Survivor Guilt, 2011 Edition

Posted on December 31, 2011 by José Iriarte
NewYear2012

Image by Billy Alexander

I’ve been seeing a lot of blog posts around talking about how 2011 was a terrible year, either for the blogger or for the world in general. I’m not so sure how terrible it was for the world–yeah, we saw lots of mayhem, police brutality, and bureaucratic incompetence on both sides of the political spectrum, but maybe that stuff has always been there, and maybe the only reason we were more aware of it this year is that people care more and are speaking up and documenting and trying to change things for the better.

I don’t know. It’s a nice thought, anyway.

For myself, though, 2011 was a pretty good year. I continue to be privileged with the kinds of classes and students that most teachers can only wish for. I continued to grow as a writer. This year I got serious about querying agents for my novel, won a scholarship to the Backspace Writers* Conference, got two offers of representation, and signed with an agency that is or should be at the top of every writer’s wish list. Yeah, I can’t complain too much.

Ratty Rat2011 is also the year I ditched my old blog and started this one, thinking that hosting my own site would give me a bit more room to grow. So, um, that’s a good thing too, right? <#crickets>  On, and hey, the website also got a mascot. That’s him on the right! Nifty, huh? He was a gift from my friend and fellow writing deviant, Jan Eldredge.

The year did have its share of down notes, of course. The economy still sucks and we’re barely getting by, just like everybody else. Last month our older dog was diagnosed with bladder cancer, so we’ll be very lucky if she’s still with us when I write this post next year. But for now we’re all here and all getting along. Could be worse, eh?

I seem to recall having asked myself at the beginning of the year what a successful year would look like. I don’t think it’s a good idea to set goals that are out of your own control. A lot of the blogs I’ve read this week have getting published in 2012 as a goal. I’m optimistic, but even if I do sell a novel or a story, that won’t necessarily be 2012’s accomplishment anyway. So more useful goals would be about what I want to do this year, not what I want someone else to do for me. On the other hand, I throw myself into teaching mind, body, and soul, so I worry about setting myself up for failure and self-loathing if my other goals turn out to be unrealistic, but what the heck, here goes.

In 2012, I will:

  • Read all the books listed here, or an equal number of books, anyway.
  • Not let two consecutive days go by without writing.
  • Not let two consecutive days go by without reading.
  • Not let three consecutive days go by without blogging.
  • Write my next novel.
  • Write at least six stories that come in under 5000 words.
  • Write at least three short stories (which can count for the previous goal as well) that come in under 1000 words.

So there you go, what I intend to do in 2012.What do you intend to accomplish this year? Or, if you prefer, how was your 2011?

 

*I won’t put the apostrophe, but I’m thinking it, dammit.

 

Posted in artist's life, bookish life, close to home | 4 Comments

More of a TBR Mountain than a TBR Pile

Posted on December 28, 2011 by José Iriarte
Piles of Books

Photo by Judith P. Abrahamsen

I have a confession to make: I’m a pathological collector of books. I buy ’em faster than I can read ’em. Especially if it’s on the discount rack–then if it seems at all interesting, into the basket it goes. Hey, I just love books–reading, writing, having, all of it.

I’m getting to the point where my To Be Read pile is spread out over several different rooms, and I can’t always remember which book I wanted to read next. I’d kind of like to, though, because sometimes I want to prioritize a book because it’s relevant to my own writing, or by somebody I know, or a continuation of a series I’ve been reading. So I figured that in the spirit of public accountability–or perhaps in the spirit of really easy blog content–I’d make a list here of *some* of my TBR pile. (That’s right: this is just *some* of it; specifically, the downstairs TBR pile, which is generally That Which Is Closer To Actually Being Read.)

I figure if Elizabeth Bear can get away with doing this on her LJ, then I can do it here.

I’m gonna try to post my list “after the break,” which is something I’ve never played with before, to spare folks on feed readers if you’re not interested. First, though, what about you? Have you read any of the books in my pile? Which should I move up on the list? What’s at the top of your list? If you also have a crazy long list, then just post it on your blog, link in the comments, and I’ll come marvel! Easy blog content for all! Hooray!

Continue reading →

Posted in bookish life, books you might enjoy, lists | 10 Comments

Seriously, Shepherd Boy, What the Hell?

