Upside Down World

I was talking with my co-conspirator partner in crime colleague about how strange this world is in which we're working. I mean the world of educational assessment publishing, and specifically, what this world is like for writers.


In the real world, so many writers are writing, so many books are published. Writers are writing and writers are getting published, and the goal of getting published is a worthy one for a writer. Otherwise why write? Presumably a writer has something he or she wants to say to the world. Or at least say to a reader, or to as many readers as a writer may somehow cajole onto the page. All well and good.


And yet in that real world, the average book might sell 300 copies. (I don't know how many copies my first book sold, but I do know the print run: 1500. That number broke my heart when first I heard it.)


Here in this world, a story a writer writes may be read by thousands of children. Over the many years I've been writing in this world, considering the hundreds of stories, poems, articles I've written, I'm certain it's no exaggeration to say my writing has been read by at least a million. A million readers! Can you believe I'd never considered that until now?


Ups the ante, don't it?


You know what else ups the ante is that our readers, unlike most readers, who are at liberty to set the book down and walk away (or throw the book across the room, as I once did with a book I found deeply unsatisfying), are a captive audience.


Which makes our intention all the more important. The primary intention is to put something on the page that will allow those captive readers to show us what they know. If we can interest and entertain them while we do it, all the better. The only way to do that is with good writing.


The intention can't be simply to get published--because in this upside down world, what does it matter? One might have a million readers, and yet no fame. (Ahem, not naming any names, that would be me.) If I were in for fame, I'd be playing a different game.


Sometimes I think about the writer's quest to publish like I do about a college degree. Some of the smartest people I know never went to college. Some of the very best writers I know haven't published much. Getting published seems to be more a matter of sticking with it than evidence of the quality of one's writing. If a writer be determined to get published, I'm sure that writer will eventually find a market that will do it. Water finds its level. Every pot has a lid.


CORRECTION: I just had occasion to look at one of my reprint contracts. For one story alone, the print run was in excess of 2 million. My (captive) readership is at least triple what I'd estimated. Dang. The weight of responsibility, eh. I'll do my best to rise to the occasion.

The Nonsense of Inspiration

There are those . . . who think that the man who works with his imagination should allow himself to wait till--inspiration moves him. When I heard such doctrine preached, I could have hardly been able to repress my scorn. To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting.
. . . I therefore venture to advise young men who look forward to authorship as the business of their lives, even when they propose that that authorship be of the highest class known, to avoid enthusiastic rushes with their pens, and to seat themselves at their desks day by day as though they were lawyers' clerks. . . .                                       Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography

Anthony Trollope wrote 47 novels, 2 plays, 18 books of nonfiction (travel books, biographies, literary criticism, social commentary), and a pile of short stories--all apparently without the aid of inspiration.


I share Trollope's scorn for the nonsense of inspiration, but in me it is probably just envy. I write for a living. I can't afford the luxury of waiting for inspiration.


Then again, I never did think about nor talk about inspiration, even long before I wrote for a living. I always hated talking about writing. Writing is one of those things that one just does. (In those days, I wrote in the middle of the night, when the household was dark. It never felt particularly inspiring to be writing at two o'clock in the morning, it just felt compulsive. Or obsessive. Or both.)


There's something so disagreeably preening and precious about talking about writing, especially if one be a writer.


I hated talking about writing, but I didn't hate listening to great writers talking about writing. One might be fortunate enough to find oneself in the presence of someone who knows a great deal about writing (as I did in college), and then the only sensible thing to do is listen. That someone for me was Mr. Mudrick. Now there are several people in my life who can talk about writing to me, and I listen. All ears. They have something to say of value, and I want to profit by it. They rarely do talk about writing, so one has to be wide awake not to miss the flutter of that bird on the wing.


In my work, sometimes I must talk about (or write about) writing. I try to think of what might be most important for (new) writers to know. When I see problems in manuscripts, I try to talk about how to address those kinds of problems in writing. Because that's the only way to make the work better: to be willing to look at the problems in one's work and then go at them like a terrier after the tennis ball that rolled under the couch.


This kind of talk, being necessary, isn't as horrible as the preening writerly conversations are horrible--there's craft to writing, there's technique, there are methods of accomplishing different purposes. These conversations can be absorbing. How did this writer create this effect, how did that writer create that tone. There are choices to make, there's intention. This gives you a lot to think about.


But that's not the same thing as waving one's inspiration like peacock feathers. My experience leads me to believe that those who talk most of their inspiration (and, God help me, of their muse) are most likely those whose writing one feels least inspired to read. 

