As I mentioned a couple of months ago, one of my manuscripts is being read to all three classes in my grade level right now. Surprisingly enough I’ve heard next to nothing about it from any of the students. Though maybe it shouldn't be surprising, because several of them have been passing around a different manuscript for most of the year and even though nobody has volunteered opinions about it (and I fight the urge to ask what they think), some apparently felt strongly enough that they talked their talent development teacher into giving it a look. I guess this means I shouldn’t automatically interpret a seemingly non-responsive audience to be unengaged. Which frankly is something I tend to do, even here: I’ll read the comments as they show up on Facebook, and I’ll check the hit count for a post when I login to publish the following post, and I’ll usually use those two metrics to decide if I feel like what I wrote connected with anyone or if it just sailed by unnoticed. Such are the bottomless insecurities of a writer.
So it was nice yesterday when one of my girls asked if I was going to do a Q & A session with the students about the manuscript (Following Infinity, for those who know it) when it was finished. I am planning to, partly for my benefit as I prepare to revise it this summer and partly for their benefit since it’s an unusual opportunity for elementary students to be able to question the author about a book they just experienced with fresh questions and perspectives. And since all of that happened in the same time window I was thinking through the list of questions I’d asked for last week, it seemed like a good introduction into today’s version of the same thing. If reading through these answers make anyone curious enough to ask more questions later, I’m perfectly willing to do another round. Frankly, it makes for an easy post idea during this thirty-one day marathon, the hardest part of which has been coming up with a new idea every day that I hope people are going to find at all interesting. So if you think of any more, shoot them my way and I’ll collect them for another post. PLEASE. Until then, here we go:
If money was no object, what job would you love to do? I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. I distinctly remember a conversation with my father when I was in college, where I told him my plan was to teach during the school year and try to write books in the summer. Of course my naive early-twenties self was pretty sure those books would be published, but that’s essentially what I wanted for a job and what I’m doing now. Minus the publishing part....
Favorite childhood toy? Probably my Han Solo Star Wars action figure
who stayed in the rotation even after his head broke off.
Retrospectively it seems like a sign of things to come, but whenever
Erin and I would play Star Wars action figures we’d go forward in
whatever storyline we had with my added subplot that Han Solo didn’t
actually lose his head, but after some encounter with a bounty hunter
his head had been rendered invisible, and it had to stay that way until
they all caught up with that same bounty hunter and things could be made
right again.
"...and Justice for All” or “Master of Puppets?” “Master of Puppets,” just because the rest of the band was still hazing Jason Newsted during the recording of “Justice” and the bass is almost nonexistent in the mix.
What’s your desert island beer? Don’t have one. I cannot stand the taste of alcohol. I’m less than a week away from forty-five years old and I’ve never even been close to drunk before. I’ve had people I work with make fun of me for grimacing if I eat a piece of some kind of fancy-pants candy that has sugar alcohol as an ingredient because it tastes so strong to me.
When was the last time you didn't have facial hair? I think it’s been about four years. I stopped shaving one year during spring break out of laziness and when I returned to school decided to let some of it continue growing out. One of my girls walked into the room that first morning back to school, saw me and said, “What... is that?” I told her I was curious to see what a beard would look like, so I decided to let it grow out. To which she replied, “Okay. Now you know. So get rid of it.”
Would you rather live in a world without cheese or a world without movies? I know could get used to living without cheese. There was a time regular soda pop was practically the only thing I ever drank, and I haven’t had enough to fill even one can in three years. If I could break that, I could could get used to giving up any food.
What are your must-have foods? Elaborate. This kind of spins off of the previous question, and it’s hard to answer since my idea of “must-have” food has changed so much after losing over fifty pounds and keeping almost all of it off for three years. I literally cannot think of any foods I would categorize as “must-have” since I’ve learned to live with moderated sacrifice. I’ll get a lot of take-out or sandwiches since I live close to a lot of restaurants, and since I live alone cooking feels like waste of my time. The small bit of cooking I do isn’t based on what foods I really, really want to eat but more on how quickly I can get it prepared because I’ve got better things to do. I know there are a lot of people who cook for a hobby or to relax (otherwise I don’t think Pinterest would exist), but I’m just not one of those people. Having said that, I’d probably my list of top 5 foods would go something like this: bacon, cheese dip from Acapulco restaurant (even though I know I could give it up to keep movies), crab legs, Buffalo Wild Wings boneless wings (either parmesan garlic, honey barbecue, or teriyaki), and... okay, seriously. I can’t think of a fifth.
What are you afraid of? Two things, mainly: Something really going wrong with my house that I wouldn’t know how to handle -- plumbing is a particular sore spot for me -- and discovering out of nowhere that I had some chronic disease that I couldn’t do anything about. Since we are currently in the middle of my least favorite week of the year, I’ll let you speculate where that particular fear came from.
If you were a baseball player, what song would you have them play when you came up to bat? “When They Come for Me” by Linkin Park.
What passions do you have other than writing? Here we have a good challenging one because I think passions is a really strong word. Obviously my job is at the top of the list: For better or for worse, I believe that being a teacher defines me more than anything else. And anyone who reads Summer Vacation even semi-regularly knows how important music is for me. Reading branches off of writing so they’re related but different, and it’s easy to become passionate about a particular book if it works on all the levels I need it to. If you asked my fifteen-year-old self he’d say video games, particularly games that are so complex and challenging that they activate the problem-solving center of my brain and don’t allow me to turn away. I have to qualify this though, by saying that even if I’ll admit to owning an XBox, I can honestly say that I can go months at a time without even thinking of turning it on. But summer is only a few weeks away....
What do you think of driverless automobiles? I can honestly say I’ve never taken the time to consider them before. I think I’d trust them more than some drivers I know and less than some others.
So there you go with the first and possibly only round, unless anyone thinks of other things they’re curious about or just wants to see how much they can mess with me. I might be running out of ideas by the end of the month, so bring it on.