Posted on December 25, 2011 by José Iriarte

I got to know this song way better than I probably needed to while preparing for my Candlelight Procession experience last week, and was struck by a verse I’d never really noticed before:

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know?

A Child, a Child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold.

Silver and gold is nice and all, but I bet a blanket would be of more immediate value.

XKCD Comic: Zeno's Advent Calendar

XKCD by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5)

Still, that got me to thinking about how the most salient characteristic of Christmas, if you go by popular culture anyway, seems to be consumption. And heck, the pile of presents we give our kids is ridiculous compared to what I got growing up. Sometimes I think we put too much pressure on ourselves as parents, friends, and spouses to make this occasion or that one AMAZING!!1!, and one gift could always backfire and not be AMAZING!!1!, so the only way to be sure is to bury our recipient with more gifts than we can really afford to be giving. And of course, all these gifts have the effect of making one a bit blasé about gifts, and so the whole experience becomes . . . unamazing.

Can you tell I’ve stressed about this a bit?

From there, though, I got to thinking about buyer’s remorse in general, and things I’ve regretted buying for myself. That seems like a more fun train of thought than your typical post on the commercialization of the holidays, so here goes:

Death Star Dishwasher

Shown: A machine to wash dishes almost as well as a less-expensive machine.

The most recent purchase that I regret is the new dishwasher we bought this year. Our old one stopped working after ten years of service; ten years is more than the expected lifetime of a dishwasher anyway, and Lowe’s had some cheap ones on their website, so it didn’t seem so frivolous to buy a new one instead of maybe bringing out a repair-person. But when we actually attempted to put our clever plan into action, the salesmen at the stores we visited saw us coming a mile away and smoothly upsold us to some crazy top-of-the-line death star of a dishwasher. (With stainless steel siding!) (But not smudgeless steel!) This dishwasher promised to do everything except physically put the dishes back in the cupboard for us. You know what, though? It doesn’t wash dishes any better than the bottom-of-the-line one we installed ten years ago did when it was new. What’s more annoying, ergonomics lost out to aesthetics when it came to designing this thing. I could get more dishes and such loaded into my old one with less wasted space. The new washer has a series of incomprehensible buttons hidden on the door, and I have no idea how to get the wash I’ve been accustomed to all my life, so I basically press them all and hope something good happens. I kid you not: washing the dishes now takes overnight. And on the topic of those hidden buttons, I have to painfully jam my finger under the lip of the counter to hit the START button.

A battery I bought (at my expense) for my school laptop this fall was the last straw when it comes to me buying any electronics from vendors that don’t have storefronts I can return crappy merchandise to. The battery looked right, but didn’t physically fit into the computer. I can’t help but wonder how many batteries this non-factory seller shipped out to people that never actually powered a computer at all. I’ve also, in the past, bought batteries that worked for a month or two and then died, or batteries that did not even remotely match the computer the website claimed they were for. And discount toner that came already exploded in the box. Returning things to those vendors is a hassle, and typically involves shipping at your own expense and a restocking fee. And woe to you if you fail to get proof of mailing: I had one internet vendor claim never to have received my return and thus not process my refund. I’m pretty sure my success rate with discount online electronics is less than .500 at this point, so with this battery I decided I’d had enough. Now I order stuff from Staples and have it shipped to the store, where I can immediately demand a refund if it’s not right.

Warning: Triggery stuff ahead. . . . Back during the first year or so of my career, alarmed by how quickly I was gaining weight, I talked myself into buying a membership at Bally.

Bally Total Fitness

Photo by Philip Beyer (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

And then I let myself get talked into buying a second membership for my wife. Perhaps you’ve heard of how sleazy sales practices at the gym are (or at least, were). We got sucked into a long-term committment. To add insult to injury, every time we walked into the place we were bombarded with high pressure sales attempts to get us to buy their amino acid products. And while one might argue they’re not to blame for this last bit, I also found going to this gym and dealing with the personal trainers to be one of the more humiliating experiences of my life, and so I quickly stopped going. It took like three years to pay off the debt, but I can count on my fingers how many times I actually crossed the gym’s doors. It would have been cheaper to simply buy an elliptical, a treadmill, a weight bench, or an exercise bike each visit. Yeah, I try not to think about the money I poured down the sink that time.

There are definitely other purchases I’ve regretted, but those are the most obvious ones that come to mind right now. What about you? What purchases have you made that you wish you could take back?