The Ritual of Reading

I've been slow to embrace e-books. My first exposure came late: it was the textbooks I received as pdfs when, in 2009, I enrolled in prerequisite classes for sommelier certification. (I can't say I greeted the innovation with enthusiasm. Nor did the other students, all of whom printed out the whole dang thing to put in a 3-ring binder. There's something ludicrous about the sight of cloth-covered tables bearing wine glasses, spit buckets, and 3-ring binders.)

For someone who doesn't read e-books much, I sure do have a bunch of them. I blame the free section at Amazon's Kindle store.

My disinclination to read e-books isn't based in Luddite ideology; I love the concept. Whatever brings good is good, to my way of thinking. E-books make it easy for people to acquire and carry books. That I could carry my entire stock on an iPad is a great and wonderful thing.

I don't, though. Instead, I have stacks. Because, like probably everyone who loves to read, I have too many books for my bookshelves. How appetite often exceeds capacity, eh.

I like books. I like to look at the covers. I like pages, and I like how books are printed in different type. And even though the weight of books can become a burden, I like that weight.

And there's a ritual in reading an actual book.

Last night (or very early this morning), the dog and I made our rounds of the house. We checked on the sleeping girls and the sleeping lovebird, and we made sure the windows were locked and drapes drawn. During the rounds, I picked up a book I'd been meaning to start. We turned off all the lights except the lamp by my bed, and then the dog curled up at the foot of the bed and I got under the covers. It was dark, and the moon was high and bright, and the lamplight golden, and I read a few pages, then turned off the light and went to sleep.

More on this topic of How We Will Read here. Some really wonderful interviews.

Topical Applications

We're (I've been using the editorial "we" freely this past week, not to be confused with the majestic plural, which I also quite like) launching a passage-writing project, which means, among other things, that the coffee cup is never empty and the day is never done.


A new passage project also means a marshaling of the brain cells and assorted Inner Resources for my favorite of all possible types of work: thinking of topics. In the past week I've offered up 35+ topics for reading passages. It's a barrel of monkeys.


I'm working with a few veterans, some intermediates, and some writers so new to assessment they are a bit dazed by the change in the atmosphere. And in working with new writers, I'm answering the kinds of questions new writers would have--which is all to the good. The best of all possible worlds, in the immortal words of Voltaire.






A question that should come up, at least in the writers' minds, is "What makes a good topic?"


The writers on this project are fortunate because rather than simply saying no when we reject a topic, we're explaining our decisions, thus providing a level of training that isn't typically offered in this business. We're also letting them see all of the topics that are approved by the client: even more training, especially for those possessing a willingness to perform a tiny bit of pattern analysis.


So if the writers do wonder about what makes a good topic (and I hope they do), they can look at the list, see everything that's been approved by our client, and then draw conclusions.


Some basic criteria used to evaluate topics include (but not necessarily in this order)

• relevance and/or practical use
• interest level to students at grade level
• content value
• general alignment to academic subject(s), if applicable
• heft--I can't think of another way to say this, but I mean whether the topic is big enough to carry a work of writing in its entirety

There's also the glitter factor. Some topics are just so perfect that you can't believe someone thought that angle up all by his or her own self.


And then there is the most wonderful surprise of all, when you give a writer a topic that is all right, you think, but nothing to throw a party for, and she writes a passage that she must have dipped in glue and rolled in crushed diamonds before she sent it in.


Sometimes the topic itself is secondary to the skill of the writer. A great writer can write about almost anything in an interesting way.

File Under: Use with Caution, Cross-Referenced to: There's No Such Thing as Free

I understand why literature that is in the public domain finds favor in the eyes of assessment and curriculum publishing companies:

1. It's free! Who doesn't like free stuff? Besides, even when the content itself is free, the company still has to sink a lot of money into it. Passage selection, data entry, researching copyright to make sure it is in the public domain, proofreading, formatting, reviewing, preparing for external review, graphic design, QA. The process is more costly than the passage itself. 

2. The quality of the material is presumably not up for debate. Who's going to have the temerity to say that he or she doesn't think kids should read a poem by Emily Dickinson or Wordsworth? 

3. The writing is generally good to great. (I'm not talking about classics now, but about these unknown texts that I see excerpted from published essays, letters, stories.) Did people just write better 100 years ago? They certainly wrote differently. (More to come on this last.) 

Which all makes it sound like the world of public domain literature is a great big treasure chest of high-quality reading passages perfectly suited for assessment.


