Column: Invitation Only by Mandy Brown Houk

             As you might know from my earlier columns, I teach creative writing at a small private high school. My most complained-about but most successful class requirement is that the kids write for at least twenty minutes, five days per week. Early every school year, the kids are plagued by the fear that what they write won’t be “any good.” The first few entries in their journals are a mess of scribbles and erasures; I’ve even had journals returned to me with pages torn out, so horrified were the students with what they’d produced.

            A few days before school started this past August, I had an epiphany. I bought a box of Legos and took it to school with me on that first day. Once we’d made our introductions, I dumped all of the Legos in the middle of our conference table and told the kids to build something – one construction per student. Sure, they looked at me like I’m crazy, but I’m me and they’re teenagers, so it’s expected.

            As they slowly started to pick out Legos and fit them together, I strolled around behind their chairs, observing them and nodding. Then I swooped in and took a blue Lego out of one boy’s hand and told him, “That’s not going to be a good color scheme. You shouldn’t add it.” I tossed it back into the pile.

            The reaction was immediate (and hilarious). Since the first day of school is always about sizing up the teacher, I could see in their faces that they were pretty close to horrified. As soon as all the students had turned their attention back to the Legos, I swooped in again. This time, I actually took a girl’s assembled pieces from her hand and took a couple of bricks off. “I don’t think that’s a good shape.” I smiled into her bewildered face and handed the pieces back to her.

            I repeated this until I’d disturbed each student at least once, and then I finally grabbed one student’s nearly-finished masterpiece and said, “Augh—you need to just start over with this one. I don’t know where you were going with that.” I separated every piece and dropped them all back into the pile, leaving the student alarmed and empty-handed.

            At this point, all the kids stopped and didn’t look like they’d be starting again any time soon. Which was perfect.

            “So,” I said, nodding toward the empty hands of the student I’d just accosted. “What’s she got now?”

            There were murmurs, out of which I picked out the word I was looking for: “nothing.”

            “Nothing,” I repeated. “That’s right. And the rest of you have less than you could have if I’d left you alone. Right?”

            There were grunts of assent, and kids glanced at each other, trying to sort out precisely what kind of a weirdo I might be. When they quieted down and I knew they were listening, I said, “That’s what your inner editor does.”

            I went on to explain that, when they were supposed to be writing (building), they needed to focus only on that. They could not invite the inner editor to the party—building up and tearing down can’t happen at the same time.

            I gave each student a Lego to take home that day, to place on their desks where they could see it when they sat down to write—to remind them of who was not invited. I don’t know what they decided about my sanity, but I do know one thing: this year’s class did a lot less erasing, scribbling, and tearing-out those first few weeks. That’s worth the price of a few Legos.

About the Writer:  Mandy Brown Houk is a freelance writer and editor, and she teaches at a small private high school in Old Colorado City. She's written for several magazines and anthologies, and has completed two novels--only one of which is worthy of the light of day. Mandy's work is represented by Sally LaVenture at Warner Literary Group. Her web site is www.mandybrownhouk.com.

            

Showing Up by Mandy Houk

“If I waited till I felt like writing, I’d never write at all.” – Anne Tyler

When I first signed up to teach a high school creative writing class, my number one priority was to get the kids to write on a regular basis. That might sound obvious, but I had learned over the years that, even for those who profess a love of writing, a daily appointment with pen and paper is not a given.

Today, four years later, I’m still teaching, and even though the collection of students changes every August, I have the same approach—along with the same challenges.

My approach is to require twenty minutes of “free writing” per day, five days per week. I provide each student with a composition book (a sentimental throw-back to my own early elementary days, when my love for writing was born), and I try my best to make clear in the first class session what “free writing” means. It takes a bit more explanation than one might expect. I get questions like, “Can we write poetry?” followed immediately by, “Do we have to write poetry?” Also, “I can’t spell—do I have to spell things right?” Or, most often, “What if I don’t have anything to say?!” This question, which comes up every year, is almost always uttered in a shaky voice, from a student whose eyes are wild with panic.

I try to reassure them that the key word in the phrase free writing is free. All I ask is that they show up physically, with pen and comp book; and that they show up mentally, with open minds and imaginations. They can write about what they had for supper, or how stressed they are about exams. They can write about a conversation they overheard—in fact, I encourage that one. Eavesdropping is a writer’s lifeline. My hope, of course, is that the muse will strike at about minute 15 or 16: the student will stop checking the clock and stop musing about what they want for dessert, and will take off on an inspired tangent in which a grandmother decides to poison her neighbor with toxic pound cake only to do herself in when, out of habit, she licks the beaters.

What the students don’t know, and what cannot simply be told to them, is that this kind of inspiration really will happen (heck, I came up with the poison pound cake just now—and I like it, so it’s getting kind of tricky to stay focused on this article). What they also do not know, and what I simply will not tell them, is that, for every quirky little story (like one student’s bit about the food-gang wars that go on when he shuts the fridge and the light goes out), there will be eight or ten ramblings about homework and the weather and little brothers and chores.

The students moan and whine for the first several weeks of class, sure that I’m either insane or sadistic to place such a burden on their delicate young shoulders. I’ve even received emails from parents, hinting or outright stating that writing should be organic and natural and not forced, and such a regimented approach can’t possibly be the best way to teach.

