My Early School Days - Advice needed please

[Nice&Blue]

Hey folks,

I have just been to my first meeting at a local writers circle, the first essay/assignment/competition is to write a non-fiction piece titled "My Early School Days" it has been set with a 1500 word limit, I have written a grand total of 549
Is this too few?

This is what I have ... I'm not sure its the happy "yay school" thing I think they may be hoping for but I don't roll like that

Thanks N&B,


Someone once said "school days are the best days of your life" who ever said this was obviously one of the popular kids.

I hated school with a passion pretty much from day one all the way until I left with a handful of amazingly under achieved grades eleven years later.

The problems were numerous ...

I don't like football and have never been any good at it. Meaning I was always picked second from last in p.e. Being last was an honour Neil "fatty" Wall owned for every single year of our shared youth.
Fatty Wall would later show up on my college course weighing roughly half of what he did last time I saw him.

Secondly where I lived didn't help, there are two housing estates on either end of the town I grew up in. The rivalry between them is legendary and loyalty to your estate was thicker than the blood that was spilled.
I grew up in the middle of them both on a nice quiet street.
I had no allegiance to either and neither wanted me on their side.
Even fatty Wall had a better social status on this front.

Thirdly and most importantly I was and still am a speccy four eyes.
We live in a delightful age were wearing glasses is a bit of a fashion statement and is almost cool, in that geeky way.

As a child growing up in a small rural town any difference was a weakness, as mentioned above I didn't have a lot going for me to start with being one of the two kids in school sporting nhs plastic frames was the clincher.

The other unfortunate was Robert Williams but he lived on one of the estates and even as a child he was a giant.

In Primary school we once had to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up, Robert wanted to be a Lorry driver, like his dad.
Flash forward to senior school and Robert wanted to go to a haulage company on work experience as he wasn't old enough to actually drive the lorries.
Flash forward to the present day Robert is a lorry driver.
I kind of admire that.

My path went writer, butcher, technical parts wizard.
Twenty five years later I still want to be a writer.
Robert is living his dream I am still chasing mine.

Before they realised I needed glasses, I was seconded to the ... "special" class, then cruelly called the unit. Another social stigma foisted upon me.

It wasn't that I couldn't understand what was being written on the blackboard it was simply that I couldn't see what the blurry white lines meant.
They thought it was dyslexia it was actually astigmatism.
My stay in the unit was thankfully short but the damage had been done, I was behind my class mates and ended up essentially in a class of one.

I started wearing glasses aged six, the world changed instantly for me on many levels. I discovered books and my reading levels soon caught up and then surpassed my class mates. My handwriting is still atrocious and the accusations of dyslexia will dog me for many years, once dismissed by a primary school teacher as me being simply too lazy to write nicely.

[luckyme]

Are you looking for SPaG, or content critique?

And I would say, if all is said in 549 words and there's nothing more to add, it's enough.
Sometimes you can write a story in as less as six words. Remember the famous, "For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn" from Hemingway?

[Nice&Blue]

Originally Posted by luckyme

Are you looking for SPaG, or content critique?

Some of everything please!

And as for saying everything in as few words as possible, I am a big fan of twitter, Haiku and I once co-founded a website called Ten Word Wiki

[Shelly]

Originally Posted by Nice&Blue

Hey folks,

.

My early school days.

I wish I could write about my early school days, but I didn't have many because I was nearly always late. My school, Public School 21, was on the block I lived a few doors down from our tenement. It was a massive seven-story building covering half a city block.

Normally, the children (grades kindergarten to six) were expected to be in the classroom by 8:45 am, but on television from 8:30 to 9:00 was the popular children's show "The Little Rascals" (Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Porky, etc.). I used to sit by the TV with my books nearby and as soon as the show ended, I'd race down three flights of stairs, gallop down the block to the school entrance, then run up four flights to my classroom.

The teacher had on the blackboard a small area for late students to chalk their initials and the time. Every school day my initials would be on the board with the same time: 9:05. When I entered the room, Mr. Glanzrock, sitting behind his desk at the front of the room greeted me with his usual cold stare before I headed for my seat and he returned to his business. In all, it took me about 5 minutes to get from my apartment to the classroom--I doubt I could match that feat nowadays.

Unleash the writer within. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh_g8...yer_detailpage

Sincerely,

Nearly Always Late.

[Mister URL]

I would first lean more on the school experience. It drifts into 'today' later on, and while that is good to finish up with, if the assignment was to write about the early school experience, the bulk should be about that.

Expand on the indifferent cruelty of small children, abetted by their teachers and coaches. Maybe take one incident and describe it in detail, something like a calamitous football practice or whatever. You can make it humorous or serious, depending on what your feelings about it are now.

I wrote an entire book of my sixth grade to senior years school life (12 to 18 tears old) and as I wrote it, it became more and more humorous, because it is hard to give much weight to things that happened that long ago.

The words you have are fine. There are a couple of formatting things, but it is fine. And like luckyme said, when it says what you want it to, it is long enough. You will find that making it short enough is more of a problem than making it too short.

[Nice&Blue]

Originally Posted by Mister URL

I would first lean more on the school experience. It drifts into 'today' later on, and while that is good to finish up with, if the assignment was to write about the early school experience, the bulk should be about that.

Thank you sir, I shall re-jig and bulk up!

[Adrenaline]

I second all Mister URL's suggestions and add this one: how do you want your reader to feel at the end?

It's clear what the general tenor is throughout the school experience (Suck-O-rama! Been there, brother!) but then towards the end you mention in an almost off-handed sort of way that it got better because your reading skills skyrocketed. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel "too little, too late" or if it was meant to be a happy ending.

