Archive for the ‘Brave Writer Philosophy’ Category

Mega case of writer’s block

I’m just a wee bit obsessed with clarity in writing, especially on my own website.

Which inevitably leads to writer’s block and I’ve got a gi-normous case right now. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect reassuring comments from fans. Writer’s block feels like jogging a mile in concrete boots, or shaking and squeezing the goopy remains of catsup from the bottom of the crusty Heinz bottle, or hauling a toddler on each hip while pushing a stroller with a crying baby in the hot sun uphill… and the hill turns out to be a sand dune. Yeah, it’s a lot like that.

Did I mention I’m in the middle of a site redesign? Not dissimilar to: Doing plastic surgery to my own face with a mirror and a manual written in code using a dull butter knife to make the incisions.

In addition to having to learn an entirely new platform for website creation (and all the headaches of CSS, templates, CMS, web trees, site navigation etc.), I’m rewriting the content of the old site to make the new site user friendly. Ha! It’s more like owner-hostile currently. For instance, tonight I worked on the home page. You know, “When I think of home, I think of a place where there is…. love overflowing.” Not so fast Charley.

As I clicked ‘save’ after making my meager entry, the page morphed into something utterly different than I had last seen it – with borders and color changes and fonts in sizes I had in no way intended! I back tracked, and trekked through the muck of the inner guts of the web page becoming more and more astounded that every time I checked the home page, it looked different again.

By now, I was not writing, nor was I editing. I was pulling out my grey hairs in fistfuls. And then Bing! A little bell rang to let me know my email had received a delightful note from the designer. “Don’t mind me. I’m messing with the home page format right now.”

Oh NOW you tell me!

So yeah, no wonder words aren’t exactly oozing from the word place within. They’re being hi-jacked by perspiration and panic attacks… and my webmaster, apparently.

In addition to the undertaking of a newly designed website, I thought I’d test my heart, adrenal glands and sanity by adding an entirely new platform for our online classes. I tell you, this new education software rocks! It’s just so much more (what’s that favorite geek-speak term?) “robust” than the forums we’ve been working to death for the last six years. But yes, you got it. More design questions. Another walloping learning curve. And did I mention… we’re right down to the wire on when it has to be installed, skinned, uploaded and integrated? (Can you believe what a load of uninspired vocabulary we have to use in the web world?)

All that to say… I’m plumb tuckered out and all out of words. If you’ve emailed me in the last three weeks and I haven’t responded, please send your question again. My email inbox is overflowing and I might not find it amid all the “check this” and “check that” emails by the web guys I rely on to save me from myself.

Oh, and I think you’ll love the new site. 🙂 Can’t wait to unveil it. Should be about ten days away.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, General | 2 Comments »

Reading aloud

We sat on cold tile floors, Jon lounging in a blue caftan, extending his 6’4″ body over a couple of red pillows for comfort, while I leaned my back against the concrete walls, upright, to better hold open the pages of the novel. The Far Pavillions by M. M. Kaye brought us spices and India, romance and war. I read aloud to Jon sometimes for three hours in a day while we waited for the hot, slow summer weeks to roll by so we could leave the country and head out to sunny Spain for our missionary camp.

The Far Pavillions wasn’t the first book I read aloud to Jon. When we were engaged, I read Shogun to him, every page. Reading aloud became a shared point of connection and escape. We eventually worked through several of James Clavell’s novels, most of M.M. Kaye’s and a few of John LeCarre’s.

Once we returned to the states, life became hectic with the increase of children, Jon working away from home, homeschooling. When I had just given birth to our fifth child, we decided to give it another whirl. We read aloud in the evenings after the other four kids were in bed. Instead of TV or videos, we’d snuggle in blankets while I’d nurse Caitrin, and Jon would read to me. Eventually, I’d yank the book back from him as he has this habit of getting so wrapped up in the story, he starts skipping words in order to get ahead. It’s not as much fun for the listener at that point. 🙂

What is fun, though, is reading together. Even today, while we don’t have as much time as we once did to read aloud lengthy novels without interruption, we still find ourselves reading aloud bits of articles, paragraphs out of books, quotes, poems, essays. It’s not enough to say to each other: “Read this article when you get a chance.” For some reason, we just have to do it out loud and talk about it right then and see the reaction of the other person as we are reading or it isn’t the same.

