A Long December

I've had a quiet end to my year as the snow finally blanketed my little corner of New Hampshire. The cross country skiing has been beautiful, and as I'm still not allowed to gallop around on horses, careen down mountains, or slide around ponds on metal blades, I'm spending a lot of time on my skate skis...

...with my lovely husband, who took some time off to hang out in the woods with me.

I got to spend Christmas with my parents, which was perfect. Bittersweet, but perfect. My grandmother was in her final days with my aunts in Florida, as we did our best to celebrate the holiday with cheer for my children. She passed away at home, with family, knowing she was loved and cared for, and for that, I am exceedingly grateful.

I'm still at work on the book edits, but I'm also peevishly aware of the reality that I still have to to pace myself. If I push it, and continue to edit or read after the tight pressure band on my forehead sets in, headaches and visual migraines descend. I really miss reading and am looking forward to finishing all the books that have piled up on my side of the bed. Wonderful books by people I adore, such as Averil Dean, Melissa Atkins Wardy, Avital Norman Nathman, and Annette Haws. You should check them out by clicking on their names and buying their books because they are great writers, all.

I've rescheduled my January speaking dates to give myself that time to heal up from my concussion, but despite the irritating details of what I've come to think of as "the brain mishap," I've been able to tell some stories and do a couple of interviews with some fascinating people, and that was a great way to round out the year.

Here's a story I told about exploring the woods with Ben, my teenage son, for Vermont Public Radio.

And here's an interview I did about how teachers can make sure they are not overlooking introverted kids in their classrooms and giving them every opportunity to learn and succeed. Which was lovely, as I took quite a whuppin' for this piece I wrote on the importance of encouraging introverted kids to speak up in school earlier this year for the Atlantic.

Tomorrow, (Thursday, January 2nd), my new "Parent-Teacher Conference" piece will be up at the New York Times Motherlode blog, about how parents can help kids return to school after the holidays with renewed vigor and dedication. Or at least without whining.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Timing is Everything

I have spent much of this fall writing, but in order to retain my sanity, I head out after a full day of words to tack up Joy and take a walk in the woods. Joy is my friend's horse, but she's given me this amazing gift of a companion so I can get away from my laptop and into the fresh air.

I grew up riding, so my days on Joy have been such a gift. My husband, Tim, is wary of horses, but I've managed to drag him along on a couple of trail rides. I usually put him on Joy, as she's calm and relatively predictable, and I ride some other horse, usually someone who needs some mileage under her young hooves. 

The horse I picked today had bucked before, but I've been on bucking horses many times, so it was no big deal. She'd burst into a gallop once before in a field and let out a huge buck of happiness as she did so, but I rode it out fine and wasn't particularly worried about her. 

But today she really went for it. 

I took Tim up into the field in the picture above, and asked the mare I was riding for a trot. She interpreted my light squeeze as an invitation to merge onto Thunder Road and we were off. A couple of strides in, she let out a mighty leap and a buck and some sort of twist, and I was tossed onto the ground. I don't remember a lot after that, but Tim and I walked the horses back to the barn, handed them off to friends, and took off for the ER. 

One hint that it was time to head to the hospital was the fact that when Tim asked me where I'd been that morning, where I'd been yesterday, what my book was about, what my book was called, I had no idea. Yesterday, I was at Brewster Academy all day, speaking to students, helping students with some writing, and speaking again to the community, so that was kind of a big thing to forget. 

Not to mention the fact that I could not remember my book, the thing that's filled my brain up and overflowed out my ears for the past year.

It all came back as we drove down to the hospital, but I noted how ironic it was that we had just been discussing my enthusiasm to dive back in to my YA novel about...a boy with memory loss.

One ER visit and a shot of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory meds later, I'm much better. My head is killing me, and I will most certainly be seeing my chiropractor tomorrow, but I am feeling lucky that the contents of my brain were only temporarily lost.