Posted in fail, first world problems, music | 8 Comments

No Test Left Behind

Posted on December 20, 2011 by José Iriarte
FCAT: $75 million Budget Cuts: $33 million Do the Math

Photo by John Stavely

Over the last couple weeks or so, many people in my circles were abuzz over this Washington Post article by Marion Brady relating the experience of a school board member who took a high-stakes test designed for high school students. The school board member reported knowing how to answer none of the math questions (while correctly guessing ten out of sixty) and only 62% of the reading questions, and questioned the relevance of the exams to students’ education, given that he, a successful businessman and public servant, had so little need in his own life for the knowledge tested by the exam. Brady used this as a launching pad for his own opinions on using high-stakes testing as a tool for evaluating teachers, and on how answerable test-backers were to criticism.

On reading this post, and on delving a little deeper into the facts behind this account, I felt . . . conflicted.

Conflicted because I agree that decisions about education policy are being made by politicians whose accountability is not primarily to stakeholders in education, and by politicians who seem in many cases eager for public education to fail, because they see it as but one more manifestation of the evil of big government. (And, you know, by people who have reason to dislike teachers, since they can count on the opposition of teachers’ unions in every election.)

And conflicted because my views don’t run in lockstep with those of teachers’ unions, and the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my ally. In fact, in the debate over high stakes testing, I’m not sure this Florida school board member is somebody we educators should be rushing to claim for our side.

Here is a little background, in case all you know is what was in the original Washington Post piece, and you haven’t been back to see the updates. First, before making dubious and possibly foolish claims about how arcane the knowledge on the exam is, we might want to look at some of the questions themselves: A sample of FCAT mathematics questions from the Washington Post is here. A sample of FCAT reading questions from the Post is here. More sample math questions, along with some analysis of this case by a college physics professor, can be found here. [Incidentally, I take issue with the slam at “educators” in the title of the Orzel post. I don’t care for the common assumption by college folks that those of us in the classrooms at the high school level and below are ignorant know-nothings.]

For all the FCAT’s many, many flaws, can anybody really claim that the math in question is high-level, esoteric, and irrelevant to most lives? Heck, some of those questions really tested nothing further than one’s ability to read a graph. And—for better and for worse—every single math question includes some kind of real-life context. None is simply an abstract math-for-math’s-sake kind of question. I think any adult who can’t answer any of those questions—none of them—ought to feel pretty embarrassed. More importantly than whether or not he should feel embarrassed, though, is this: if that’s too high a bar to set for our kids, then just what the hell are we teaching them?

For further background, here is a letter to Roach (the school board member in question) from Thomas Singer, an Orange County resident whom I don’t know, and here is Roach’s reply. Marion Brady replied to Singer as well, and you can read his thoughts here.

I think Marion Brady makes some very good points about the multimillion dollar industry that is high stakes testing, and I think he could bolster those good points by looking at Florida Republicans’ emphatic refusal to subject private schools receiving voucher money to the same testing. But I think his points about what kind of learning is and isn’t relevant to the lives of students rests on some very flawed assumptions. In his letter to Thomas Singer, Brady talks about his cousin the engineer, who reported that he could have learned what he needed to know to do his job in a week, and that his education was a waste of time and money. To which I say: Bull.

Not that I don’t believe that he only used a handful of equations in his day-to-day work. But to the idea that the someone without an education would be qualified to be an engineer with a week’s education in a half-dozen equations . . . yeah, that’s a bunch of crap. You could teach a reasonably bright nine-year-old to plug numbers into a complicated equation and get answers; education’s not about the acquiring and memorizing of equations. What education is about is critical thinking skills: learning when to apply this specific algorithm or that one, and understanding where to go look for the specific factoids that you need and don’t recall.

Look, I’m going to spare you my lecture on why what we teach is important. Anybody who’s ever had me as a teacher has heard it. Hell, there’s a whole facebook page where Doug S. complains about how tedious it was to listen to. Instead, I’ll link you to the livejournal of teacher and science fiction writer Jim Van Pelt, who makes pretty much the same argument I always make.

There is pretty much no bit of knowledge that is universally applicable to all jobs, so if that were really our bottom line, we would be teaching a lowest common denominator indeed. The thing is, education is not about inculcating in kids a body of knowledge that they will need in their jobs, but about teaching them critical thinking skills, and teaching them where to go to find the specific bits of information they need. And quite frankly, high school level math is an excellent medium for teaching critical thinking, and deduction in particular.

