Author: sashikaufman

I am a middle school teacher and writer of young adult fiction. I live in Portland Maine.
Random musings, Writing

Seize the Lady Balls

sashikaufman

lady ball

As you might imagine I’ve been waiting for a while to title a post this way.  In Westbrook Maine there was a business establishment called Lady Ball’s Tea Room, as Dave Barry might say and the residents of Westbrook can attest to, I’m not making this up.  The full name was actually Lady Ball’s Victorian Boutique and Tea Room and for years I drove by thinking that I should really take a picture of the sign which can be partially viewed here. Alas one day it was gone, replaced by the Emerald Management company which is probably a perfectly reputable business with a much less interesting name and sign.

The point is simple, and frankly obvious. A.S. King who is one of my YA literary heroes wrote a great post about why you should write what you want. It’s part of a longer series, which I also recommend, called Writer’s middle finger and can be found here.  So write what you want and try and live the way you want, because life is too short to miss out on your chance to grab it by the Lady Ball’s. (I promise with only one or two crossed fingers behind my back to never say Lady Balls in a post again. That was the last time, I swear.)

 

Random musings

What are you not?

sashikaufman

What are you not is kind of a fun game I invented this weekend with the help of my not light, never inconsiderate friend Tara. The point of the game is to come up with words that someone would never use to describe you. The idea is to alternate your word choice to praise and slightly deprecate yourself.

Here are a few examples. No one would ever describe me as obsessively hygienic, but that’s really a two word phrase.  So I’ll use another example my husband came up with as I knocked over all his hockey sticks while trying to free my ski poles from the morass of sports equipment in the garage. “You are not stealthy!” he crowed, embracing the new game. “Or quiet!” he added gleefully. Now I objected to this last one a little bit, since I can be quiet on occasion, but truly it’s not a word used often to describe me.

Neither is shy.

Or uptight.

But enough about me. What are you not?

 

Random musings, Whining, Writing

Climbers and danglers

sashikaufman

Yesterday morning I woke up and the place where my arms attach to my body was extremely sore. Naturally I panicked and immediately assumed I had contracted a rare form of acute pectoral arm cancer. I’m not a hypochondriac by nature but I am a bit of an alarmist. Woody Allen does a nice job at explaining the difference here.

Just as I was envisioning my demise, I remembered that the day before at school I’d been feeling rather punchy and attempted to demonstrate my meager athletic abilities by doing a push up.  Just one.  What I succeeded in doing was a face plant into industrial carpet –which I followed with three girly half-push ups for good measure. It followed that the likely cause of my arm pain was not a rare acute disease but rather 3 and a half failed push ups. It’s not my fault that I have the upper body strength of an ostrich, the arms and shoulders of a malnourished chicken. It’s genetics. Not that I’ve done anything about it. I learned very early on that there are those people who are rope climbers (think elementary school gym class) and those of us who are rope danglers  –spending entire gym periods  with our feet just inches above the blue mats waiting for the bell to ring.

I think about this sometimes when people ask how/when I find time to write. There isn’t time. Any more than there’s time for me to build up some killer biceps and conquer that damn rope once and for all.  I guess as life gets busier you have to prioritize the things you really care about. So for the time being I’ll have to get used to the taste of industrial carpet.

Random musings

Cheerleaders

sashikaufman

Sometimes there is nothing better than a bad sports movie. I mean bad in a good way, of course.  Sometimes it’s nice to know exactly who is going to make a second half turn around and win the game.

Along those same lines, I’ve been feeling pretty good lately and I attribute it in part to cheerleaders. I’ve written before about how I can be my own worst critic. Lately I’ve been trying to be my own best cheerleader. I envision something along these lines:

snl spartan cheerleaders

I do have an admitted weakness for Will Ferrell. However, there’s just something about the Spartans; their indefatigable positivity and relentless energy that keeps me going even when I hit a bump. Bad stuff, good stuff, they cheer for all of it. It’s a good reminder that it’s important to celebrate what you can when you can. The other day I was really excited because it was Friday and I could wear jeans to work. I was standing in my closet singing, “Jeans, jeans, everything goes with jeans!” So my mid-January advice is to celebrate whatever you can, sing in your closet, cheer yourself on.