As I was passing time in the ER on my iPhone, I noticed that my new Vermont Public Radio commentary had just gone live. It will air Monday morning at 7:55 AM, but you can listen to it at the link I'll post in a second. It's about my afternoons spent with Joy, for which I am also very, very grateful.

You can listen here.

My Season of Recreation: On Empathy in the Classroom

I have officially run out of extra words. Sorry the blog has been neglected; I miss it so very much. I even know what I want to write for a post, but between the book (due 11/1) and other articles I promised to deliver by various other due dates, I'm tapped out. I will be back to regular posting when I can gather together an hour to write a post, but in the meantime, here's my most recent Vermont Public Radio commentary, on empathy in the classroom. It will air on Sunday at 10:55 AM on VPR, but you can hear it here.

Today, and Another Trip Over the Atlantic

It's been a great first week of summer. The article on boys and education at the Atlantic is doing really well and has been shared on Facebook over 17,000 times. I took Ben to camp last weekend and got to talk about it on Vermont Public Radio, and then I wrote about it for the Atlantic. This piece also marks the debut of my first published title in a major news outlet. "Good-bye, and Go Away, Thank You Very Much." I tend to like titles that don't say much about the piece itself, and my picky editors tend to like titles that actually convey some meaning. Humph. 

I'm in New York City right now because I'm taping a segment for the Today Show tomorrow that will run on Friday, June 28, in the fourth hour. That piece is on preventing summer academic slump and I get to present some samples of great summer reading. I'm going to keep those selections a secret until the show airs, but I really have to thank my Twitter and Facebook friends and followers for offering up their favorite books as suggestions. 

And the best part of this week? I took those book selections with me to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and sat on the sidewalk for a couple of hours in order to score some standing room only or lottery tickets for The Book of Mormon. Seemed like a great thing to do to celebrate the demise of DOMA. 

Standing room only means just that; you stand at the back of the theater for the entire show. If you want to get those tickets ($27.00 each, you can have up to two per person, there are roughly 22 of these available for every show), you should show up at 3:00. I was there at 3:15 and I was third in line. At five, the wonderfully friendly lottery guy hands out cards and the people who have gathered in the hopes of getting some incredible seats for only $32.00 hold their breath while he pulls cards out of a lottery wheel. There are about 300-400 people gathered for about 25 seats in the front row and in the two front boxes. It's all very dramatic and lottery guy was a hoot. I had reason to hope when he announced the second card and mentioned the person had come all the way from New Hampshire, and yep, it was true. I had scored front row center seats (and a lovely button announcing that I'd won the Book of Mormon lottery).

As I said, it's been a great week. 

Radio 101

Yesterday, I recorded my first installment for Vermont Public Radio's Commentaries series. I have wanted to be a part of this program for a long time, particularly as I get to write about the Upper Valley, and what makes this place so special. I wanted my first piece to be a departure from the education and parenting topics I usually cover, so I went with dairy farming and underwear. I figure that's about as 180 as I can go...although dairy farming requires some serious grit. 

My education in milking at Robie Farm happened a while ago, but it provided great fodder for my first 500-word piece. The producer of the Commentaries series, Betty Smith-Mastaler, liked the essay and invited me in to the VPR studio in Norwich (under the King Arthur Bakery!) to record it as an audition piece. I've done radio before, and as I read to my students often, I figured I had the chops to lay that baby down in one take.

But that pesky producer, she had her own opinion on my chops.

Consequently, I spent about a half an hour in Radio 101, taught by Professor Smith-Mastaler. I mentioned this to some of my writer friends, and they asked me to share the wisdom of Professor Smith. So here goes. Radio 101.

First, word count. I already understood the importance of word count, but when an editor or a periodical's submission guidelines page instructs me to aim for 800 words, I can submit 793 or 810 and no one will blink an eye. So when I submitted my piece to Professor Smith-Mastaler at 517 words, I figured I was all set. Not so, she said. In radio, every word is time, and Commentaries has a hard time wall of 3:14. I can cut the piece or she will cut the piece. My choice.

