Summer vacation is going to, therefore, be rather short, The first week flew by with some redecorating and some reading for pleasure. I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for a laugh, The Tudors: Thy Will be Done which is basically a novelization of the third season of the Showtime series, and after seeing (pun not intended) the film Blindness, I’m reading the novel that it was based on.

I can’t believe that I recieved a memo from school today about the beginning of the school year!  Recieving it has made me realize I must begin to plan out the beginning of my semester already!

I’ll take one more week though of lazy reading and watching movies until I take that back-to-school plunge!

Shelfari

LibraryThing

It has occurred to me that with Spring and longer daylight hours, I’ve been able to read (without falling asleep!) more than I could most of the winter. I have been indulging my reading habits with a little historical fiction by Margaret George, whose Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry VIII I’d already read. Now I’ve been reading Mary Called Magdalene and have on deck Helen of Troy. George takes her historical heros/heroines and gives them a voice, a character and the situations as realistic as she can, and still create a fictional account that is interesting for a history buff and a literature enthusisiast. I’m enjoying her books immensely, and her Cleopatra is next on my ‘to buy’ list.

I’ve also enjoyed, in the same fashion, Phillipa Gregory’s historical fiction-her collection is from the female queens viewpoints, mostly from the Tudor England time period (The Other Bolyn Girl was made into a film with Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson) and I have her Mary, Queen of Scots: The Other Queen sitting beside my bed waiting for me to read it.

I also have a few more books to read from my school’s English department to read, so that I can teach any of the courses with the novels/plays already read!  

I enjoy the challenge of teaching a new novel (at least new to me), however am getting great pleasure of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird-my students are very interested and asking wonderful questions! Such a novel-to succinctly show both the failures and successes of human nature-through the eyes of a young girl. We just read the chapter (10) where Atticus tells his children (who had recieved air rifles for Christmas) that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. My whole class was hushed to find out why the book was entitled To Kill a Mockingbird. We had a short discussion about metaphor and what that would forshadow as a metaphor for two injustices in the novel.

I love that they are inquisitive!

In the length of time since I have posted, I have been re- reading my favourite “Margarets” Laurence and Atwood. Over the March Break from my classes, I decided to read The Diviners by Margaret Laurence and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The reason I chose these books are twofold. First, they are on the curriculum for our department in the senior grades and I might teach those next year. Second, I had read both before, but it was a very long time ago, and I needed a refresher in good Canadian Literature. I enjoyed re-reading these novels very much. It was like slipping on my favourite pyjamas (which I did) and spending a few evenings with a close friend. I believe I will, either here or my library blog, review these novels.

Having re-read The Handmaid’s Tale first, I also wanted to re-watch the film. I did so, ironically, two days before Natasha Richardson (who plays the main character ‘Offred’ in the film) tragically lost her life in a freak skiing accident. She was only a few years older than me, which brought up a whole slew of issues and thoughts (most of which centered around my son and who would look after him) but also made me think about getting on with trying to get my stories published.

No time like the present!

Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die~I CORINTHIANS 15:32

Does writing quizzes for my classes count as my writing quota for the day?  Today, other than this blog, that’s all I’ve written. Well, I do get bogged down at school, where I dip into my creativity well a little more some days than others. I am, however, coming up to doing some exciting literature in class. To Kill a Mockingbird is my favourite novel of the 20th century, and one of the most important. I have the privilidge to teach it to my grade 9 class beginning next week.  My favourite quote from the novel,  is one I use often for anyone who is judgemental, prejudiced and just plain uneducated about anyone who could be viewed as ‘other’:

‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’ ~Atticus Finch

 I can’t wait to read it with my class again. Other than Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird is the novel I’ve read so many times over.

“You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer”~Margaret Atwood

“When I say “work” I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs”~Margaret Laurence

Two of my favourite Canadian authors, along with Alice Munro (who wasn’t a Margaret, so no quotes from her today!) I can, and have, learned so much from these authors; as women and as Canadians of which I am both. Is it harder to get published here? I’m not too sure, as I haven’t gone that route myself yet. Recognition may be harder in Canada, though perhaps not in Canada itself, if anyone is paying attention. The main populace, though, is paying attention to the U.S. as our main media import. Hell, even the curriculum in my province hardly supports teaching the Canadian authors (we squeeze in The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood into grade 12 for the advanced student, and I teach Atwood in my poetry unit for grade 10. We are still advocating for The Stone Angel).

At least, some of our finer literature finds its way to the theatre, crossing art forms as it does. Away From Her based on the Munro short story (of which format she has perfected)  The Bear Came Over the Mountain gained some recognition (rightly so!) recently.

I believe I shall go pick up Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing again and give it another read. I could use a little inspiration from the Margaret who I wish I could write one-tenth as well as.

So a big shout out to Google docs, an online resource for iGoogle users. You can start a document at home (such as the short story I’m working on), take it on the move with my crackberry, er, Blackberry and add a thought  or two, then write a bit at work when I have a little time between classes or on lunch. No saving to a flash drive that can get lost (I’ve lost several). Just go to iGoogle and open up the document and type. It auto-saves, and I save again when I close. I find this works better for me to get my ideas out, rather than carrying around my own little black notebook, which I doodled in rather than wrote in.

I also want to try Google docs as a teaching tool. I can start a lesson in a document, and add my students as collaborators to edit the document with their ideas or answers if it is an essay question. I think I will try this shortly with my grade 12 English class.

Off to add another paragraph or two to my story draft. Words seem friendly today.

A word after a word after a word is power. ~Margaret Atwood

Damn I love that.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. ~Margaret Atwood

Thank you to one of my literary heroes for giving me a reason to hit delete without guilt.

Ellie slipped quietly by the door, having already removed her sneakers. She slid in her pink stockinged feet on the hardwood floors of the hallway…left slide, right slide, left…imagining herself to be a speed skater in slow motion. Her hands behind her in the small of her back, right slide, left slide, right…not touching the walls of the hallway, lest she make a sound.

This is the short story I began today. I know where I want to go with it, but, as often happens with me, I tanget. Once I do, my short stories then become unfinished novels. I need, I believe, a set style to put a short story into; a framework. It doesn’t, however, seem as creative to me to do that. It hardly seems like art to follow a formula.

Something for me to work on. Words are only slightly irratating to me today.