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Don't worry this is not going to be a lesson on grammar. After all, if you are reading this you've probably been done with school for a long while and have had all the grammar you can stomach. So my last post made it seem like things were very dire indeed. In fact, that was only for dramatic effect. I have been talking to the Chevy Chase Community Center about potentially using their space to hold the writing workshops. And they said yes. In addition I got the times that I wanted Thursdays and Fridays from 4-6 pm. In order to make that happen, I had to become a volunteer. To do that it was off the the Metropolitan police department to get a background check done. Don't worry, I am safe around kids. And really it was a piece of cake, really.  After all, I don't even have a driving record. It took a week for the background check to clear and then it was down to the Department of Parks and Recreation (please, no sitcom jokes) to get the volunteer badge and have a small orientation. The orientation consisted of me waiting in the lobby of DPR for an hour, while the woman I had an appointment to see, fought her way through DC traffic. It all came out right in the end, I got my badge and I have a picture and everything. It is, like all such pictures, quite terrible, which I am coming to accept, is quite alright with me. Once I had that, I went to the DC.gov website and set up my limited liability company.  That was easier than I expected. I am now the manager/owner of Inkreadable, LLC. I have articles and an EIN and everything. Why not Inkreadable Kids, you ask? Well, that's because I was thinking "what if adults approach me"? They certainly can't be called Inkreadable Kids, now can they? What I did is I set up Inkreadable Kids as the trade name of the organization. I'll just have to think of something suitable for adults if there is interest. But how will people, contact sign up, and pay you? you ask? Stay tuned, That's up next.

The Bee

When I conceived the idea to teach creative writing to kids, it was unformed. More of a "maybe I should" rather than an "I am going to". But the idea didn't go away. In fact, it started buzzing through my brain like the most annoying of bees flying hither and yon. It caused no end of trouble, on my vacation. Here I was, on vacation, trying to have a good time, and all I started thinking about was how to make the idea a reality. This bee wasn't dying or getting angry, no matter how much I tried to swat it away. I decided to talk to the closest thing I had to an expert. Was it someone in business, you ask?, A writer, maybe?, Come on, it has to be a teacher, you mutter. No, I had none of those people. I had something better. I had a Madeline. What is a Madeline, you ask? A new robot? A computer? Madeline  is none of things. Madeline is a friend, a very good friend, who was doing exactly what I wanted to do. Except she was doing it far away in Accra, Ghana. If you are interested you can follow her adventures at monkeybreadmusings.blogspot.com. I contacted Madeline and told her what I wanted to do. True to form, Madeline was nothing but encouraging. And so the round of what ifs began. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, that over the last month the idea has solidified into a syllabus that revolves around the elements of a short story. While I am a decent writer, I also have somewhat numbers oriented brain and so, true to form, below is a visual representation of a short story.


So I've identified what I am going to teach. Luckily, the bee is still buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. It's no longer an annoying bee, though, it is a helpful bee flitting through the flower that is my brain making ideas instead of honey.
I've  decided that I am going to teach the elements of a short story in a five week module that meets once per week. I'll teach The exposition, rising action, and climax over three classes. The fourth class would teach the declining action and the end. And the fifth class would have the kids "publish" their story to take home to parents. I am looking at laminators to make that happen. I am going to use a systems of two prompts a class to get the kids thinking. They'll then be able to choose which story they publish.
I've further decided that the age range would be kids 8-12 year olds. After all, to write, you need to know how to read. An older class for high school kids, if there was interest, can be added later. I remember high school. I hope there'll be interest. 
Who I'm teaching. Check.
What I'm teaching. Check.
How I'm Teaching. Check.
Why I'm teaching, Check.
When and Where I'm teaching. Uh oh.

My "Make a difference"

I went to a posh private school, which  to be honest, at the time, was not very posh at all. We had no gym and were bused to the Boys and Girls club to play at their facility. Most of my friends' parents worked at the World Bank. We were all bright, and let's face it, a bit full of ourselves. But we were all teenagers, and who isn't full of themselves then? The school instilled in all of us a need to make a difference. And so it began. For some, it was the idealism of the non profit world. For others, it was the realm of science and looking for cures for all kinds of ills. And then there was me. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had the same idealism and the same drive but didn't know where I fit in. I got to university and discovered that, as much as   I loved physics, it didn't love me back. So I got a degree in international relations. True to my contrary nature, I then went and got an MBA. I thought that my idealistic soul would flourish, but again something held me back. I don't know if it was cowardice, or low self esteem or what but I couldn't find my way. 

Then, I discovered writing. I came late to writing. Unlike some people, I had not been writing for years. I joined The Writer's Way, a positive reinforcement writer's group in 2002. A few of us tried to splinter into a critique based group but it never caught on and fizzled quickly. Writing took a back seat to other considerations and I didn't pick it back up until I decided in 2011 to move to Edinburgh, Scotland. Just like that. On a whim. And a Greek passport. While there I joined a writers group called The Edinburgh Creative Writers Club. It was a great group of people and I made a ton of new friends. I also ended up leading the ECW. Sadly, Edinburgh didn't have much in the way of permanent jobs, so back I came to the states. But I came back with purpose. Using the skills I gained in Edinburgh, I created my own group, The Washington Creative Writers Club. A year and three months into leading this writers group and doing some of my own writing, I still felt something was missing. 

It wasn't until this summer, during a chance conversation with my family, while on vacation in Greece, that I found it. My "make a difference". How was I going to make what I loved doing into something I could live on? An idea gradually took hold. Before I left for Greece, I had started a second writers group, the "Fast and Dirty writers" that met and wrote from prompts that I found online or made up myself. The name is not in the least indicative of what we wrote but rather how we wrote it. Fast and dirty in the sense that there was no planning. As for the other meaning of "dirty", nothing to see here folks, move along. I wondered if I could use this idea of prompted writing to make a living. I discovered that with a bit of tweaking I could turn the model that I use at both WCW and Fast and Dirty, into something that I could get kids interested in. So there it was. My "make a difference".  Teaching young kids to love writing as much as I do. How, you ask?  That's up next. Stay tuned.