Either way would be powerful. You could say it like "I survived twelve years of academic and social persecution and all I got was this lousy T-shirt that says, 'I read better than you.'" Or you could hit us with a twist and say that suffering like that all those years forged your genius and narrowed your focus to a laser beam, making you a keen writer and a compassionate and understanding man. Which it clearly has.

Another fun format would be to write the entire thing as a scene from one of your worse school days, scattering descriptive exposition here and there as you go. You could play with dialogue among yourself, Mr. Wall, and Robert. The sheer challenge of such a scheme titillates me. It's the kind of thing that blows the pants off writing instructors, too.

Just my $0.02,

Adrenaline

[Nice&Blue]

Originally Posted by Adrenaline

towards the end you mention in an almost off-handed sort of way that it got better because your reading skills skyrocketed. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel "too little, too late" or if it was meant to be a happy ending.

Adrenaline

Life got better when I started reading, I could vanish down the rabbit hole of fantasy.
I could (and still can) be anyone, anywhere.
Reading meant reality was something I just tolerated until I could go back to my books.

I started with the Brer Rabbit stories, a style of writing I still want to play with to this day.
By the middle of primary I had read all of the Dick King Smith books, then came Pratchett, King, Harris, Steinbeck, Salinger.
I devoured books and still do.

School if anything got worse, no one likes a show off and that's what I was labelled.That and a swot, a square, a geek, a nerd for years my nickname was Boffin before that it was Beaker (after the muppet)

In secondary school I learnt to be average, not too clever to stick out, clever enough to not be labelled stupid.
I coasted through and walked away with next to nothing in the way of results apart from an A in English because I had already read, Macbeth and Of Mice and Men.
Catcher in the Rye was new by me and flicked a switch in my head sadly too little way too late.

[Adrenaline]

Originally Posted by Nice&Blue

swot...Boffin

I had to Google these. I'm American.

Originally Posted by Nice&Blue

In secondary school I learnt to be average, not too clever to stick out, clever enough to not be labelled stupid.

Oh, man, do I know this ploy. I've been using it right up until last week when I decided to whip out polysyllabic words at random in public. Some stared but most seemed titillated. In the end, at least I was amused for once. That's what counts.

I slid down a giant, greased A+ with my bare ass in pretty much every course I ever took (except Logic and Latin, wherein the boredom nearly induced brain damage). I'd been primed all my life to please the elders by two psychologist parents. Yes, you read that right. Family dinners were hell. Once you figure out what each teacher wants, it's fairly simple to deliver, if you want to play that game. Dean's List in college and honor societies and all that crapola and not one employer ever asked.

In the end, all that stuff meant was that I was reasonably able to stay awake in class and was articulate. You'd be surprised just how far those two skills will get you in life. I've concluded that college teaches you how to think like others. You're lucky if you learn how to think on your own after that mess. Many, many billionaire entrepreneurs dropped out of college, after all.

I say write about it, get it out, make some money off it if it's convenient, then shove it all in a box, stick it in the attic, and get busy writing a new story. Nice&Blue.2 Refer to my signature line quote for tips.

Adrenaline

[Rita Campese]

I agree, youth is wasted on the young and what we'd do differently back then if we were given permission to be young along with the trials and the errors to match and sometimes successes. However, school was that way for almost everyone. One size fits all, we'd have to make ourselves fit. good writing.

[Billy16]

I'd like to see you focus more on quality than on quantity. The words you have now felt like they came from a shotgun, not a rifle.

But that's how a rough draft should feel. The power comes from your heart during free writing. The polish will come later, from your head, during re-writing.

I'd also like to see a stronger mix of narrative, dialog and imagery--each has a role to play in giving your readers a sense of presence. Right now, I feel like I'm outside your story hearing you tell it. Like "I'm so sad I could kill myself." versus "She stood at the edge of the cliff, weeping, watching the waves crash on the rocks below."

You have some powerful stuff here. Those good old days were not all that good. But don't let sour grapes or rotten tomatoes ruin your story. Show us how looking back at yesterday through the rear-mirror mirror of today has changed you, for the better. Make it [possible for us to participate, vicariously, in your struggle with the past and your victory here in the present.

Bill

[Nice&Blue]

I'm more of a blunt instrument, a lot of what I write on the non-fiction side is miserable as sin and all a bit of a release.
It comes charging out, I feel shitty about it and share it around.
Then the next day I write something else and do the same.

[Billy16]

Yes, and in my opinion you should keep on doing exactly that. But imagine getting up one morning and while sitting at the breakfast table drinking your tea or coffee, a piece of free writng suddenly finds its own voice and says to you,"Hey, I want a wider audience than just a workshop for your heart-felt writing. I want the power and the polish."

The poets and artists I've studied make it clear that they didn't sit down one morning and whip up a world-class poem or painting in an hour or two. Every word, every stroke was carefully crafted. It's a right-brain/left-brain process. First you let your imagination play with you. Then you work with the result to polish and refine it for your audience. Write with your heart, re-write with your head. Play first, then work, and your heart will be there from the beginning -- intrinsic, embedded and beating at the core of your poem. Editing and polishing are analytical, not heartless, so they can't take it out. The how, not the what, makes the thoughts and feelings evocatively powerful. Methods don't distract the reader from the emotional content, they drive the meaning past the head and into the heart of its reader.

--Bill

[Jim Colyer]

You said you started wearing glasses at 6. So did I. It was easy to be called "4 eyes" in those days. Now glasses are cool and sexy.