The Frustration of Teaching under COVID.

Here’s a typical class session under COVID:

I get to the class a few minutes early to set up for class. This requires a computer, a USB camera and area microphone that I’ve brought to class. Add in an HDMI cable to the projection unit, and I’m hooked up. My computer screen is now projected onto the screen up front.

I open up Zoom and see my face projected upon the big screen. Urgk. I don’t like looking at myself larger than life. I twiddle with the camera so it’s at the right angle — it’s never at the right angle; due to the camera’s height limitations it will always be looking up my neck.

The whiteboard behind me is useless, because it projects backward to the Zoom students. Moving around while teaching (my favored style) is useless because then I will disappear from sight. Every visual must be from the computer because it must be visible both for the in-class students and the online students. Luckily, Zoom allows for screen-share, although that can get awkward at times with clicking it on and off and on again to see new documents and windows.

I pull up a few windows — the first with the seating chart, which will be visible when students come in. Only half the class meets at a time due to COVID distancing, and we need a static seating chart for COVID contact tracking at the University. Our class still is not distanced enough, so we wear masks at all times.

Students start trickling in through the door, so I point out the seating chart so they find their right chairs. Some students sit down without consulting the seating chart, so I need to explain to those students we have a seating chart. On the computer, my Zoom students start to fill up in the waiting room. I message them, letting them know that they need to keep their video on during class. If last week’s introductory session is any indication, at least one will not. Then I let them in.

Teaching is a challenge, because two-thirds of my class sit in desks in front of me watching the screen, which is the Zoom display with a shared document as the current focus — a PowerPoint screen, a document, etc. One-third of my class views remotely using Zoom. It’s hard teaching to both these classes, and I spend too much of my time yelling “Can you hear me?” to the Zoom people, who are silent and not sharing in class work. It’s insanely hard for me to pay attention to two different classrooms at the same time.

After an unsatisfying class period where I feel I have done twice the work with half the results, I wipe down all the seats and tables with disinfectant, and I wait till the next class shows up and do it all over again.

What do I do now?

“I’m just not as compelled by your story as I would like.”

This pretty much summarizes the rejections I have gotten lately, and I wish I could interpret the message so I can improve my books. What does this mean? What would it take to be compelling?

I’m frustrated and don’t know what to do at this point. I don’t know whether it’s just their taste or the popularity of my current memes or my writing.

I don’t know where I can send my work for review because my work has already been through a developmental editor and beta readers. Is there a type of editor for “not compelling enough”?

I don’t mind criticism is there’s an idea of how to remedy. I have nothing to go on here.

Any ideas, readers?

A Fresh Set of Eyes

I never appreciated the value of a fresh set of eyes until now.
I’m making some needed repairs on Prodigies right now after not looking at it for a while, and — wow. I am finding ways to make good enough into great (I hope).

It seems overwhelming at this point, but I know this latest edit is only making my work better. This is one of the reasons I am glad I haven’t decided to self-publish — because I’m impatient and I think my stuff is good coming out of the first draft (it’s not; I just get excited about things) and I would publish before things were “right”.

I love the process of learning my craft. I get so frustrated sometimes when I don’t get an agent or publisher, but then I learn something new (like Save the Cat plotting) and improve my work.

I hope it’s worth it. That’s always the fear, that I’m spending too much time polishing something that may not get published. On the other hand, it’s gratifying seeing something improve even more.

The Incomplete Dev Edit

Right now I’m adding for chapters to the beginning of Prodigies, in order to reveal the character better and capture more of the spirit of Save the Cat (in other words, placing the character in her before life, setting a theme, introducing a debate).

What frustrates me is that this book went through a dev editor, and I in good faith thought that I had done what I needed to in the book, only to be tipped off by a thoughtful agent who rejected me: “I loved the beautiful description you started with, but I lost interest in the characters.” I had to figure out for myself, given what I recently learned about plotting from Save the Cat, what I needed to do. This is something I couldn’t have figured out myself, given my familiarity with the characters, and something I needed the dev editor to pick out for me.

I’m ashamed that I sent this out to query with this kind of flaw in it. I have found similar flaws in other books of mine — I start right into the action, and apparently this is bad.

I wish someone had told me.

That feeling that something’s going to happen

The feeling like something is about to happen.

It feels like an itch between the shoulderblades, so deep that no amount of itching could get rid of it. Like a target is painted there and I can feel where the arrow is going to land, but it hasn’t landed yet.

Most of the time I feel like this, nothing happens.

If anything prompts this feeling, it’s the belief something should be happening and frustration that it’s not. I’ve just got off for break, I don’t go back in until the second or so week of January, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I could work (I have a poster to do) but my brain is still tired from finishing up the semester and it’s Saturday.

