Reading

A good epic is good to find

sashikaufman

A good distraction is good to find, especially in the form of good literature.  When I’m sick; cold, flu, whatever, I always pick up the Grapes of Wrath.  It’s one of my favorite books regardless, but there’s also something about joining characters on a quest or a journey that distracts me from whatever I’m going through.   

Right now I’m reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  It’s the epic tale of twins Shiva and Marion abandoned by their parents and raised by two doctors at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The voice and plot are engaging and transporting.  And, it’s over 500 pages.  I’m hoping it will take me through my due date.  So far it’s been the perfect escape from my uncomfortable and ungainly body, but I recommend it for anyone looking for a terrific read.

Your favorite escape books?

School, Writing

Teacher and writer

sashikaufman

Being 9 months pregnant is not necessarily a great time to evaluate and judge one’s life choices.   However, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing life and my teaching life.  They intersect in some wonderful ways.  Teaching adolescents definitely gives me an ear for how they speak and what’s interesting to them.  On the other hand teaching is also incredibly draining and often leaves me too pooped to write at the end of the day.

I’ve often said/thought that if I won the lottery I still wouldn’t want to write full time.  I’m definitely a social animal and I enjoy the structure and community that school creates.   I don’t really want to see teaching as my “day” job and writing as my dream, mostly because it’s just not true for me.  They’re both fulfilling to different parts of me.

Perhaps this is coming up as I think about the time and energy that this new person is going to require from me, and I’m wondering how my writing life will survive and emerge?  It doesn’t help that everyone loves to tell pregnant people to enjoy their alone time because it’s the LAST TIME THEY’LL EVER HAVE ANY!  People just love to have something to say.

Day job or dream job?  How do you negotiate it all?

Uncategorized, Writing

Music?

sashikaufman

So I’m counting down to the arrival of my latest work in progress; that would be our baby, due to arrive sometime around the end of this month, beginning of next.  I’ve been working on a “birth plan”, a kind of wish list for how I would ideally like this labor to go.   There are templates for this sort of thing on-line that ask you to consider everything from whether or not you want mood lighting to whether or not you want an epidural.

Music has come up as a topic because at first I was adamantly opposed to having any during labor.  I’ve never been a person who could focus if there was music in the background.  When I’m riding in the car with someone I have to choose between conversation or music.  I simply can’t do both.  This is odd, because in most other parts of my life I am an incredibly competent multi-tasker.

I’m always interested to read about writers who have playlists for their novels; songs or albums that they listened to incessantly while revising or grinding out that first draft.  I know that if I tried to listen to music while writing the lyrics would end up interspersed between the sentences and nothing would make sense.

Lately though I’ve been thinking that music might be just what I want during labor.  It could be that I don’t want to be so present in my mind, so focused on exactly what I’m experiencing, and music could be just the thing to distract me.

Music while you work?  Does it work for you?

School

Top secret info.

sashikaufman

My students find it very irritating that I don’t know the gender of my baby AND that I refuse to tell them what we’re thinking about naming it.  Here was the latest exchange today.

Student:  So you really don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl?

Me: Nope

Student: Do you know what you’re going to name it?

Me: We have some ideas, but they’re top secret.

Student:  Really?  You’re not going to tell us?

Me: Nope, we haven’t even told our parents our ideas!

Student:  (appreciatively) Ooh, that’s sassy!

School

Styrofoam balls

sashikaufman

Today in class we were using styrofoam balls and the overhead projector to recreate the phases of the moon.  I had the boys go first since there weren’t enough balls for everyone to go at the same time.  I’m very careful when discussing this demo to avoid referring to the props in the plural form.  Here were a few of the choice comments:

Student:  Hey, tell him to move.  His head is blocking our balls.

Me: It’s time to switch and give the girls a turn.

Other student:  Should we give the girls our balls?

(Must keep straight face.  Must keep straight face.)

Uncategorized

Know thy characters

sashikaufman

One of my favorite parts of writing is getting to know my characters.  The best way that I’ve found to do this, is to write.  As I write I learn what they would and wouldn’t do, say, and think.  That said, there are always characters I know better than others.

Someone once told me about a writing exercise for getting to know a character when you write down twenty things you know about that character that may or may not have relevance to the plot of the story you’re writing.  In all honesty, I’ve never actually done it.  But it sounds like a really good idea.

One of the challenges in creating realistic YA characters is that often we’re writing about these characters at a very confusing time in their lives.  It’s easy to say; “Oh my character is still figuring out who s/he is.”   However, this should not be an excuse for the author not knowing their character.  If your character is confused about their identity, wants, needs, dreams.  It’s your responsibility as the author to have a pretty good understanding of where the confusion lies.

An author I think does this particularly well is Sara Zarr.  She creates really authentic well drawn teen characters.  Her characters can be confused without giving the idea that it’s the author who is confused.  Can you think of other authors who fit that description?  How about books you put down because the author didn’t seem to have the first clue who their characters were?

School

Wise beyond their years…sometimes

sashikaufman

On Fridays I like to share science-related current events with my students at the beginning of class.  Last week I shared a story about the Asian Carp, an invasive species threatening the Great Lakes ecosystem.  The article suggested that if carp were to become a more common food source in the American diet, than a fishing industry could develop that would help alleviate the problem.

To which one of my students responded by putting up his hand and saying:

“Oh great Ms. Kaufman.   There’s a really American solution to the problem….we’ll just eat our way out of it!”

Writing

Writing Life

sashikaufman

I’m always interested to read on blogs and in interviews about other writer’s writing processes.  I’m always a little wide-eyed at the people who bang out 2,000+ words a day.  I tend to go by the two pages rule.  Two pages is my minimum.  I don’t get to write every day.  But when I do, I try and go by the two page minimum.  Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes, sometimes 2 hours.  But I try not to get up and move on with my day until that’s accomplished.

I think it was Stephen King in his terrific book called On Writing who emphasized the importance of sitting in the damn chair.  As in, you’re never going to do any writing if you’re thinking about writing, or planning on writing….or blogging about writing for that matter.

School

I am a living lab.

sashikaufman

I am a pregnant science teacher.  Seven and a half months pregnant to be exact and I’m studying the human body with my 7th graders.  Lately I’ve been referring to myself as the example a lot.  This definitely gets their interest but I can tell they’re simultaneously horrified.  I do tend to gesture to my mid-section when explaining, for example, how the baby and I could have a different blood type or that being pregnant can increase your blood pressure or respiratory rate.

I can see the fear in their eyes.  Please don’t let her say uterus, they’re thinking.

Oh god and whatever you do, please don’t let her say vuh, vuh, they can’t even think it.

And I wouldn’t.  I don’t teach the reproductive system.  Still I enjoy watching them squirm at the possibility.