Since I am educating my children, I feel it is now really important to make sure they see me continue my work. As a writer, the children have been given that advantage many times over--watching me write and do my work. However, I have put my writing on the back burner to teach them. These assignments I use with my own children. However, they are more geared to be "free" lessons for middle school to adults.
Lesson 1
I don't build worlds and make countless outlines. If you need that type of format, you will not get it here. I get an idea in my head and then I start writing. Usually at the end, I have about 99% trash and 1% something I can use. I call this my "rough, rough, rough" draft. Eventually, I have gotten better and instead of 10 rewrites, I am now down to 5. My own daughter can write a rough draft and never have to edit. I truly believe she can do this because she was taught to "visualize" her words and the basics of creative writing. My biggest problem with rewrites: I use too much passive vs active. I'm also not very descriptive in my rough drafts. i tend to "tell" more than "show" just to get my ideas down on paper. My brain goes way faster than my fingers so I always come back on draft #2 and #3 and add details. K started out being taught "to be" verbs aren't good. She also started off being taught "show vs tell" your story. Both of these seem to have done her well.
That said, these lessons will go through the process of many rewrites. We will start with creative nonfiction. We're starting with creative nonfiction because the first thing any college professor will tell you is: Write what you know.
The assignment: We all meet new people in our lives. Write a 3000 word story about meeting someone in your life for the first time. For this piece it should be truthful. In the end (after our countless rewrites), you'll probably not even recognize anything more than the emotion of meeting a new person. So make it truthful.
Recently, I found my "first" boyfriend again. It's a long story but he would be my first love. I was 12, almost 13 when we met. He was 14, almost 15. But we didn't know what we'd mean to one another until years later. Here's my rough draft on our first encounter:
My mother ushered all four of us down the terminal and then sank into a seat next to another military mom, wrestling with her own four children. Mom started to talk to her and discovered the woman had traveled from Fort Lewis (it's always the first question military families ask: where were you last stationed. In civilian life, it's hard to adapt to the "where are you from"" questions) to Philadelphia to visit family. They started to talk even further and discovered her two boys would be going to the same high school as my brother. I leaned over and whispered to my sister, "He's cute." And like most 11 year olds would, she started to chant, "Patty has a boyfriend! Kissing..." I rolled my eyes and my cheeks grew red. I said he was cute. I never said I wanted to date him.
As you can tell, this isn't 3000 words. This is also probably not all the details to our first meeting. I think he and I talked. And, honestly, I'm not sure I truly said he was cute or not. At 12, I was boy crazy and it wasn't beyond something I'd do. I probably said it so when I typed it, I edited. As you can tell, I'm not telling you to write verbatim the exact conversations of 20 years ago. No one remembers that (at least most people). Just write the feelings, the gist of the emotion and the encounter as you best and truthfully remember it.
The above piece is a sample of how my rough drafts look. Don't worry about the writing rules in your first rough draft. Like I said, as time gets easier and you start to develop a strong verb vocabulary, you will start automatically typing stronger verbs vs the "was" verbs. I do always go back and look for grammar errors at the end of each rough draft piece. That doesn't mean I catch them all, but it helps me focus. However, if this is something you would get hung up on, don't do it. Right now, the most important thing is to type your thoughts down on paper. .
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