I cut the piece. Killed those darlings until they numbered 497. I thought about adding an "and" or a "however," but figured I was close enough if I was under by a word or two. Or three.

Formatting.

I've done speeches before, and figured I'd bump up the font size a bit for easier reading. While my instinct was right, that only got me part of the way to formatting perfection, radio-wise. Professor Smith-Mastaler sent me some additional tips that would help me read more clearly and fluently.

1. Always bring the text to the studio. This particular studio has issues with wireless internet, so don't assume you can read off of a screen or print out at the studio. 
2. Bring two copies, one for you, one for the producer, who will need to take notes on what needs to be re-recorded and if changes are made to the text during recording, she will need to mark up the copy. 
3. The eye's natural scan width is four inches, so drag the right-hand margin over to 4. The text will look weird, but it really is easier to scan when you are in front of a microphone and a little bit nervous. 
4. Use 16 point type, and if possible, choose the font used by the series. Commentaries uses Times New Roman. At least I knew that one. One point for me. 
5. Page numbers should got at the top of the page rather than the bottom. The producer will be referring to them and it's easiest to find them quickly at the top of the page, in the upper right-hand corner. 
6. Double space after every sentence. There's a reason for this that I will go to in the next section. 
7. Eliminate all sentence breaks at the bottom of the page. Either shift entire paragraphs down to the next page or raise them up, but make sure the page ends on a terminal punctuation mark. You will be moving the pages after a pause at the end of each page, so you want to make sure you are at a good spot for a long pause. 

Once you get to the studio, hand the producer her copy. She'll likely offer water, but just in case, bring your own. My students have given me a cold, so I had a cup of tea before I arrived.

At VPR, the text goes on a music stand at face height, one page at a time. I laid mine out two pages at a time, thinking I was helping, but I was asked to put it back the way it was, with only one page on the top. When you shift your gaze at all, it changes your distance to the microphone and changes the volume.

While the producer is setting things up, go ahead and warm up. read the first page and just get your tongue working. Before you really get rolling, make sure that you get over the idea that you will be able to nail it in the first take. Not gonna happen.

Professor Smith-Mastaler let me go through it once without stopping me, but I think that was just to allow me to warm up and build my confidence. I thought it sounded pretty good, but again, I was deluded.

She told me that everyone gets very serious when they step in front of a microphone. She mentioned how animated I had been when I arrived and asked me to return to my baseline. Find the personality and lose the dour.

She then filled me in on the reason for the double spacing and a trick I have filed away as the most important tip of the day. She read my first page to me twice while I was watching. The first time, she did not look at me through the glass (she was in the production room, I was in a recording room). The second time, she looked up at me at the end of my paragraphs. The difference was amazing. Her voice...well, it changed somehow, and I felt as if she was talking to me.

She reminded me that people listen to the radio in noisy places - the car, the office, etc. - and I have to reach out and tap them on the shoulder, let them know I am talking to them, telling them a story. Somehow, looking at the producer allows the voice to become personal. Who knows why, but it was an obvious difference.

She told me to imagine the story when I read it. Imagine what it felt and smelled like when I peeled off my poopy, smelly clothing in the mudroom, shat the scrape of the cat's tongue felt like in my palm. And again, she was right. The reading was more vivid. The images shone through much more brightly.

We went through the entire essay twice, and then looped back around to the bits that needed what she called "gloss," or a special something. What words to hit, what pacing to give the parallel construction. She gave me the freedom to re-write the text, but in the end we stuck with what I had on the page.

The entire session took about 45 minutes, but I left with what felt like a semester's worth of knowledge in my head and a list of ideas for my next commentary.

And next time I won't feel like such a rube.

Thank you, Professor Smith-Mastaler, for a great first class.