(As a side note, Brady claims in his reply to Singer that we should throw out this silly, useless curriculum and replace it with “extensive instruction in statistics.” The mathematics on the FCAT is all prerequisite to any kind of instruction in statistics. How can one hope to learn statistics with no knowledge of Algebra? Has Brady or anybody else actually examined this idea, or do we just think it sounds good? Requiring extensive instruction in statistics for high school graduation would actually involve raising the bar and likely failing many more kids.)

To bring this all back around to a point, it’s a really complicated issue, and most of the analysis I see seems to be all yay or all nay, when really there’s nuance here. Yes, I have problems with the FCAT; but I don’t agree that none of the math on it is relevant.

Roach asks the following questions, quoted in the Brady piece: “Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail ‘cut score’? How?” All of the answers to those questions are fairly public knowledge and a Florida school board member should know them.

On the other hand, yes, I absolutely agree that policy decisions are being made by people who are unaccountable to stakeholders, with end goals completely unrelated to bettering education in Florida.

Most importantly of all, I agree that test scores are a poor way to judge teacher effectiveness, because all I’ve ever seen is that teachers of honors classes have high pass rates and teachers of remedial classes have low pass rates. Teachers of wealthy kids are judged to be better than teachers of poor kids.* I have yet to see a metric that can take into account the varying levels of knowledge and motivation that kids bring in with them, and that doesn’t instead treat kids as identical empty containers.

And so I’m left torn here. Much as I think our legislators are sabotaging public education, I’m pretty sure that someone who says being able to figure out percentages and read graphs is not relevant to adult life is not the champion whose banner I want to throw myself behind.

More than anything else, I think this speaks to the way that our current public discourse sucks the nuance out of all issues and stances. Is my team the one that opposes high-stakes testing as the be-all and end-all of education, the one that thinks we should not be teaching to the test and that the test is an inadequate way to judge both children and teachers? If so, does that mean my team is also the one that believes that teaching math is irrelevant because it’s not relevant to most adults’ lives? Can I belong to one team and not to the other? (And it’s not just in education: Can you be a Republican and still favor gay rights? Can you be a Democrat and be pro-life? Does it seem like our soundbite society forces people to pick a side and be married to it in all things, lest you accidentally lend support to the other team?)

*Disclosure: I have a 100% FCAT pass rate over at least the past two years. And I work at an A school. Florida Republicans would therefore probably call me a master teacher, no?

Posted in math, teaching | 5 Comments

Jack Frost roasting on an open fire, chestnuts nipping at your nose

Posted on December 18, 2011 by José Iriarte
Me singing at the Candlelight Processional in Epcot.

Photo by Jan Eldredge, one of the two best photographers I know.

There may be people out there who’ve had more cool experiences than I have, but I’ve definitely been pretty lucky in that regard. I’ve met a lot of awesome people and had a lot of unique adventures, and last week I got to add one more to my catalog: singing at the Candlelight Processional at Epcot in Walt Disney World. I joined a megachoir composed of choirs from several local schools, Disney cast members, and Epcot’s own Voices of Liberty in singing Christmas hymns at the America Gardens Theatre, while a celebrity narrator recounts the Christmas story. I went as part of a combined student/faculty choir from the high school I work at.

I almost didn’t get to participate; I had food poisoning the night of our audition, and so I wasn’t guaranteed a spot. I was essentially an understudy, rehearsing and learning the songs just in the hope that I would get to sing. With so many people involved, I believed the odds of getting to sing were good, but I didn’t get the word until less than an hour before we took the stage. I don’t think the kids in our group realized I night not get to sing, but the faculty with us knew, and knew how deeply disappointed I was getting ready to feel. Luckily, things worked out like I’d hoped.

I’m a better than average singer, but choral singing really doesn’t play to my strengths. My vocal qualities and [lack of] training seem to make me better suited for singing pop, country, and showtunes. (Hence my love of karaoke.) When it comes to choral music, my poor breath support seems to be more of an issue, and I’m not really great at blending with a lot of other singers. I’m more equipped to belt songs out. On the upside, choral singing is more forgiving than solo singing. If I need to take a breath mid-note, nobody’s really gonna know. I don’t think I embarrassed myself, anyway.

