Touchblue

- Teach courses in English Composition.

- Tell everyone you’re working on the most important novel of your life—the one about you and your mother, but don’t tell anyone you’re afraid to write the first sentence. Don’t mention the mass in her brain or that you at least scribbled down notes in the emergency room.

- Reminder: You have an MFA in Creative Writing.

- Tell random writers that live to talk about their own writing you write short stories. Be vague, say, I write about growing up in America. Or say something pompous: I write about the human condition.

- When an author tells you how brilliant he is and then suggests you read Hemingway, nod, punch him in the neck, tell him he smells like his mother or simply ask him if he has read any of the authors you love. Then, apologize for bringing his mother into this because you are, in fact, a mother’s boy and you miss your mother this very moment.

- Do not visit the websites of other authors.

- Do not visit MySpace pages to study character because MySpace should not be one word.

- Be inspired by pictures of writer’s rooms where writing actually takes place. Don’t be intimidated by sloped ceilings with windows or expensive pop art on the walls. Forget about acrylic landscapes. Focus on blank walls and the unread books of your personal library.

- Refuse to blog.

- Blog.

- Be upset that it’s an ugly-looking verb. It’s also ugly-sounding. Blog about that too.

- Claim to have never blogged and say, I journal publicly from time to time.

- Watch Californication on Showtime and dream about writing cult classics and best-sellers. Only emulate Hank Moody in certain respects. Be happy you’ve found a show post-Gilmore Girls.

- Grade student essays harshly. Rejoice in your mastery of assessing topic sentences and recognizing unified paragraphs.

- When ill, write the following paragraph for your students to read:

Being under the weather ruins my life. Whenever I have the slightest cough, irritated throat or swollen eyelid I refuse to work. I refuse to write. I refuse to grade papers. In addition to preventing myself from doing that which I love, I cannot eat as I wish. Meat is out of the question because I have enough mucous in my system. I avoid fried and fast foods; which means I spend money I don’t have which, in turn, reminds me of how pitiful my life is. Instead of carrying around a roll of toilet paper, blowing my nose every five minutes and wiping the lint from my unshaven chin, I would rather eat spaghetti and watch my two-year old nephew attempt to grade essays.

- Let your two-year old nephew spill milk on student essays.

- Perform writing exercises with your students and post your responses up somewhere as proof that you are a practicing writer.

- Don’t forget to create prompts.

For example: Write a letter to a friend, enemy, Martian, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Banks, a partner, a parent, a teacher, a sibling, or anyone you wish. Tell him/her/it how you feel about taking a College English course and why. Be precise: 2-3 sentences ONLY.

Respond: Dear Mother, I feel overdressed for a College English Class at the Art Institute. I know you suggested that I wear a tie but since when has a tie been a marker of self-composure? I am pretty hungry but self-composed nonetheless. Sincerely, actually, Love, Your Son.

- When students do not laugh at your mediocre writing, affirm yourself by telling them how much of a momma’s boy you really are. They’ll always laugh at you.

- Teach 9 HOURS of English Composition on Mondays at two different campuses and leave most of the week open for writing even if you fail to write.

- Convince yourself that you have developed a condition more sophisticated than writer’s block and force your students to reflect on what is wrong with them so you don’t feel as bad.

Here is a prompt: Being conscious that many of us in the room suffer or celebrate in our neuroses, describe your condition. What do you see/hear/feel/taste/smell/think that most people do not?

Your possible response: Good Afternoon, Everyone! My name is [Name Here] and I suffer from procrastination. I have to freeze time to work. However, I fail at freezing time because unlike Evie Ethel Garland I have the responsibility of waking up my girlfriend every morning. Truthfully, she wakes me up. This morning after hitting the snooze button for two hours straight, I awoke and thought of my present condition: This is not a logically ordered paragraph! But I’m in love; therefore, I don’t have to work to the best of my ability.

- If you happen to contract pink eye from one of your students, warn the rest of the class by writing the following thesis statements on the board:

The worst possible thing that you and I can do as members of this society is taunt the red aliens on my eyeballs. (DIRECTION)

Because taunting the red aliens on my eyeballs will cause you endless moments of itchiness, promote a community of disgruntled visionaries and lead to greening the earth with non-grass infectious substances, it is the worst possible thing that you and I can do as members of this society. (DIRECTION & PREVIEW OF COORDINATE IDEAS USING PARALLEL STRUCTURE)

- Stop thinking about yourself.

- Start thinking about yourself.

- Force your students to stand for something.

Prompt: Create an Ideology. Hypothesize the mass enslavement of corporate employees, the resurgence of fascism or the absence of political power. Realize something. State TWO beliefs that you think benefit not only this humanities course, but humanity in general. Think lively. Think deadly. Our society depends on it.

Sample response:

My Ideology: Dialectical Fiberism.

1. Eating sufficient amounts of dietary fiber reduces the amount of toxins in your body and imagination and therefore will limit the amount of excrement produced onto canvases and on the pages of what publisher’s call books.

2. Insomnia is a much better way to go about discovering the Truth.

- Remember that you are a passionate educator. Fuck the adjective: You are an educator.

- Write something with Notes in its title so that you are not required to adhere to any standards of narrative.

- Tell your girlfriend you love her and assure her that you are not being heteronormative because your notes are no fiction at all; they are based on the life of a real nonfiction fiction writer who has yet to write the first word of his novel but will continue to teach English Composition, police paragraphs and write poems to make his girlfriend smile.

--> This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Bloggish, Literary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.