Random musings

2013 Hopes for a Reasonable Year

sashikaufman

For a variety of reasons (Mayan now excluded) 2012 has been a bit of a bear for myself and some of those close to me. We are ready for change! And frankly we deserve it. I just checked and last year I did not write a New Year’s post but I did cite a resolution to attend a writer’s conference. Check, completed in April. Maybe that’s the way to go with resolutions; few and manageable.

Sometimes I would like to resolve that the world be kinder to me and those I love. But much like trying to motivate an unmotivated middle school student to write a killer theme essay -motivation rarely comes from the outside. I suppose I’ll just have to be kinder to myself. Those who know me best are laughing and slapping their proverbial knees right now. “Ha, I’d like to see her try.” It’s true. I do not have the greatest track record for being easy on myself. But that’s why it’s called a resolution dammit!

Whatever you’re going through, whatever trials and challenges, they are made exponentially easier by being kind to yourself and taking care of yourself as you move through the rough patches. So that is my hope for myself and those I love. I painted this quote on a piece of poster board my first year of teaching and it’s followed me ever since. I don’t know who said it but I first saw it on a similar banner in the classroom of another teacher when I was student-teaching. This year I resolve to try and embrace  it as much as I encourage others to.

“Do the best that you can, in the place that you are, and be kind.”

Happy 2013 Friends!

School

I teach because I love

sashikaufman

Monday was a weird day at my school, and I would imagine at most. Our hallways and classrooms were the same. The homework, books and lockers were all there, but the elephant sitting on our chests was the tragedy in Connecticut.

It’s one thing to practice a lockdown. We all do it. But it’s another thing to know, to really know, that we practice for a reason. When we looked around at each other on Monday morning, I think we all felt just a bit more vulnerable and exposed.  It was a hard day to be a middle school teacher, but I was never more glad for middle schoolers undying self-centeredness and love of drama -the good kind, like who likes who. By mid-morning everything felt pretty normal.

But I did tell them this; I told them about the woman I heard interviewed on 60 minutes, the teacher who said she told her class repeatedly that she loved them because she wanted that to be the last thing they heard. And I looked around at my slightly embarrassed, somewhat uncomfortable group of 8th graders and I told them that it was true. That we, teachers, do love them. That this is a job one does from a place of love and because of love.

And while I’m heartsick about the losses in Connecticut, I am so proud of teachers for loving and caring and protecting children. Because that is what we do every day, not just on extraordinary days.

Writing

Passion Vs. Trends in YA Fiction

sashikaufman

It’s been a while since I posted. Long enough that I’ve looked back on my post on patience and balance, grimacing and wondering if I really have enough patience. A lot of work stuff has been adding to my daily stressors and squeezing out any hope of writing time. So patience is key.

I know others in the YA world have blogged on this topic. But I think, given the nature of trends in YA it’s an important one to address. Trends. I frequently get advice from my students about what sort of books I should write; vampires, apocalyptic battles to the death, love stories gone awry. I smile and nod. It’s tempting to write towards trends, or even just to try to write a book because you think it will sell. But it’s not very fun. At least I don’t think so. I don’t want to sit down at the end of a long day of teaching and family and life, and crank out something I’m not in love with.

I want to tell a story that I feel has to be told. I want to share characters that make me laugh or cry, or shake my head with exasperation. Because it’s a long way from my desk to the printed page. And sometimes it takes every last ounce of energy to sit down at my desk instead of a re-run of Storage Wars. So no matter how tempting it is to believe I could write that next big hit pixie, steampunk, transgender re-telling of The Three Little Pigs, I just don’t believe it’s worth it. Unless that Pigs thing sounds good to you? Wait does it?

Reading, School

Empathy vs. Evil, Bonk!

sashikaufman

Lois Lowry recently published her 4th and final book in a loose collection of YA novels called the Giver Quartet. The Giver is the most famous and beloved of the four and the one which most frequently appears on middle school required reading lists (including mine). Many people credit The Giver as being a more subtle and artful predecessor to more violent dystopian novels like The Hunger Games.