Learning the tunes was no easy task. One might think, “Christmas songs . . . everybody knows them, so what’s the big deal?” But I had to learn these specific arrangements, and my specific part within these arrangements. There wasn’t a lot of rehearsal time for faculty, since we don’t have the luxury of 45 minutes a day given over to chorus class. We rehearsed on Wednesdays after our meetings, and I worked on learning my parts from a part CD during my commutes to and from school. Instead of biking like usual, I walked a lot during the last three months so that I’d have more time to go over all fifteen songs over and over again.

I get a high every time I’m in front of a crowd—stage fright isn’t a big worry of mine. This experience was made all the cooler by the fact that I was on stage at Disney World, which is a pretty special place to me. I also loved getting to hang out backstage at Epcot. I hope I get to do this again at some point–next time I’ll have a leg up on knowing my part!

Posted in artist's life, music | Leave a comment

Have you paid for your Wikipedia?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by José Iriarte

A few months ago I began using Write Or Die as a way to focus my concentration and boost my productivity. First I used it as a brainstorming tool, but in the last couple months, I’ve used it to draft new prose, and I’ve been pretty pleased with the results. If you’ve got Butt-In-Chair down but struggle to keep up the Hands-On-Keyboard part, I enthusiastically recommend this simple little app/applet. I primarily use the web-based app, and I set it to kamikaze, with a twenty-second grace period. Then, if twenty seconds pass without me typing in anything new, the app redirects my attention to the screen. Here’s where the kamikaze part comes in: this “redirection” is in the form of turning the margins of the page from pink to red and finally, if nothing new is typed, deleting the words I’ve already typed.

When I tell people about this, they’re often freaked out. One writer told me she didn’t need any more stress when it came to her writing, but the thing is, for me, there is no stress. I virtually never lose a word, because there is plenty of warning before this happens. So I don’t perceive any consequence, just a reminder of what I wanted to do with this time. The possibility of losing words is just there to keep me from ignoring the warning and checking twitter just one more time–to give the reminder some teeth–but it’s not like I live in fear of losing my precious prose. I just write for the half hour I typically set aside and then take a short break afterword, lather, rinse, repeat.

A couple weeks ago, when Written?Kitten was making the rounds, I saw a lot of people comparing it to Write or Die–heck, I did it myself, suggesting it was the “positive reinforcement” version. While I think Written?Kitten is really cute, though, it wouldn’t work for me, because it doesn’t do what Write or Die does for me–it doesn’t redirect me if I go off task. I could stop writing and stare out the window and, okay, I’d get no cute pictures, but there’d be no consequence either. I seem to benefit more from the negative reinforcement than from positive reinforcement.

A few weeks ago I was browsing the blog at Write Or Die when I ran across a post asking people about their preferences between the free online app and the $10 downloadable app. Because I have paid for and downloaded the app but still prefer the web application when I have internet, I was intrigued by the topic. In addition to posting my own thoughts and my reasons for preferring the web app, I read through all fifty million comments everybody else had posted. (Dang I wish Dr. Wicked would send a few commenters to my lonely blog.) It was a fascinating look into other people’s thought processes.

(For instance, a lot of people posted that they couldn’t justify shelling out $10 for a product they only use one month a year. It was eye-opening to see how many NaNoWriMo participants don’t aspire to beinig authors year-round, but just for thirty days out of every 365.)

A lot of people said they didn’t buy the app because they were students with no spending money, or because they can’t use paypal, or things along those lines. Fair enough. Some people thought ten dollars was simply more than the product was worth. Again, fair enough.

One thing I saw over and over, though, was the argument that there was no sense in buying the downloadable app when the online one was already free. I couldn’t help but wonder if those commenters thought the free app was paid for by their taxes or something. Advertising? (I see no advertising on the blog.) I couldn’t help wondering what conclusions, if any, I could draw about the file-sharing arguments I often see online from this unscientific sampling I saw in this one comment thread.

I do have other unscientific samples that seem to indicate that an enormous majority of people feel no need to pay for crowd-supported products when they’re available for free, even if they benefit from them extensively. Every year during Wikipedia’s donation campaign, they note that it would only take a small donation from just a fraction of their readers to end reach their annual goal. Similarly, Duotrope.com, another crowd-funded site I use, notes on their donation page that if each user donated $6.01, they would meet their goal for this year. Instead, only 18% of their registered users donate a median of $10 each.