I don’t win over every student (or parent). There is usually one student who is still moaning at the end of the year. And that’s okay. Because there are others whose writing habits are changed forever by the simple act of regularly showing up to write. In my first year of teaching alone, I had two students that did not take my class by choice—they just needed the credit. At the end of the year, one of those students had discovered a love for poetry and filled his pages with truly beautiful stuff. The other student had started writing compulsively, even on the weekends when it was not required. I ran into her just a few weeks ago at a restaurant in town (three full years after she graduated), and one of the first things she said was, “I’m still writing! I just keep buying composition books and filling them up!”

What these kids have learned is this: writing is organic and natural and can’t be forced. But inspiration is not going to chase you around and tackle you. And it’s also not going to wait until you’ve got access to a pen and paper or a laptop before it pounces (how many times have you thought of something brilliant when you’re in the shower or the car or somewhere else impossible, and later, incredibly, you can’t recall what it was?). Inspiration is elusive and tricky and unpredictable, and if you’re going to be a writer, you have to outsmart it: show up. Show up at a desk or a coffee shop or your own kitchen table, equipped with a blank piece of paper and usually an equally blank mind. Sometimes only drivel will result. But other times, inspiration will fly unwittingly into the trap you’ve set, and there you’ll be—ready and waiting.

About the Writer:  Mandy Brown Houk is a freelance writer and editor, and she teaches at a small private high school in Old Colorado City. She's written for several magazines and anthologies, and has completed two novels--only one of which is worthy of the light of day. Mandy's work is represented by Sally LaVenture at Warner Literary Group. Her web site is www.mandybrownhouk.com.

Beginning Writers: The Great White Tunnel by Mandy Houk

            If you stare at it long enough—and who hasn’t?—a blank page can begin to look like a long, vacant tunnel. More ominous, I believe, than a deep, dark, black one. In a black tunnel, there is the promise, or the delicious threat, that something is hiding in there—something you have only to stumble upon and discover. A bright white tunnel, though, seems to have no secrets. No hidden treasures to find, explore, experience.

            That Great White Tunnel is literally nothing without you. Terrifying, isn’t it?

            Learning to face the blank white page is hardly a problem exclusive to beginning writers. No matter how many years someone has been plugging away at this craft we call writing, the blank pages don’t get any less blank. The difference between a beginning writer and an experienced one is simply this: the experienced writer has been here before. The feelings of inadequacy, impending doom, and who-do-I-think-I-am-ness are familiar. The experienced writer still feels all of those feelings, but he or she has learned to push past them. Eventually.

            There are likely as many solutions to the problem of the White Tunnel as there are struggling writers out there. I can only share what works for me. (By “works for me,” I mean, “keeps me from dissolving in a gigantic puddle of tears.”)

            First, I keep in mind a quote from Nora Roberts: “You can’t edit a blank page.” Every writer knows that first drafts are awful (Ernest Hemingway famously said, “All my first drafts are s***.”). The real art of writing doesn’t happen until you’re revising. So my first goal when stepping into the Great White Tunnel is to litter it with lots of little black letters, like tossing cracked black pepper in front of me as I go. On particularly fear-inducing occasions, when my mind feels as empty as the tunnel appears, I might even start out with whining. In my character’s voice, of course. She might complain that I’m waking her up. He might rant about another character’s annoying habits. Whatever gets them talking.

            After the first few sentences, I have a finger-wrestling match, trying to keep my right pinky away from the delete button. About 99% of the time, whatever I’ve got on the page is truly, horrifyingly awful, and the despair I was feeling before I started tossing all that pepper only intensifies. When the page was blank, at least the idea that I was a hack was merely theoretical. With the first few sentences, though, that theory is in the process of proving itself, and I desperately want to go in reverse and feel fear again rather than disgust.

            In order to win the finger-wrestling match and tame that stubborn pinky, I often have to speak out loud. I start with that trusty Nora Roberts quote I mentioned earlier. In particularly stressful situations, I’ve been known to revert to elementary school favorites: “Shut up, Stupid-head. Just shut up!”

The goal here is to remind and promise myself (and my pinky) that I have no intention of letting another human’s eyes fall on the awfulness I’ve thus far produced. I will just keep working to fill up that page, decorating the tunnel with cracked black pepper. In the meantime, I’m praying fervently that my character will say something useful, something inspired, even something shockingly obnoxious. Anything that will get my mind and imagination on the track that was hidden under that snowy whiteness all along. Something that my pinky finger wouldn’t dare touch. It won’t be brilliant; it won’t be polished and immune to revision. But it will be enough to get me rolling. It’s as if the tunnel’s opening were a steep, uphill climb, and if I can muster enough courage and strength to push on, I’ll not only find the track, but I’ll find the crest of the hill!

After that? Hold on. It’s quite a ride.

About the Writer:  Mandy Houk teaches high school writing and freelances as an editor and author. She's sold several nonfiction articles and stories, and placed in a couple of short fiction contests, but she has yet to break into book-length fiction. Her first novel is safely and appropriately in a deep, dark drawer. Her second is seeking a home with a literary agent.