Fighting For the Right Word

I had a memory trigger today while I was writing a post for Middle Grade Minded; it will go live tomorrow if you’d like to read it, and I hope you do. It’s called “Dear Middle Grade Minded: How to Write for Middle Grade.” In this post I tried to answer a question one of our readers sent in, asking about online writing classes we might know about that could help someone learn to write a book. While writing my response, I used one particular word — infested — that I have something of a history with, dating back to my freshman year of college. 

It was the last few weeks of my freshman English class, part of that first battery of seventy or so credits that felt all too much like High School Plus. Most of the class was about writing, so I went into it feeling pretty sure I’d be able to sleepwalk my way to a good grade; try to imagine the insufferable overabundance of confidence I would have been carrying at eighteen years old. When I saw the professor liked to make points about what worked in our writing by reading different examples of student work, I started showing off more than a little to make sure she would bring up my name more than once. (This had a lot to do with my trying way too hard to get a cute redhead named Jennifer sitting three rows away to notice me. Again, eighteen.) My writing did read somewhat frequently, which had as much to do with me as it did with most of the others in the class being business students who planned on having careers where their assistants would do most of their writing for them someday. 

The final paper of the course was a contrast/compare exercise. I chose to write about the two most popular pizza places back in my hometown — Dino’s Pizza and The Pizza Station. My paper clearly favored Dino’s for several reasons, the biggest being it was just beyond the edge of town. This made it next to impossible for junior high kids to get to since they couldn’t drive, while The Pizza Station was only a twenty minute walk away from the high school and whatever home game was going on that weekend. 

In trying to illustrate how much better it was to go out with friends at a restaurant not filled to capacity with loud and obnoxious newly-minted teenagers, I made the creative choice to describe The Pizza Station as being “infested” with junior high kids. Our professor had a significant problem with this. 


“Oh, no,” she said. “‘Infested?’ That’s really not the right word at all.”

“No,” my cocky young self replied. “It really is.”

“Oh, I don’t think you want to use that,” she continued. “Calling a restaurant infested is too negative of an image. It makes it sound like this place is filled with insects.”

At this point, one of the non-traditional students in our class, someone we all kind of looked up to because the guy was a real adult after all, spoke up. “That’s the point he’s making,” he said, gesturing back toward me. “You wanted comparison. He’s telling us that having a pizza joint full of thirteen-year-old kids would be just as bad as having it full of insects.”

“No, I’m sorry, I just don’t see that point at all,” she continued. Her high heels would have been dug into the neutral-colored floor tile if her legs had been strong enough.

Anyway, things ended in a draw, with her strongly encouraging me to find a way to revise the passage and me being convinced it was already perfectly communicating my point. Apparently we both felt very strongly about this, because I left the word in the final draft, and circling it was the only note she left on the paper for me, along with a big red “B” on the top of the first page. One word I wouldn’t budge on, one dropped grade on my final. 

When I decided to use “infested” in my post today, I didn’t hesitate, but I did think back to this exchange. And I felt a tiny bit of smug satisfaction about it. My esteemed professor didn’t like the word, and here I was including it in a post written for a website regularly visited by any number of people in the publishing community. 

I suppose if I got this far, my instincts must occasionally serve me well. So all these years later, I’m just going to say this:  

I was right.

*mic drop*

The Only Thing That Ever Has

I’m home enjoying spring break today. The day so far is kind of aimless; since it’s March 14th there’s a good chance I’ll go buy myself some pie because why not, even though I think the whole Pi Day thing is overplayed. Otherwise I’m not doing much more than half-paying attention to the news I have on in the background. It’s covering, with limited commercial interruption, the school walkouts happening around the country, as students protest the decades of inaction regarding gun control that has gone too far in defining the tone of their generation.

The experience of high schoolers in the 21st century is nothing like what it was for me. I grew up in what was, at the time, basically a farm town. Our rural surroundings and the hard-working, church-going populace made for, at least on the surface, the kind of simple and bucolic life the Tea Party Republicans of today likely lie in bed at night dreaming about. For us, surrounded by what seemed like oceans of corn fields, city life always seemed more adventurous, if not dangerous, the kind of existence where the simple concentration of the population made it all the more likely for you to encounter the gang and gun violence we heard about on MTV. Of course, nobody made the connection that most of these farmers walking the school halls in their flannel shirts, blue jeans, and work boots probably had more guns in their homes than most of the people living in the city. For them, it was all part of a proud tradition.

For the record, I am in favor of reasonable gun control. The closest I’ve ever come to firing a gun outside of a video game was some kind of air rifle on a shooting range at a Boy Scout camp one summer, because I guess it was the kind of thing someone decided wholesome youth needed to experience. If people feel the circumstances of their lives have led them to feel safer having a gun in their home, that's their choice. If someone hunts, I have nothing against that. As long people acknowledge guns are dangerous and they take necessary safety precautions to protect their loved ones, it’s their right. Beyond that though...well, they’re called assault weapons for a reason, and I have yet to be convinced they're necessary for anything other than military use. 

I had a professor who once predicted that if America ever found itself in another civil war, the primary catalyst would be the abortion/choice issue. While I could see the logic behind her argument, and still do now, I think that, at least in the political environment we’re currently muddling through, gun control could be just as incendiary. Both issues have people on both sides with strong and polarized opinions. Both issues have people arguing a tone of life and death. The adults of America have locked themselves into a continuous spiral of disagreement over power and economics and the claim of values that allows for little to no room for compromise. 

