October 2013 - Page 2 of 7 - A Brave Writer's Life in Brief A Brave Writer's Life in Brief
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A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Thoughts from my home to yours

Archive for October, 2013

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Inner voicing

Manresa Beach 2
At Manresa Beach
Inner voice—like writer’s voice—needs freedom to make mistakes. When you want to give your inner wisdom a voice, it helps if you experiment in an internal freewriting kind of practice. That means you can’t judge the content quite yet. The emotional grammar police aren’t allowed input. Friends who “know” the right format for your life (as deadly as foisting a five paragraph essay structure onto autobiographical narrative) need to be gently shushed. They mean well, but they are not you…they don’t know what your inner self is trying to articulate.

It’s taken a long time for my quieted, judged, mocked, misunderstood, ignored, reproved, overlooked, shamed voice to emerge…a wee bit. Hard to believe, I know, given how naturally I speak in front of a room, how easily I monopolize phone lines with detailed introspective comments to close friends. I ooze verbal confidence which hides my self-doubt.

Listening to inner wisdom is not the same as talking about insights. The process is somewhat similar to how writing must feel for lots of people. One of the hardest things about writing is the anxiety that Mistakes Will Be Made. That need to get it all down correctly on the “first go” has paralyzed the writing voices of many verbal people. I know that my writing voice isn’t hampered by bad punctuation or mistaken content or self-indulgent ranting.

But I have treated my inner wisdom differently. I was told for years that I can’t trust myself, that I needed an objective measure to avoid Making Big Mistakes. I worried: What if I’m wrong? What if I stake my life on my beliefs and it doesn’t work out?

But I should have asked: What if in the tiny, every day ways I ignore warning bells (emotional exhaustion, tedium, wrenching pain, loneliness, hopelessness, confusion, contradiction between logic and experience)? What then?

I applied “formats for living” to my unique life, trying to fill in the blanks according to Life’s Instructions. You know how you write an essay that must have a thesis, supporting paragraphs with points and particulars, proper evidence and proofs from reputable sources, and a resounding conclusion that will lead everyone to your conclusion, conclusively!? That’s how I’ve treated my life, much more than my writing. I’ve scripted my inner wisdom by supplying it a list of rules, outcomes, supreme authorities and source materials; then I told it to get busy voicing and concluding.

What I’ve needed, though, is to permit illegal thoughts, hunches, concerns, worries to percolate to the surface where they could sunbathe, get a little light on them so they wouldn’t be so pale.

For instance:

I let people bully me. I assumed if someone took the trouble to tell me my motives, they must know something about me I didn’t know about myself. Confusion and self-doubt would swoop in. Then I’d fight off the anxiety with defensiveness, but in the end, often capitulated to their vision of me.

Now, if someone tells me who I am or what I think, I stop them. If they don’t come from a place of curiosity, humility and kindness, the content is irrelevant to me.

To write my life with my inner voice means risking relationships, it means making mistakes (over-asserting a boundary, not creating a strong enough one, experimenting with my values, disregarding what someone else says matters, making something matter that doesn’t).

To freewrite with my inner voice requires quiet. Running without headphones, sitting on a bench over looking the river, turning off all the ambient sounds in my home (the humming computers, the X Box, the radio…).

To follow one’s “gut” (inner wisdom), you don’t need reasons to act. Reasons can be sorted out later (and sometimes delay action). Better to act on your inkling first because sometimes that’s what saves you from injury (emotional or otherwise!). Being “nice” is not a reason to ignore what you “hunch” inside.

I’ve bumbled along in this quest to be authentic, self-protecting and nurturing, other-oriented and generous. I’ve over-extended, I’ve miscalculated, I’ve used a machete when a scalpel would have been better. I’ve slaked my thirst with sugar drinks when I needed water. But that’s the nature of free voicing.

Wisdom comes in the revising phase… it’s not all at once, it’s not neat or tidy or even correct at the start. It’s most certainly not arrived at in a first draft. Inner voicing is a process that includes reacting instinctively without always understanding why, and then slowly gathering meaning along the way.

I tell our writing students all the time that “writing voice” simply means that their writing sounds like them. When I read what they write, whether they are joking around or crafting sophisticated academic papers, the ring of “who they are” comes through the writing. That’s writing voice.

It occurs to me that living by your inner wisdom may be similar: You’ll know that what you “voice within” is true to you when your life looks like who you are.

In homeschooling, it takes courage to trust your hunches for you and your family, to risk the days on a newly budding philosophy, to forge a path that is unfamiliar, to shed the familiar structures when they aren’t producing aliveness and learning.

Freewrite with your life—this week, one day, for an hour. See where it takes you.

