finding a voice

This post is dedicated mostly, but not entirely, to Heather, but not because she bullied me into it.

I haven't yet written about the National Writing Project class I'm taking, although I might soon. For now, I'll just say that yes, it's worth getting up at 7am and driving 45 minutes to Clear Lake (I pass two airports and NASA on the way, making the drive seem longer than it is).

Tom Romano, who is way cooler than any internet link I could find for him, spoke today about multigenre research papers and creating "voice" in writing. He first discovered his own voice in middle school, during a mandatory end-of-day study hall period which he used to send silly stories back and forth with a friend. I can relate.

When I first met Heather, we had nothing in common except for a shared amusement over Fernando _____? who hosted our weekly Inca videos in world history. Thus we began composing notes back and forth (even phone calls!) through the guise of Fernando, and we were multi-genre-ing without even knowing it. As a teacher, I try to encourage my students to respond to literature and learning in a personal way, because that's how we make connections and retain knowledge. Of course, this never occured to Heather and I as we were writing limericks on our math homework or mailing death threats that warned "stay away from Jem Finch, he's MINE" and writing silly quizzes and so on. We responded to books like Watership Down by poking fun at them ("Frith-RA!"), and at ourselves, because that is what readers and writers do. If there was ever any question about how I developed "voice" in my writing, it was because I was lucky enough to have a friend who pushed me to write and see MORE, to make it funnier, wittier, more personal, to own it.

There's more to be said about this, but I've been writing all day and my brain aches. The good kind of ache, like muscles sore from exercise. I will say that Michael Chabon of Kavalier and Clay fame stuck his pen into the screenplay for Spiderman 2, and it is really really really really great. In America is also an outstanding rental, so buy yourself some popcorn and tissues and enjoy.