Crowd-funded products aren’t free because they aren’t worth paying for or because their creators don’t need the money. They’re free because they’re predicated on a different consumer model: one where you as the end-user get to determine if the product really measured up, and if it was valuable, and then pay for the value you received, instead of one where you are forced to pay for something up front and hope you get your money’s worth. It’s like a show at a Renn-Faire where they pass a hat around afterward. The performers still deserve to be compensated for entertaining you; they’re just letting you decide how much that entertainment was worth. (And as an added benefit, yeah, that means that people who don’t have a ton of money can still have access to their products. If you can’t pay for something now, maybe one day later you will, or maybe you’ll pay it forward to someone else, or maybe you’ll help generate good word of )

I sometimes download software from C|Net that I don’t pay anything for–because in the end I don’t get much or any use out of it. But for the websites and products that enrich my life, yeah, I kick in a few bucks. Products or sites I’ve contributed to include Something Positive, Questionable Content, XKCD, Wikipedia, Write or Die, and Duotrope. That’s not an exhaustive list, just what comes to mind right now.

So what about you? Assuming you can afford it, have you paid for the “free” stuff you enjoy?

Posted in artist's life, assorted nerdom, writing | 2 Comments

On rejection: the artist’s constant companion

Posted on December 13, 2011 by José Iriarte

I found this awesome post by Chuck Wendig via Janet Reid’s blog:

25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection

In addition to being filled with excellent points, it’s funny as hell to boot.

This is my favorite part:

Rejections Are Proof You’ve Been To Thunderdome

Fighters know one another because they look a certain way: busted-ass knuckles, a crooked nose, a scar on the lip, the suspicious gaps where teeth once grew. These are the signs of being a crazy motherfucking bad-ass. You see a guy whose body is a network of scars you don’t think, “Hey, he sure gets beat-up a lot,” you think, “Holy fucksnacks, that guy looks like he got thrown into a dumpster full of broken glass and he came out meaner than ever.” That’s how you need to see rejection. You need to see rejection as bad-ass Viking Warrior battle scars, as a roadmap of pain that makes you stronger, faster, smarter, and stranger. A writer without rejections under his belt is the same as a farmer with soft hands; you shake that dude’s hand and you know, he’s not a worker, not a fighter, and wouldn’t know the value of his efforts if they came up and stuck a Garden Weasel up his ass. Rejections are proof of your efforts. Be proud to have ‘em.

Oh, hey: language warning.

Posted in link soup, writing | 1 Comment

My Current WIP

Posted on December 12, 2011 by José Iriarte

(Please don't write to tell me you're supposed to put in a single row and then work left and right from there. I know this, but had my reasons for having to diverge slightly from that plan.)

I’m not one of those people who can write 50,000 words in a month at the best of times. (Not yet, anyway.)  Still, while I did make a dent on a new manuscript last month, this is one of the many other things that consumed my attention. Last month my wife and I decided we’d finally had enough of the bottom-grade carpet we installed ten years ago, and were ready for something new. Now just what exactly that new something should be, we were a bit less certain of. We considered new carpet, we considered tile, and I guess we must have considered laminate for at least half a second or so. In the end what you see here looks and feels like wood or laminate, but it’s actually made of vinyl. We’re pretty impressed with how good it looks, and even more so with how little it cost. Most of all, though, we’re pleased with how easy it appears to be to clean.

On a semi-related front, our older dog was diagnosed with bladder cancer last month. Isn’t it funny how you’ll be rolling along, thinking you’re making progress on finding some financial and emotional even keel in your life, when something comes out of the blue to whack you back into the deep? Wait–that’s not actually funny at all.

I’m in kind of a weird place artistically right now. I’m very motivated to write, which is no surprise at all; I’ve got a bit more than I can handle on my plate right now, and those times always make me want to disappear into one of my made up stories instead of dealing with the real-world stress going on around me. What is a surprise is that I seem to be creatively dry at the moment. Usually when I’m motivated to write I’m also overflowing with ideas. I guess it’s kind of a mixed blessing that I’ve got nothing at the moment, because it makes it easier to concentrate on my day job, which probably needs all my attention right now. In less than a week it will be Winter Break, and I’ll be free to write as much as I want to then. For now, I just have to survive these last few days.