Posted in Julie's Life, Writing about Writing | 3 Comments »

Brave Writer spotlight: Sarah

Freeing of St. Peter

 

From Brave Writer mom, Kerry:

Hi,

Sarah is 11 [and attends] Bridges Virtual Academy. [Her] curriculum is science based for the most part, because that is where she finds a lot of joy.

I spontaneously created the project [above]; I was tired of seeing her bored with heavy writing projects. I am inspired by the Brave Writer lifestyle and am grateful for the emails and blog posts that Julie shares. They are a gift. I find that the more trust and freedom I give Sarah in writing, the more beautifully she does.

The cards came from this set.

Lots of opportunities for learning, we worked on the following:

Capitalization of proper nouns
Spelling
Adjectives
Interpretation of a subject
Visual cues from artists
Perspective
Renaissance
Saints

In the end her only question was, “Why did St. Peter need to be freed?” which I found quite witty. She decided on her own to categorize the adjectives into “The angel” and “The background.”

She’s a busy girl and a great student, I am so proud of her.

All the best,
Kerry

Image The Freeing of St. Peter (cc)

Posted in Brave Writer Lifestyle, Students | Comments Off on Brave Writer spotlight: Sarah

Friday Freewrite: Weird dream

Dream by Jacek Yerka“Dream” by Jacek Yerka (cc)

Describe a strange dream you’ve had.

New to freewriting? Check out our online guide.

Posted in Friday Freewrite | Comments Off on Friday Freewrite: Weird dream

The “Now it All Counts” Moment

The Now It All Counts MomentThe following note was sent to me after I posted about the ideal curriculum for a six year old:

Julie,

I loved the post today. How would you answer the same question (more or less), to the homeschooling parent of a 13 and 14 year old……the 14 year old with learning challenges and the 13 year old, bright in some areas, yet rather unmotivated if anything challenges him. When I say to my kids, “if you aren’t happy pursuing learning this way, we can look at schools” neither is particularly interested. However, it seems as if they know one is not “supposed” to like “school” and that has transferred to not liking most things that challenges them or looks like learning. On top of it all, I try to fit schooling between one’s major commitment to a sports team and the other’s need for physical therapy and a few classes — so it’s not like we are hanging out at home all day, whatsoever.

Anxious about preparing my kids for HS and College, but still having fun.

I call the crisis Melinda describes: The “now it all counts” moment.

Rather than continuing the joy of learning through experience, encounter, and exploration, most of us (me included!) suddenly panic and whip out the textbooks and quizzes, thinking there’s some better preparation for college than the one we’ve been creating all along!

Let me put it this way: The academic preparation for college can be as experience drenched and exploratory as the early years. It can include encounter with new instructors and new opportunities for involvement in the local community and abroad.

There’s just one primary difference.

Whereas the early years are marked by kinesthetic learning practices, the teen years are marked by risky thinking and a headlong dive into abstraction. Your job with an older child is to ensure that that teen is getting a thorough introduction to the wide world of ideas, particularly ideas they can encounter firsthand in other people, places, and writings.

What to do? Try this list.

Read a diverse authorship: men, women, young, old, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, western modern writers, western ancient writers, non-western writers – both modern and ancient, immigrants and natives, all religious points of view and non-religious, diverse political points of view, including the ones that frighten you.

Read a wide variety of writing genres: prose, poetry, political rhetoric, rants, speeches, novels, popular non-fiction, not-so-popular ancient non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, cartoons, scientific treatises, credible research, propaganda, biased reporting, “objective” reporting—which doesn’t exist, but there are at least some contexts with that aim.

Watch a wide variety of films and television: Get caught up in a big series like The West Wing or Mad Men. Watch Pride and Prejudice in all its versions. Work through the Criterion list of classic films, one at a time. Write movie reviews for Rotten Tomatoes as you do.

Be a patron of the arts: Go to musicals, art shows (local and national), specialize in one artist and learn all you can about him or her, expand your horizons with opera, the symphony, folk dance, ballet, serious drama, a rock concert. Listen to their CDs, ask them to tell you about the lyrics and music and why they love it. Be curious, not judgmental. Share back what you love, same way.

Get into nature: Hikes, trips to see the National Parks, camping, backpacking, outdoor rock climbing, bird watching in a new place with real birders, identifying all the flora and fauna of your part of the world, photographing it and cataloguing it. Go to the beach, go to the plains, go to the mountains.

Encounter real human beings: at your place of worship, at someone else’s place of worship, actors and actresses, engineers and musicians, lawyers and doctors, mechanics and plumbers, artists and athletes, coaches and tutors, the elderly, the physically challenged, the mentally disadvantaged, politicians, activists, your next door neighbors, people in foreign countries (go there).

Converse about all of these: over dinner, in the car, through email, in online discussion, in a youth group, at a discussion group hosted at your house, through an online class, in an in-person class at a local high school or JC.