Reading to our kids, then, was a no-brainer. And it never occurred to me that a time might come when they were too old to be read to. After all, I’d been reading to a full-grown male for most of my married life!

With the approach of the release of the final Harry Potter book, my kids are at fever pitch around here trying to determine how many copies we must purchase in order to make it possible for as many people to read it at once as want to. I’ve read all six aloud, the first three twice (at two different times to two different sets of our kids). The older kids want to read the newest book right away, to themselves. But the younger ones have already asked me to read it to them like I’ve done with the other six books.

I’m glad.

There’s something about that shared time that transcends reading to myself.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, General, Living Literature, Poetry Teatime | 2 Comments »

Email: Feedback on the Zipline

Brave WriterI sent yesterday’s blog to the Zipline (our free email newsletter for which you can sign up on the home page of the website). In response, I received emails sharing personal stories! Here are two that I thought you all would want to read for yourselves.

Dear Julie,

I just have to comment! The best thing I EVER did in our homeschooling adventure was to permanently shelve all the curricula that “teach real writing”. It happened when my incredibly verbose but extremely “grapho-phobic” (syn. “reluctant writer”) third-grade son just kept on staring at a blank page trying to come up with something to write about “Tom the Thanksgiving Turkey”.

“I don’t care about Tom the Turkey. It’s a stupid assignment.”

Well, do you blame him? Frankly, I didn’t care about Tom either! In fact, I was tired of the tense times associated with writing. So, we shelved it all. Instead, we concentrated on reading, and talking, and letter writing, and more talking, and more reading. At times, he dictated to me what needed to be recorded. I felt a bit negligent, and, on occasion, did look over my shoulder to make sure the Writing Gestapo wasn’t snooping around.

A breath of fresh air blew in when I attended your workshop on Helping the Reluctant Writer. Validation at last! I bought The Writer’s Jungle and have never looked at another writing curriculum since.

Fast-forward seven years…My reluctant writer is as competent with a pen as with his persuasive tongue! Last year, I did purchase the Help for High School, and he worked through it pretty much independently. Since the axiom “think before you speak” has always been important in our home, organizing thoughts on paper for academic writing has not been an issue. I do have to admit, he still doesn’t write for fun. However, what he puts on paper is fun to read (even essays).

Here’s the cherry on top from my now 16-year-old young man. “Mom, I’m glad we did all that Brave Writer stuff. I can just sit down and write whatever I need to write. It’s just no big deal anymore.”

Wonderful, because he is starting college courses this fall. 🙂

Here’s to REAL and ALIVE writing (even essays and reports)!

Victoria

And ironically, the other one I want to post is by another Vicky:

Julie,

I would just like to add my 2 cents in support of what you just wrote. I have 2 boys in college- one at MIT and one at UVa, both homeschooled the whole way. They are obviously very smart guys, and tested well. However, using every writing program under the sun, (except yours), I slowly taught them to hate writing.

My 10 year old was a natural writer, until I started teaching her writing. She was following the road of hating it too. Then I discovered you. For 2 years, I just used your blog and free suggestions. I just recently purchased The Writer’s Jungle and use it loosely. My girl has rediscovered the joy of writing. As a result, she wrote a 20 page research report (4th grade) on carnivorous plants, and a 30 page book utilizing as many words as she had never heard or learned the meaning of, incorporating them into a delightful saga of the adventures of her beloved pets. These were her own ideas, and she would beg to do them. I didn’t need a language arts, vocabulary, or spelling program, or even literature as she would teach all these things herself in her delight with her own writing creations.

