Photo: I am making a quilt for a friend in exchange for the many bee things she gave me this time last year. There are now bees in the upper meadow, and a couple quilt squares I really should move faster on. There is time… and there is never time. (I know this block isn’t perfect. That’s not the point. Don’t @ me.)

I haven’t been blogging. I’m sorry. I’m the type who, when the world is a cacophony of emotion, gets real quiet and thoughtful. The world is a cacophony. The internet, especially, is a cacophony. I choose not to put out more noise for consumption. I’ve been doing other things, namely raising more chickens, and ducks, and getting ready for bees, and starting my planting… and teaching and writing.

The writing is important. I did want to write early, but I have been very actively working on a novel while also selectively writing for a couple of markets I love. One short story took me on a whole creative journey which turned into an all-consuming process, which was actually very helpful for my teaching this winter. Ultimately, it taught me a very cool and important lesson, one that will stick with me for a while. One that I have to explain, but first, I have to tell you about how much I love Alton Brown.

Stay with me. It’s important to this post. It’s gonna come together. Trust me.

See, I’m young enough and yet old enough to remember when Food Network actually showed cooking shows and one of those shows was Good Eats. There, Alton Brown filled the space Bill Nye had so squarely occupied in my school years. It’s not that Bill left me, it’s just that Alton reminded me that I kinda like it when someone talks science to me. My college years were very deeply entrenched in the word space, and my only college class was a perfunctory “lab” that I took as a summer course (quickly forgotten) and a Physics for Liberal Arts Majors, which was pejorative as fuck, but I actually enjoyed. Very sincerely, I loved my science classes until they turned into math classes. (I’m sure there are math kids who love history classes until they turn into writing classes.) This is not really the point, but it’s just to say: Alton talked to me about the science of cooking the way that Bill used to talk to me about science. I quickly and easily fell in love with his show. There are still DVDs in this house. My (then boyfriend, now) husband and I enjoyed many a filet mignon thanks to Good Eats season 9, episode 17 (Tender is the Loin) and our local Costco.

If you don’t know but care to know, Alton is back. He’s got a Youtube show called Alton Brown Cooks Food and, well… it’s like he picked us up right where he(?) (that old network?) dropped us off. And I’ve been cooking again. Behold, our favorite new breakfast. I can’t stop making it. You’re welcome.

I now come back to writing because, well, Alton taught me something important this winter that I’m grateful for: he reminded me about how much showing the process and the why and the history and work really matters to me. He’s funny, yes, but he’s also teaching and I’m grateful. He’s a fussy cook and that fussiness gives us play space to be fussy where we want to be and where we don’t want to be. (I very quickly abandoned the gremolata in the pasta recipe. It’s perfectly delicious without it. Don’t @ me if you like it. I’ve never loved breadcrumbs on my pasta.)

Inspired by Alton and continually restarting my struggle bus as I tried and retried to write a story for a market I love doing a very cool themed submission call, I took pictures of my struggles for my students. I diagnosed my problems, documented my solutions, took pictures of my failures. On St. Patrick’s day, I bought me and my husband a bottle of Jameson and we took to the blackboard in my kitchen while drunk and drew a space ship, a space elevator, a star system, and all the things I needed to make the worldbuilding of my story work. I took pictures (no video! lol) of that. I made a whole slide deck of my “I didn’t give up and this is why I knew not to” journey (pictures and all!) and, ultimately, presented my completed story to my students for workshop so they could read it and judge it for themselves. They gave me awesome feedback. I send a story I’m proud of to the market on time. No word yet, and that’s ok.

I’ve never shown my work to my students before. I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me. Inspired by Alton’s good lessons (the diagrams, the 3D dioramas of gluten, the puppets of the past, etc), I decided to take a positive risk. My students seemed to take comfort in knowing I was working and struggling alongside them and seemed to enjoy giving me feedback, knowing I had a real goal in mind for the story. I repeated the process with another piece for a class I’m teaching for another organization–this one with students who are brand new to creative writing as an example of how to workshop. It was exhilarating, actually. Coaxing students out of their shell by offering up a bit of myself is a strategy I’ll use forever.

So: I’ve been writing. And I’ve been teaching. And I’ve been workshopping. And I’ve been learning. The (digital, social) world keeps asking for my emotion and I am just… not offering it. I’m over here doing my homework and showing my work (if only one of my gradeschool math teachers could see me now!).

Slow and steady, that has all paid off. The novel sits at 16,000 good words (which isn’t a lot, but I write by hand and these are good words. I’m proud of them.). A whole new short story written and sent off. The beginnings of a collection, with no real timeline but a plan and concept I’m proud of. An anthology for my nonprofit almost edited and ready for formatting. 8 new chicks for the flock and 6 new ducks. A colony of bees. Beans on spoil–lettuce, onions, beets, oats, peas, sunflowers, and wildflowers, too. Corn and pumpkin this weekend or next.

The world is on fire and your energy is scattered. (The world is on fire. I know. I know…) (But your energy is scattered.) (Is it because you’re on the internet?) Get off of it. Go read a book. Go put something in some soil. Go cook something new. Go teach someone something you know. Go do some work and then have work to show… at least to yourself. Here… this is growing. This is not on fire. It’ll feel so good. So good.

I’m teaching this summer, by the way. Want to take a class with me?

I’m teaching a single session How to Write a Short Story class for GrubStreet on June 20th.

I’m teaching an Intro to Speculative Fiction multi-week class for GrubStreet starting June 11th.

For those who know the genre and want more rigor, I’m teaching a Speculative Fiction Workshop starting July 9th.

For StoryStudio Chicago, I’m teaching a Speculative Fiction workshop that also starts in July, but hasn’t been posted to their website yet. More when I have it.

I hope to see you. I’m sure I’ll have another story on the struggle bus ready to share. 🙂

If you care to share, I’d love to know what you’re growing. Nothing pixel-related. Share your photos of green things growing, feathered things laying eggs, winged things buzzing about, or some other wonderful project. In a world that things computers will replace us (they won’t) and screaming on the internet will make us feel better (it won’t), I crave only the tangible. What have you done? What are you doing? What are you growing? Share, please!