Write about it: autobiographical narrative essay, expository essay, exploratory essay, journals, Facebook status updates, Twitter tweets, texts, letters to supporters or family when you travel abroad, essays for college admissions, timed essays for the college admissions tests, blogs, Tumblr, fan fiction sites, online gaming discussion groups, Reddit…

Advance in math and science: Yes, you must! Find someone who knows these subjects that can give them the life they deserve—co-ops where dissections are done in groups, junior college, high school, your house if you’re the science person! Tutors for math—go as far in math as you possibly can. Totally matters—take it seriously, pay for it if you have to.

Take Advanced Placement course and exams: These are tests for subject matter that will allow your kids to be in college with credits already stacked up. The AP courses can be done in small groups, or in schools, or independently with materials. Optional, but excellent for any kid wanting to be an honor’s student in college.

Have Big Juicy Experiences: That’s right! Send your kids abroad, send them to Habitat for Humanity so they can build houses for the disadvantaged, take them to Italy, visit the elderly (make a friend), put them on an elite sports team (ultimate frisbee, lacrosse, golf – not just soccer and baseball), enroll them in a theater or dance company, put them in a marching band, send them to culinary school, apply to a foreign exchange program like AFS, let them apprentice in graphic design or car mechanics, help them build sustainable domiciles in your backyard or cross-breed fish in your pond. Teach your teens everything you know about gardening or hanging drywall or painting sunsets or photography or your heart language of Latvian. This is the time for your kids to be all that they can be!

SPEND TIME with your teens! Most of all—talk to them, ask questions, get them talking. Don’t tell them what to think or believe, ask them what they think of believe. Ask them more, ask them why, ask them to show you how they got to that viewpoint (sources, conversations, readings). Be their mirror, not a sledge-hammer of fact.

Do all of this while you drink tea, read poetry, give bear hugs, check up on each other online, send silly texts, and hand them $20 bills as they head out the door…because you love them and you want them to have what they need to explore the big, wonderful world they are about to take over and shape.

If you need help with special needs—get it! That’s the key! Get them the help they need, ask for their feedback about what is and isn’t working.

Remember: they decide if they are going to have an education or not as teens. You can’t make it happen. All you can do is offer—”Have you read this?” “Did you think about this?” “What do you think about this?” “Want to go here, with me?” “I’d love to go there with you.”

Like that. Dialog, friendly, open, energetic!

Our teens: the future of our planet.

Be good to them. Enjoy them! They are so amazing. Truly. It’s going to be okay.

Brave Writer Online Classes

Image by Willeecole | Dreamstime.com

Posted in Email, Homeschool Advice, Tips for Teen Writers | 3 Comments »

Best Curriculum for a Six Year Old

Brave Writer Best Curriculum for Six Year Old

From a dear local Mom:

Hi Julie, I’m in Cincinnati and regularly follow your blog posts and was wondering how you structure homeschool so it will be fun? My son is six and we’re jumping back into school gradually (using your method of focusing on one thing at a time) but he’s already saying he hates school and sighs when I just bring out the little math book and ask that we only work on it for five minutes... Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide. ~Cincy Mom

Hi Cincy Mom!

The best curriculum for a six year old is face paints and dress up clothes.

Read aloud.

Go to the art museum here. Use this post as a guide to how to enjoy art together.

Sign up for zoo passes and during the fall season, go once a week.

Visit the library every single week. Let him pick out story books, you pick out books, you create times to read together on the couch, you have poetry teatimes together.

Count cracks in the sidewalk, blue houses, red cars, all the jellybeans you can hold in two hands at once, cups of sugar to bake muffins.

Play with Playdoh—make all the lowercase letters of the alphabet. Now make all the uppercase. Say the sounds as you do and try to make every sound seem like an animal is saying it. Or every Star Wars character.

Buy Lego sets.

Take nature walks. Find a field guide and look for birds to match.

Jot down the incredibly cute and funny things he says to you and read them aloud to family or friends.

Play with pencils and pens and crayons and white boards and paints. See what it feels like to write in big sloppy ways and small careful ways.

Using a big paintbrush with water: write names on the hot concrete, and little messages as they vanish in the sun and read them to him.

Make pictograms and see if he can guess your messages.

Put away the workbooks.

Put away the schedule.

Be with your son the same ways you have been since he was born. If you homeschool, get rid of “school” and focus on home.

Add brownies.

Read as much as you can here.

If you want some support on how to make this journey, try our Jot It Down product. It will be the one thing that may save you from over-schooling at this tender age.

Let go. Relax. Trust. He’s so young. Be curious about the world in front of your son.

Hugs to you, conscientious Mama. You can do this.

Julie


The best curriculum for a six year old
is face paints and dress up clothes.

Click to Tweet


Jot It Down

Posted in Email, Homeschool Advice, Young Writers | 15 Comments »

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