, in between sullenly resenting my husband for his ability to write 2,000 words a day and not writing myself, I figured I could compromise and write a little every day, whether it's November or not.
It's not going to be fiction.

Plurkiness

I'm mostly on Plurk these days. Here's my link. :)

Sans' Plurk

Stand By Me

Hit the link, go to the website, don't be a cold-hearted bastard. :)

Tuesday Blues

Education and Discipline, and Is Education a right or a privilege?

Still thinking about this, and reading the comments on the original link.

Education should be treated as a privilege, not a right. I know it's a right, there's a law, even, about the right to a free, public education. But it should be treated like a privilege, and I think a lot of the drama that surrounds education would stop (or maybe even escalate). Think of NCLB if education was a privilege, rather than a right, or even something forced on people to assimilate them into a society (coming from the native perspective again here). There are laws that force me to send my children to school, and since there are no alternatives to the public school here, I send my children to public school.

What if there were no laws saying my children had to be in school until they're 18? Would I send them? I'd fight to send them. What would happen if one of them fucked up in school and got suspended? I'd be devastated. They would have "thrown away their chances" in my mind, not "been punished too harshly for simply not listening to the teacher."

Keep in mind, these are just random thoughts about education and discipline in this country. I'm wrestling with an issue right now w/ my 10 yr old son, who hates school, and my family who is angry with me all the time for not being able to bring myself to use physical force to get him to school...even though I face the consequence of going to jail for not getting him to school. What do you do? Slap a shackle on them and drag them to school every day? We've taken away all his privileges. We've talked to him. We've taken him to counseling. We've switched his classrooms and teachers. We've asked for help from the truancy program. He just hates school and doesn't want to go, to the point every morning is a daily hell for all of us. In other areas he's semi-okay, though we sometimes fight over chores and computer time (usually he's lost his computer and tv time because of teh school thing.) What to do?

Yeah, people say, "You're the parent. Make him go."

It's just not that easy. How do you MAKE someone do something? Psychology? Abuse? Removal of privileges? My son would sleep on a cold concrete floor and eat nothing but beans if it meant he could stay out of school every day. That's how bad it is.

So, this issue has pretty much taken over our lives. Not for just me and my son, but for the whole family. It strains my relationships with everyone. My other children are reticent about school too, but at least they go. They play the game. They get good grades. Heck, my son gets good grades, if he'd just go, and he loves to read. He loves to learn. He spends hours on the computer learning new things all the time, researching his own special interests (gaming, swords, medieval times, ancient Greeks, etc.) He reads as a form of entertainment. He just hates school. Maybe it's his own form of protest, our lives have changed radically in the past few years. Anyway, just don't know what to do. Sending this out into the great big void. Noticing my blog has become less and less about illusion and more and more about reality.

Total Apathy

This is rather an amusing post to come after the last one, but I don't really know where else to go with this feeling of complete apathy I'm having today, this week, this month...

I just don't care. I feel like I've been pounding against these huge barriers to what will make everything all right, and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of trying to make my son go to school. He's ten. He hates school. Every morning it's the same thing: "I'm sick." "I don't feel good." "Everyone hates me at school. " "There's no point." He doesn't care about school, or he cares so much that it upsets him. Sometimes he worries about it so much it does make him sick. And it makes me sick. I'm sick to the point I no longer want to deal with him or his school problem. I've tried all I know to try, including counseling, threats, bribes, coercion, strictness, guilt, anger, and nothing works. He just hates school. I hate dealing with it. The school counselor isn't helping, and everyone else is on my case for letting him "get by with it." Nobody has any constructive criticism for me. Nobody has offered to help me get him to school. So I'm not going to try anymore. I'm at the point I don't care about it anymore. If they come take him away, put him in foster care, put me in jail, so be it. I just cannot gather the reserves to try anymore, or even to care about it.

So I was on my way to work this morning after fighting with three of my children to get them to go to school, and I realized I just no longer cared. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I wasn't upset in any way. I just felt completely apathetic. I lacked feeling about the whole situation. And once I had that revelation this morning, I started thinking of all the things I don't care about anymore.

I don't care if my husband eats healthily anymore. I've nagged him. I buy the right foods. I prepare two meals for every meal rather often, one for him, one for everyone else. I plan for his diet. He doesn't care. He eats as much as he wants, when he wants. He eats what he's not supposed to eat and tells me his doctors say it's okay to splurge every once in awhile. But it's not every once in awhile, it's every day, every meal, every snack. I buy a pound and a half of turkey for his lunches. He eats it in two days. I buy a salad mix for three or four meals. He consumes it in one meal. I buy a twelve pack of diet Sprite. He drinks it in three days. He goes through a loaf of bread in a day and a half. And we fight about it all the time. I accuse him of over eating, he denies it. I nag him to cut down the size of his meals, he ignores me. And I've just come to the point where I don't care anymore. If he wants to die by eating, so be it. I give up.

We've been homeless for a year. I have needed help to try to get us a place. But the entire responsibility has rested on my head for this year, and I'm completely helpless here. We live where there are no houses available. The size of our family is so large, we can't really fit in an apartment. We have to jump through so many hoops to even qualify for housing here--get this form and that document and show us your credit rating and your bank accounts and go to court to get custody papers for the children you've given birth to and taken care of for the past 16 years...and then go on a waiting list of 1600 families, and we'll see what we can do in 10 years or more. And I've just not been able to jump very high all year. And today I realized we may be homeless for the rest of our lives, and I don't care. I have tried all I can with this, I've asked for help and not gotten it, and now I don't care anymore. Fuck it. It's just not a concern for me. Maybe it would be a concern if we weren't living with my mother, if we were truly homeless and living in a van or a tent, I don't know. But right now, today, I lack the ability to care.

Then I started thinking about my job. I really don't care about that either. There are other people who could do what I do, say what I've said, write like I write, and probably do it better than I have done. I work for so little, it's not even enough to pay for food for the whole month. It barely covers gas, a couple weeks worth of meals, and that's it. It felt like we had more money when I didn't have a job. And this is really a nowhere job. There is no upward movement in this job. It's a one step ladder. IT IS ALL THERE IS. And I don't care. I don't know why I even bothered to come to work, except I have nowhere else to go during the day. If I stayed home I'd have to deal with my son and my husband and my mother, and I'd rather not today. I'd rather avoid them, not care, not try so hard.

And it's funny because if you are truly apathetic, would you even bother writing about how apathetic you are? I don't know. If I died and people were to wonder why, would they think about my blog at all? Would this even be any kind of explanation? Maybe my epitath would read: "She just stopped caring one day."