I too feel a bit of fear that maybe she is not getting everything she needs but she tests at a college level in language art skills and I suspect the less I intrude upon her natural drive to learn at this point, the better off we all will be.

I cannot emphasize enough that writing programs, good ones, were killing her desire to write.
Thank you from the bottom of my weary 14 years of homeschooling heart.
Blessings,
Vicky

I want to pull out two quotes to highlight them:

I can just sit down and write whatever I need to write. It’s just no big deal anymore.

And:

I cannot emphasize enough that writing programs, good ones, were killing her desire to write.

I always love feedback so if you have more to add, please feel free to share.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email, General | 1 Comment »

Notes on a Sunday

My brain is swirling with thoughts about writing this morning. I’ve had a lot of email lately from Brave Writer fans and new-to-Brave Writer moms asking me questions about how and why we do what we do in Brave Writer. So in no particular order, here are my thoughts on a Sunday morning.

Price: Some moms think Brave Writer courses and materials are a bargain. Others can’t understand how we charge so much for The Writer’s Jungle or for a digital download. I don’t want to go into a long apologetic about price here, but a few thoughts occurred to me to share because I think it helps people to understand Brave Writer and me better. The materials I create for Brave Writer are entirely original, created and written by me, or by someone I trust who I’ve specifically hired to write for Brave Writer. I don’t resell books by anyone else, I don’t warehouse curricula. Brave Writer materials are only available through Brave Writer and one other reseller at this time. Also, we do virtually no advertising. What that means is that we are self-published and our customer base is almost entirely word of mouth. We aren’t a big curricula company or book reseller.

It’s entirely possible to learn how to write without using our resources. I’ve listed in many places the books I use to help me write, the books I’ve turned to that enhance what I teach. I’ve also shared extensively the principles of writing on this blog, on my website, in the public forums and through email lists. I spend enormous amounts of time reading about writing, teaching writing, studying writing, and writing for publication every week of every month of every year. This is what I do in that so-called “free” time people think mothers have (which you all know we don’t :)). I stay current with trends in writing, in composition, in academic writing, in creative writing, in craft. I take what I read and study and learn, what I use and find beneficial in the writing I do, what I find valuable in teaching others, and translate all that input into user friendly materials specifically designed for homeschooling mothers. I invest the time you don’t have to create products that make it easy for you to teach writing.

The Brave Writer community, compared to the size of the homeschooling market, is tiny. I like it that way. It helps me respond to your emails in as timely a manner as I can (if you don’t hear back from me in a week, always email again because sometimes emails slip through the cracks). It means I can continue to teach classes and not just administrate a business. It means I can interact on this blog and the public forums. I’m convinced that no materials teach writing like human contact with a writer. My products are my attempt to reach out through cyberspace to hold your hand or to respond to your questions or to show you a new window where you only saw a wall. They are backed up with a promise of support.

Other books and materials about writing end on the last page. There’s no chance to interact with the author or to get additional support from a community if you need it. Brave Writer wants to be different in that way. To offer that level of support, we determined prices that make it feasible for me (and for Jon) to be working for you all the time. We offer a variety of products at different price levels (and even courses that are shorter and longer, cheaper and more expensive) to accommodate a variety of budgets and lifestyles. If you’re on a tight budget and don’t know where to start, I suggest picking up the free copy of the Arrow on our public forums. I also suggest searching Scratch Pad (our public forums) and typing in the word “Jabberwocky.” You’ll find a free Scratch Pad writing course I taught in 2005 that might give you some ideas of how the courses and philosophy work. And you can always purchase one copy of The Writer’s Jungle and share it back and forth between two friends. I homeschool. I understand how this works.
And remember: The Writer’s Jungle comes with a money-back guarantee if returned within eight weeks of purchase.

