Advancing Confidently

Greetings. . . and welcome to my new blog!  Now, if I'm saying new blog, that would indicate that there is also an old blog, and there is.  If memory serves me correctly, I posted to it roughly five times. . . which means that my track record as a faithful blogger isn't exactly stellar.

 So why am I trying again now?  I'll be honest. . . I'm trying to build an audience for myself as a writer.  I've self-published my first novel, and its fan base is enthusiastic but very small.  As clicking on a blog entry is much easier - and somewhat cheaper - than buying a book, I'm hoping that people who might not rush to buy a book might read what I'm writing here, decide that I'm worth the risk of a few dollars, and make a purchase.

 That's not my only motive, though.  For 26 years, I taught English. . . which means that I taught literature. . . which means that whether or not my audiences of high school students were always paying attention (and they weren't), I had fairly frequent opportunities to delve into issues, to make - or try to make - people think beyond the superficial, and to be at least somewhat transparent about my own thoughts on those issues.  However, that also meant that I taught writing, and years worth of essay question/essay/research paper grading took their toll on me, leading to a burnout that prompted me to switch to my other area of certification, Spanish.  I love the fact that Spanish demands far less of my brain and my time. . . the fact that there's not a lot of room to open up about who I am and what I'm thinking while I'm trying to teach students how to conjugate verbs and understand the differences between "ser" and "estar," not so much.  I need an outlet - and if I'm actually faithful about posting this time, this can be it.

 For those who may not recognize him, the dude at the top of the page is well-known American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, best known for his essay Civil Disobedience and for Walden, which depicts the time that he spent living alone at a cabin at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid 1840s.  (My husband took this photo of the statue near Walden Pond on a trip we took there in 2009.)  The inspiration for the title of this blog is a quote from Walden: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." "The Life Imagined" is appropriate for me on a couple of counts. . . in the first place, every character that I have created and will create in my novel Time and Tide and the two follow-ups that I am working on/have planned are literally lives that I have imagined.  For me personally. . . well, the blog will give me a chance to explore my life and other lives as I imagine them, which means I will get that all important chance to be transparent about what I'm thinking and feeling.  I'm a lot of things at this point in my life - Christian, wife, mother, daughter, teacher, writer, public speaking coach - but at the heart of all that, I'm a communicator, and I need an audience.  If you're reading this, you're it. :-)

 So welcome. . . and follow. . . and encourage me to keep this up.  Here's hoping that what I've imagined will be meaningful to you.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM

    I will always follow you and advance confidently into the life imagined. You are a daily inspiration as a person, friend, mother, teacher, and writer. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Channeling Charlie Brown

Image
The Peanuts comic strip and television specials have been a part  of American life since the strip began running in newspapers in 1950, and they’ve generated memorable images and moments that have stuck with basically everyone who grew up with an awareness of them. Odds are good that even if you’ve never watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, you still refer to a tiny, needle-challenged resident at a Christmas tree farm as a “Charlie Brown tree” because of its similarity to the one that Charlie Brown makes a part of the gang’s Christmas play. Another memorable moment – and one that’s repeated numerous times throughout both forms of Charlie Brown media – is Lucy offering to hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick it. Ever hopeful that Lucy will finally hold the ball still so that he can successfully kick it long, high, and far, Charlie Brown always allows her to suck him in when she promises not to yank the ball away. . . and every time, he finds himself kicking air and landing unceremo
Read more

Kill the Narrative

Image
Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the state of Georgia for the past week (and there’s a real possibility that this is true even if you have been), you’re well aware that the University of Georgia Bulldogs defeated the University of Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday, January 10. Georgia fans had been waiting patiently (?) for 41 years – or whatever portion of 41 years that they could remember – for the Dawgs to repeat the feat that they had accomplished by going undefeated and being voted the number one team back in January, 1981, and their celebration has been loud and proud. And if you happen to be a die-hard Georgia fan AND a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan. . . well, let’s just say that a whole lot of frustration has given way to a whole lot of happiness over the past three months or so as both teams made it over hurdles that some thought they’d never clear. For the record, even for those who aren’t sports fans, there’s
Read more

As They Pursue Their Dreams. . . to the THS Class of 2017

Image
(Credit for the graduation night photo to Jim Wallace, who gave both his permission and his blessing for me to use it. 🙂) As you may know by now (and as the other members of the Thomson High School ELA department and my co-teachers are tired of hearing), my last active day as a public school teacher is Wednesday, May 24, 2017.   I’m retiring for any number of reasons: high-stakes testing, excessive bureaucracy, and just an all-around educational philosophy that differs from mine.   (My mantra: “You can’t quantify teaching.”)   I have to admit, though, that the timing for leaving THS is actually pretty appropriate because I’m going out with the Class of 2017, and being there without them next year would be awfully strange.   These students have been a huge part of my life at THS. . . and even though the journey with them hasn’t always been a perfect one, life wouldn’t be the same without them if I were staying.          If I counted the names on the program accurately, 216 stu
Read more