Maybe it really will be up to the next generation to make something happen. It’s been too easy for gun control opponents to dismiss the protesting teenagers as being "just kids," but let me use my teaching experience to clear something up here. When I send my 5th graders off to middle school, I usually never hear from them again. But sometimes circumstances bring us together, even for short periods of time. Maybe I’ll cross paths with them somewhere in town, or I might get an invitation to a high school gradation open house, or I might see someone’s accomplishments celebrated in the local paper. 

There is far more to this 21st Century generation than Tide Pods and Demi Lovato and Snapchat filters. They see the global culture and the future evolving right in front of them at a pace difficult for us older folk to relate to, and they see it as both a challenge and an opportunity. They are formidable. Look at what a small group of them, thrust into national leadership roles they never asked for, have been able to accomplish in a month, protesting the social climate that has allowed for school shootings to become morbidly commonplace, with little more than their anger, their ambition, and their passion to guide them.

Political pundits are currently focusing a lot of discussion on how the make up of our national leaders could change after the 2018 midterm elections. I’m optimistically thinking even further ahead than that. I’m curious to see what will happen as these kids come of age and show us even more of who they are and what they can do.

They could be the ones to save the world from itself.

All That's Yet to Come

The past few days have been filled with deep thoughts for me, coming from several different directions.

Most of the things I post on Facebook usually fall into one of two categories — either pointless jokes to try and make people smile, or more thought-provoking topics that might generate conversation. I made two posts this past week that sparked the kind of discussion I’m usually hoping for in that second category. One was contemplating the nature of true friendship, while the other evolved into a lengthy chain of exchanged compliments.

Following that, there was an evening this past week, after the end of the school day, when I was caught up in a deep conversation with a colleague. She had spent much of the past year working through a serious illness, and apparently a comment I made had helped precipitate a small emotional breakthrough for her. We spoke about it for quite some time, comparing our experiences from different perspectives, and considering how seemingly random occurrences can become formative influences in how we think about our lives.

Yesterday was kind of a big day, being the birthday of a close friend. It was a milestone birthday of sorts, since it’s the second one to have come and gone since he died last year. Similarly, today is also kind of a big day, because it’s a milestone birthday for a very close cousin, one who is more like a sister to me, and I know the idea of her birthday will be a presence throughout my day. 

Last night I finally made time to watch a new music DVD I have, the video of a concert I attended with one of my best friends a couple summers ago (we were even in one crowd shot for nearly two seconds!). It was a performance of one of our favorite bands reuniting to play one of our favorite albums live, for the first time ever. It’s an album that holds great personal meaning to me beyond just enjoying it musically, because it provides so many connections to experiences and memories related to the time my sister was dying.

Later today I’ll be at the visitation for the mother of a friend and colleague. Knowing this is coming up gives the time before the vaguely mournful feeling that follows the passing of any loved one, but as my friend has said repeatedly over the past few days, her mother had lived a long life and was ready when it was finally time. I try to see situations like this as, at least partially, a chance to celebrate the life that has passed instead of grieve it, but the fresh pain of the loss and the pervasive sense of absence that follows always carries unavoidable moments. I know she’ll be feeling some of those in the coming weeks.

So, like I said, it’s been a week of deep thoughts. This got me wondering: Why is it people tend to associate the idea of deep thoughts with things more related to death and sadness than happiness and life? Maybe when life is going forward as we expect it to, we don’t have to think about it. We don’t have to question what happiness means because we’re just caught up in how it feels, and we’re glad to be in that state. We know we’ll eventually have to navigate more challenging times, but in those better moments it’s enough to know that happiness is defining our present, whether or not we take time to acknowledge it. I think that’s why the compliment post generated the reaction it did. I don’t know if we typically allow ourselves the chance to either appreciate the things happening to us in those better moments, or the positive things that the people surrounding us bring into our lives. We just get used to accepting they are there.

On the subject of birthdays, and of over-reflective thinking, I’ve got my own landmark birthday coming up this spring. It doesn’t have me feeling old or spinning off into an age-related crisis of any kind; I’ve come to think of getting older as having another year of life my sister never got to experience. Birthdays are usually low-key and relatively unimportant to me, at least when they’re mine, but this one feels like there’s intrinsic meaning beyond what I would assign to it. I’m not sure it means I have to celebrate it with a fancy sheet cake covering three square yards or anything, but (much to what I’m sure is nobody’s surprise) it has me reflecting. Not so much contemplating things like missed opportunities or regrets, even though many of both are scattered throughout my younger days. Instead I’m thinking more about the time ahead. I don’t believe so much in the idea of a bucket list, but I can certainly think of life experiences I would still like to have, that because of procrastination, hesitation, inhibition, self-doubt, or circumstances at least partially outside of my control have eluded me so far. I’m hoping to make this year into one that could start me on the path of exploring more of those things.

Maybe achieving that could be as simple as proactively deciding for things to be that way. Maybe it could come from having been alive long enough to reach the point where I finally know better. 

Maybe it will come down to being bold and vulnerable enough to do things outside of the norm, like purposefully acknowledge the better moments, or just offering people the compliments they deserve which would usually remain unspoken.