I could rest, but that’s the sort of thing that brings up this feeling something should be happening.

I could write — I probably should write. That would likely get me out of the house, because I write better at the cafe. A short story awaits.

This Too

Every now and then I get to a point where I’m convinced I’ve reached the end of my writing career, that I’m ready to put the whole thing down.

This is one of those times.

I just don’t feel as much like a writer when I’m writing short stories. I’m not as focused (obsessed?), I have to come up with many, many more ideas rapidly (which I don’t know if I’m good at), and I don’t have the attachment to my characters.

Years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me writing a novel, and I never imagined I’d prefer novels to short stories.

Yet now is the time for short stories and sending them off to magazines and waiting. I’ve gotten a lot of rejections, but I keep trying.

I feel like quitting sometimes. I’ve felt like quitting many times before.

This too shall pass.

Bits and Pieces

Having a relaxing weekend in Kansas City celebrating my birthday, just as I needed. Now in a coffeehouse on the south Plaza, typing this and drinking coffee and trying to come up with good ideas for writing.

The computer issue was a ID-10-T error (look at what that spells carefully); it was my dongle for the mouse rather than the USB port itself. But what the heck, it got me down here for a birthday celebration.

I’m feeling really frustrated with ideas of what to write, however. I just finished a short story called “God’s Broken Promise” which was based on an experience I had. Richard keeps suggesting characters — a guitar-shredding Buddhist monk, a woman with a pack of cats — but I can’t find the stories there. I guess I don’t start with characters like I thought I did. I start with plot, run with theme, and then the characters make themselves known.

So what do I want to write about? I want to write short stories with twist endings — shocking or satisfying or dramatic or silly. (I haven’t written enough silly stuff lately). I want to write novels again (although I’m about to embark in another dev edit).

I need ideas that grab me.

Writing Small

Stories have several aspects to them that make things interesting:

The plot — what’s actually happening; the action. In a novel, there may be more than one plot (designated as A plot, B plot, etc.)
The themes — these are the wider messages of the piece. They have big implications: man vs. nature, greed doesn’t pay, etc.
The characters — these are the people in the story. Generally you will have one or two main characters and maybe up to 8 point of view characters in a third-person ensemble piece.
The setting — people want to know where something happens and what it looks like.

When I write novels, I seem to start with character and plot first. Like “who is this person and what have they gotten themselves into?” Inspiration comes from that kernel of the story and spreads out from there as I’m writing.

Writing short stories, on the other hand, feels strange — all the parts of the story are there, but they’re a lot smaller, with one sentence often carrying the seed to all the parts: For example, “A woman hallucinates about the end of the world — or does she see visions?” With that idea/character/plot, I proceed with the story.

Short stories are harder for me because of motivation. I can’t dwell in a short story for months at a time like I can novels, so it doesn’t tempt me as much. I’m with the characters and the plot only for a short time, and I have to make the best of my time.

Need New Ideas for Stories

I’m writing short stories, as advised by some people at the Gateway Con who thought I’d written enough novels for now. The three short stories I have written (as opposed to the flash fiction or short essays) are from the Prodigies/Archetype universe*: “Tanabata”, “Hands”, and “Runesansu”. You can find them in these pages if you want a read.

I want to branch out on my writing — stay within the science fiction/fantasy, I think, except that there are certain topics I would like to stay away from:

Vampires
Werewolves
Alpha-freaking-male ANYTHING
Unbridled gore
Gratuitous sex
In-jokes **
The Adventures of Gary Stu
Fan Fic ***

This either means that I have to do new world-building or write short stories that don’t require world-building. I’ve been tempted to do new world-building because I haven’t done that for a while. I miss that immersive experience of creativity.

So if you have any inspirations …

*****

* One character connects the two sets of stories

**(see Ready Player One if you don’t know what I’m talking about)

*** I have nothing against fanfic; I just don’t write it.

The Flow Is Not Happening

So I made my summer schedule nice and neat — only to have to revise it already.

Rain, of course. A visit to the acute care clinic. Best intentions gone to hell.

I wonder if my schedule’s too strict. I wonder if it’s just me being reluctant to follow a schedule. At any rate, the flow is not happening.

I’m second-guessing my schedule just like I’m second-guessing my editing.

I’m editing the bulk of Apocalypse, trying to cut out what isn’t necessary, and I’m struggling between “burn it to the ground” and “I can’t kill my darlings!” Some good quality time writing should solve that quickly — or perhaps slowly. If I get the hang of what should stay and what should go, I should be done by June 1 because the story has good bones.

I guess the motto is to try for excellence and not perfection. Perfection has me chasing my tail and getting nothing done.

Flow doesn’t happen when I’m nitpicking details.