Posted in writing | Leave a comment

I learned everything I know about critting from this guy

Posted on November 4, 2011 by José Iriarte

My wife’s put up a couple good posts on being part of a critique group and how to give and take crits this week that seem to be generating some good conversation, so I thought I’d share a snippet of what my critting style is like:

Posted in writing | Leave a comment

On symbolism and author intent

Posted on November 3, 2011 by José Iriarte

The other day a friend asked what I thought of the way English teachers are always going on and on about symbolism. The whale symbolizes this; the letter symbolizes that; the snowman symbolizes this other thing. They’re just reading all sorts of things into it that aren’t really there, right?

“You’re a writer,” she said. “Do you really put symbols into your stories?”

Well, yeah, actually.

I’m not a heavy user of symbols compared to many other authors, and certainly not compared to poets and songwriters, but yes, I am a little bit conscious of the resonance that certain images have, and I do consciously try to make use of this, as a good way to amp up the power in a scene—to make it work on more than one level. Those of you who’ve read (or will someday read, I hope!) Vanishing Act: think it’s coincidence that a kid who feels ignored by his parents and pretty much anyone else develops the ability to disappear? Is it just a coincidence that his ability doesn’t work with Michelle? The disappearing is totally a metaphor. How about that bird Chris sees swooping down into a lake as he’s leaving the park after being dropped off with the Adamses? The bird’s prey is intended to represent Chris, and the way he feels trapped in Danny’s plan. Those of you who’ve read (or will someday read, I hope!) “Cabrón”: think it’s a coincidence that at the end of the story a girl named Cristina offers her blood to a clinical vampire, repeating, word for word, the words of the Catholic Mass (in Spanish)? I definitely intended to make that scene resonate more by employing Christ imagery. And like I said, I’m not a particularly heavy deliberate symbol-user.

But it’s more complicated than that. Symbols can be used inadvertently. Who says that if an author didn’t overtly intend something, it’s not really there? The fact is we trade in meaning and archetype whether we’re conscious of it or not.

And the reader plays a part in the creation of meaning. Art is a transaction between the creator and the consumer—after all, don’t we judge art to be good when it’s particularly effective at creating an effect in us? Well if the testing ground for art is in my head—and in your head—then you and I as art consumers are supplying some of those connections and resonances.

My favorite musicians are the Indigo Girls. (I’ll pause for a moment while you work your head around that one.) A lot of their songs are quite obviously symbolic and sometimes it’s not quite obvious what the real subject is. Whenever I see an interview in which Emily Saliers talks about the meaning behind a song, it’s always pretty much what I thought. But when Amy Ray talks about what one of her songs means to her, it’s often vastly different from the meaning I attached to it. And yet the meaning it holds for me is central to what makes it special to me. So who’s to say that I’m wrong? Maybe the song means what it means to Amy and it means what it means to me, and maybe there’s no contradiction in that.

Bringing this back around to the subject of literature teachers and their quest for symbolism, it’s worth noting that literature teachers who focus heavily on symbolism are naturally going to select books, stories, and poems that reward that kind of examination. So the fact that some writer says “Hell no, nothing I write is symbolic” doesn’t mean all literature teachers are full of hot air.  Naturally they’re going to gravitate to the stories that lend themselves to the sort of literary analysis they like to perform.

Which is where my thoughts on the matter become a bit nuanced. Yes, there is symbolism. Yes, it’s more widespread in art than some outsiders would like to believe. But art consumption and art appreciation is about so much more than the interpreting of symbols. Too many of the literature classes I had—in high school, college, and grad school—focused on symbol deconstruction as though that’s all there is. But literature can be studied for the surface techniques an artist uses to achieve an effect. Figures of speech, diction, assonance and consonance. Imagery. Characterization. The use of tension and conflict. The use of detail to flesh out a world. The moral quandaries the characters face. (And quite frankly, writers are more likely to focus on these things than literature teachers who don’t write, because writers know that enticing someone to continue reading doesn’t just happen by itself.)

If all you focus on is the deciphering of symbols, then you reduce literature to some sort of game, where artists play at encoding secret messages and sneaking them past those readers too concrete-minded to catch on. (And it really is like a game, and it’s a game I was pretty good at, back in my college days.) But symbols, as useful as they can be to give a story added punch, don’t change lives. Symbols don’t make a reader question his or her assumptions, or see life from another person’s perspective. A symbol probably won’t make you laugh out loud, and pretty definitely won’t bring you to tears.

And isn’t all that stuff what art’s about?

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