Regardless, she’s been interviewed a lot lately with the release of her new book. And she had this to say about the main character of her new book who fights evil with empathy.

“The ability to understand other people’s feelings,” Lowry said. “As an encompassing gift that a kid could have — or a human — that could be the one that could save the world. If we could all acquire it to the extent that boy had it, no one would go into a movie theater with a gun.” It’s a powerful lesson, and one that I’m eager for my children — so often so quick to think only of themselves — to learn. It’s surely one I still need to learn. Perhaps these books are for adults after all.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot because empathy is such an important thing to have and such a difficult thing to teach. Sometimes, like last week –when I had to deal with a group of girls who were being mean to each other — I wish I had a giant foam empathy hammer and I could just bonk them over the head with it. So that they could see that the crappy way they feel on the inside is a direct result of the way they treat each other. Until such a tool exists I’ll keep listening and talking and being the best grown-up-type-person I know how to be.

Random musings, School, Writing

Patience and Balance

sashikaufman

Patience and balance are two things I actively seek in my life.  And at this point I think seek is an appropriate verb because though they are reached at different moments, the quest is on-going.  The only thing that has reinforced the importance of patience more than my experiences with the publishing world, is my experience as a mom.  No matter what I do, my daughter shows me again and again that she will do things in her own time. I can be supportive or throw temper tantrums of my own. I can try sleep interventions or potty interventions or picky eating interventions, but the only thing that is guaranteed to work consistently, is patience and time.

I’m thinking about balance because I’ve just declared myself done with my first round of revisions for my first ever editor of my first (soon to be) published book. Over the summer I completed a solid second draft of a new book. I’ve gotten feedback from beta readers and I’ve been sitting on that feedback while I worked on the revisions for Go West.  I could have jumped right in this weekend. I’ve had opportunities to begin. I’m blogging right now, when I could be revising my way to 2nd book greatness. But I’m not. In fact, I’m enjoying not writing for a few days. I’m taking a breath.

School is back in full swing, and by this I mean we’re done meeting and greeting and I have actual papers to grade and lessons to plan.  The days are shorter and my outside time is getting more and more limited. I’m taking a breath and it feels good. I know what I need to do on book two and I’ll get there in a reasonable amount of time.

I recently read parts of the NY Times magazine on inspiration. I especially liked the interview with Junot Diaz who, in addition to being a great writer, swears a lot. The interviewer compared Diaz’s writing process to trying to distill the ocean down to a glass of water. These things take time and patience.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite Rilke quotes.

“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast.” (You can read the whole thing here)

So I’m trying to not force the sap, take a breath, be silent and vast.

Okay, maybe not silent and vast. It’s not really my style. But the rest sounds good.

Reading, School

Response to the Ants

sashikaufman

I have some YA writer heroes out there and one of them is A.S. King. In honor of the paper back release of Everybody Sees the Ants, I’m going to tell you why you should read this book and why it made me want to be a better teacher/grown up/human being. At least I’ll try to.  You should really just read the book.

You can read a synopsis of the book here. But I’ll summarize by saying the book is about a young man who’s being bullied.  It’s also about the adults who are well intentioned but unaware of the extent of the abuse he’s experiencing. It’s also about his Grandfather declared MIA in Vietnam and the magical realist dream sequences in which he interacts with his lost Grandfather. It’s a badass book.

Beyond its literary merit Everybody Sees the Ants reminded me that we don’t always see the abuse. As hard as teachers try to be in tune with their students, as hard as parents try to know their kids, as hard as friends try to be there for one another, sometimes things slip through. The result can be disastrous and scarring.  After reading this book I vowed to try harder and follow up when I see students joking, pushing, shoving, and teasing. I have  made more of a point of checking in with students about the true nature of their interactions, and maybe I’ve prodded a little more than I have in the past.

Are you guys really friends?

Are you sure he’s just kidding?

Did she mean that?

Are you upset by that comment?

I try and give kids multiple chances to let me know what’s going on, and then I remind them that I’m here and I’m always willing to listen.  But still I know it’s not going to be enough. Nonetheless I try because I know sometimes that’s all you can do. I try, and books like this one are good reminders of why it’s important to keep trying.