Juvenilia

Flickr: incurable_hippie

I’m nearing the end of the second week of Christmas break. For the school where I teach, the two-week Christmas break separates the first and second semesters. I’ve mostly used this time to rest (sleep) and to read. I had planned to write, too — maybe complete a chapter or two of Juvenilia, but unfortunately, I haven’t done anything with the novel at all. It’s not that I don’t want to write, in fact I do: the idea of working on the book strikes me as a very enjoyable activity, but I just haven’t been able to get started.

Gertrude Stein used to describe writing as a matter of momentum. Once you get started, it’s easy to keep going, but if you stop, it’s difficult to get going again. That’s my situation.

But that isn’t to say this winter break has seen a complete dearth of creativity from me. Lately, I’ve been writing a series of fake newspaper stories. I plan to use these in my classes when the new semester starts.

The school where I teach does not have school newspaper, nor does it even offer journalism classes. That’s a shame on several levels, but it sucks for me because I don’t have a source of student-created writing on local topics that I can draw from and use.

So I’ve been making up my own news stories and writing them down. It’s non-fiction writing in that I’m basing the stories on topics that are of concern at the school where I teach, but I’m wrapping those topics in fictional situations with fictional teachers and students. There’s a little bit of satire involved, too, but I try to keep that to a minimum. My intent isn’t to mock anyone.

So far, I’ve written three stories and I have ideas for a few more. I’ll try to get as many done as I can before school starts back up next week. They’ve been fun to write. They’ve satisfied my creative urge, and they’ve made me feel a little less guilty about not working on what I should have been writing these past several days: my novel.