Questions: The foundation of all good writing is asking good questions. As I wrote the Arrow, Boomerang and Slingshot issues for July (about myths and legends, book reporting and textual analysis), I became aware of how often I listed questions for the reader to answer. The best way to grow in writing is to ask the text questions. If that is not your child’s habit, you’ll want to help him or her learn how to do it. The interrogative process is the foundation for quality writing. Narrating has its place, but learning how to dig more deeply into novels, myths, movies, poetry, and history is what translates reading into learning. As your kids get older, the questions become more probing. I just loved writing these issues and look forward to hearing from you about how they suit your families.

Painting: Summer means painting in the Bogart household. Painting means books on CD or songs from much-loved musicals blaring through the house. If you’ve got a painting project ahead of you, I strongly suggest a trip to the library first. Use it as a chance to add a bit of culture to your summer home maintenance projects.

Museums: They have air conditioning. Therefore they make a great destination during these hot months. If you make viewing art a natural part of your life (not just a school habit), you’ll find that your children come to love it for its own sake (rather than cordoning it off to the “school” part of their brains). We’re heading to Chicago late next week and museums are high on our list of desired activities (and a long bike ride by the lake shore too, I imagine).

Tomorrow: We’ll announce the fall course schedule, the book lists for the language arts subscription programs, registration details for both and some exciting news for fall. Stay tuned!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, General | Comments Off on Notes on a Sunday

Thursday Thirteen

#13: Several times a month, my cell phone rings, I answer it and the caller on the other end says, “Oh, is this Julie? I didn’t think I’d get you.” And I suppose if I were a conniving business woman, that would be the point at which I’d say “Unfortunately I sent the entire staff on vacation to Miami and so I’m taking all calls for Brave Writer for just this week. Aren’t you lucky?!”

#12: How do you paint two bedrooms at once? Simple. You move furniture, clothes, and bedding back and forth between the two rooms, dripping paint on the carpet and comforters as you go. Easy.

#11: “So You Think You Can Dance” is like watching paintings that move. It is easily the most satisfying competition show I watch all year. I loved seeing the rumba, cha-cha and a ballet-like dance that featured a hummingbird and a flower last night.

#10: One phone conversation went like this: “I was at a baseball game last spring talking about my frustrations with writing when another mom asked if I homeschooled. When I said yes, she said, ‘Then you should try Brave Writer. We love it.'” Nothing makes my day like hearing that Brave Writer comes up on the sidelines of kids’ team sports.

#9: Some couples talk about politics. Some talk about religion. In our house, Jon wakes up and turns to me lovingly and says, “What about The Sound and the Fury? Do you think Brave Writer kids would read it?”

#8: Postage went up. I just noticed.

#7: I’ve spent this month reading about legends and mythology. The more I read, the more convinced I become that the ancients of every culture had imaginations far superior to any blockbuster movie producer. A God creating the world through hatching himself out of an egg and shaping the top-half of the shell into the sky and the bottom half into the earth? And how about the Aborigines calling that lost long ago time: Dreamtime? Gorgeous.

#6: I’m scanning photos of my daughter’s life for the obligatory tear-jerking slideshow for the “Send-off to College” party. In between scans, I thank God, my husband, my dearest friends and family for her life and for sharing her with me.

#5: No matter what I regret, I never regret homeschooling.

#4: Confession: I love to reread my own writing. I reread my blogs, my books, my papers, my journals. I don’t reread any journals from France (where I wrote over a thousand pages of boyfriend angst and homesickness and one cannot tell I even inhabited a place called France).

#3: I miss Italy. As July approaches, I dread realizing that it will have been two years since we took our family on the “trip of a lifetime” to Italy. The sunlight slants differently there. The gelato is more flavorful. And the artwork litters every church and archway. Plus, Rome’s Hard Rock cafe… rocks.

#2: Jon turns 50 in August. He doesn’t want a party. Any suggestions for making it special?

#1: I’m grateful for our Brave Writer community. Your notes, phone calls and enthusiasm keep me going!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, General | 6 Comments »