However. That treasure chest may be a little wooden Trojan horse wheeling in troubles unforeseen:

1. The world has changed a lot in the last 100-300 years. In terms of how we think about gender, race, social classes, social relationships, government, labor, marriage, families, values, religion, science, technology. International relations. Economics. And that's just a short list off the top of my head. Some of the attitudes and concepts are simply outdated and appear old-fashioned; others appear downright offensive or even cruel and oppressive. Not to mention the language, which brings us to the following. 

 2. How we use language has also changed. I do like the complicated architecture of the 17th-18th century sentence. I'm charmed by the ease with which Swift, Johnson, et al toss the polysyllabic words as if tossing handfuls of confetti in a parade of wits. But. This seems a matter for classroom instruction, rather than assessment--unless we know for a certainty that there has been thorough classroom instruction with texts of like complexity. 

3. How we use language has also changed. Part II. As attitudes evolve, language evolves. Attitudes and terms once considered acceptable are now considered intolerant and offensive, respectively. 

4. How we use language has also changed. Part III. Words once considered standard are now considered high-faluting and are relegated to the realm of academia or appropriate only in the most formal settings. So the content of a poem may be appropriate for a young child, but the vocabulary renders the poem too difficult to use for any grade lower than 10. We can't present high schoolers with literature written for elementary school children. 

5. Passage length may be a problem. When this happens, editors may excerpt from public domain material. Sometimes this results in text that lacks context or that appears choppy, with ideas that seem disconnected, even if this was not the case in the original text.

Should we teach students so that they are able to read classic literature? Anyone who knows me would respond with something along the lines of "Do the stars shine? Does my dog bark at the mail carrier? Is the sea salty?" Why, that would be a resounding yes.


Should we include classic literature on reading tests? That would be an affirmative, sir, especially if such inclusion is required by the standards to be assessed.


How about including literature of unfamiliar and complex syntax, unfamiliar and difficult vocabulary, and, possibly, questionable quality that may only be considered because it is in the public domain and therefore may be used freely with nary a by your leave? That's a negative.


All the publishing companies do it. I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular. And the Great Pineapple Debacle makes such public domain passage selection all the more attractive to publishing companies who would prefer (naturally, like all of us) to receive more positive attention than negative.


Balance is what we need. And thoughtful consideration of the passage, whether it might be of interest to the audience, whether its literary value outweighs its disadvantages, and whether we can unreservedly justify its use for this purpose. 

Poetry Poker

Another diversion during the week of festivities was a round or three of poetry poker. I believe the idea came from Kenneth Koch. Or so I was told. So you take a pack of cards, write words or phrases on them, and then deal 5 to each player. (We tend to be lax on rules, so we let players replace cards that seemed impossible.)


Here's one round:

• I didn't mean
• tarnished
• tiny
• little box with monsters inside
• mangoes

And here's the poem:


I didn't mean 
to give you a tarnished tiny
little box with monsters inside.
I meant to give you 
mangoes.




And here's another:

• two quiet lines
• peanuts
• sea
• boiled over
• who wanted most

And here's the poem:


Two quiet lines at the bar
we ate peanuts while we waited
the peanuts tasted like
the sea boiled over.
Who wanted most
to go to the beach, then:
you or I?


It's fun. More fun than it sounds like, especially after an evening of swimming and pizza, when you're sitting in a large bright kitchen with a dear friend. My daughters like it, too. We agreed that it's more fun the more decks you have in play. We've got two now, but we think it's not enough.


There never are enough words, are there.

Life Is Art

We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and see in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings, statues, poems, novels. . . . But all this is but the smallest part of the art by which we communicate with each other in life. All human life is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest, mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all artistic activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of the word, we do not mean all human activity transmitting feelings, but only that part which we for some reason select from it and to which we attach special importance.   Tolstoy, "What Is Art?"

We clipped the clothespins to an egg carton to dry. Whence camest this beautifully colored egg carton, you ask? Farmers market. From the chicken lady.

The festivities went on for some time. Last night was the concluding soiree. We had friends over to make art and drink champagne.


We all brought out boxes and bins of supplies from our art closets.


You see some results above: wooden clothespins, which we painted gold, and embellished with glitter or metallic confetti or fake gems or those waxy sticks that are fun to make shapes out of.

A close-up:

My favorite is that created by Stephanie: the one with the yellow sprigs.

There were also lantern-makers among us:

Heather made these. Are they not gorgeous?

And Matisse made an appearance in Caroline's collage:

I just love this.

And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.-- Tolstoy, again, "What Is Art?"