Throughout my teaching career I’ve gone on and on and on about the importance of planning in creating a really good piece of writing. Insisted upon it despite the moans and groans of indifferent teenagers who hate planning…. Just want to get on with it…are just going to start writing regardless. Despite all this I’ve stuck pedantically to my guns, indifferent to the pleading and have insisted upon the scared PLAN! So why, when it comes to the most important piece of planning that I’ll probably ever do, can I not practice what I preach?
Knowing that all good books begin with a sound synopsis, where did I begin? With the first few chapters. When Marcus originally asked me if I had a plan I reeled out the well known excuse ...I know what I want to write…it’s all in my head…I don’t need to write it down...
Thus inevitably, as soon as I sent my initial ideas off to a friend in publishing, my poorly laid plans fell apart. I vaguely knew what I wanted to include and had thought that I only needed, or could get away with, a succinct one side synopsis. I was wrong. She advised me that I needed a chapter by chapter break down of the entire book. The sinking sense of disappointment was overwhelming; the kind of childish frustration you may've experienced when you thought that you’d finished a particularly tiresome task, only to realize that it needed to be done all over again because you hadn’t done it properly the first time. Not, I imagine - being very much a novice, unlike completing an intricate piece of knitting, only to see it unravel before your eyes…
Addressing the issue was painful. I struggled to get past the first five chapters and practically had to force myself to sit down and spin out my narrative. Think how Repunzel must have felt when faced with the impossible task of turning straw into gold; I felt something similar. It took me about three hours of nail biting and finger tapping, before with the flourish of a final full stop, I finally completed the task. Or so I thought...
Seeking feedback before I sent it back to the publishing friend, I emailed it to my extremely patient husband….. his response? I don’t think it quite works…what about x, y and z? You haven’t included …..why don’t you try…? My beautifully completed jigsaw puzzle lay in front of me. Blinking away tears, I pulled it apart for the third time. This time the pieces didn’t seem to want to fit back together and I really struggled to solve my plot problem. I found every possible excuse to evade my conundrum…. Housework, exercising the dogs, even outside chores have never been more appealing….Never having believed in writer’s block, there it was; solid, impenetrable and apparently impassable.
So how did I rebuild my shattered sandcastle? With quite a bit of help from Marcus; he’s a fantastic sounding board. If it weren’t for the fact that one of us needs to be earning real money, I’d have him at home 24/7. A large dose of tenacity from me ensured that all the talking actually transferred to the page. If I do return to teaching, I may just show a little more empathy to my reluctant students than I ever did in the past….
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Sunday 19 September 2010
Flexibility is the way forward...
So how am I enjoying my more flexible existence? Well although I’m still not quite in the groove, I’ve already done several things that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I were still teaching….
Last Friday I rode at Blenheim with five other members of the long-listed two star team. We performed a training demonstration of the team dressage test in the main arena; a brilliant and enjoyable experience. We had two sets of instructions to follow; Jonathan Chapman directed us as Richard Waygood commentated upon our performance and explained the format of the European Two Star competition. He introduced us and our horses as we demonstrated some of the movements before running through the team test. As part of the demonstration he gave us instruction whilst encouraging the audience to clap at every opportune interval; in this way he generated the kind of electric atmosphere that you usually only experience at a championship and so it became a really good test of the horses’ temperament. Whilst a couple of the more highly strung characters did struggle to contain themselves - we had one dancing around in front of us and another prancing behind - Bow kept his cool and we maintained our all important rhythm.
Performing dressage as a team is much harder than it looks; you have to concentrate fully on where your horse is in relation to the others, whilst also listening for the commands. Movements and transitions have to be executed at exactly the right time, making the preparation of your horse for the movement crucial, ‘ride prepare to half circle left…’ and to be poised for the command ‘NOW’ upon which we all aim to perform the movement in perfect synchronicity. All these factors make it difficult to think about riding your own horse; you have to compromise your individual performance for the overall picture. The judges award a significant proportion of marks for ‘dressing’ – not, as I first thought (being new to this) how well coordinated our outfits are, but rather the harmony of the horses in each movement as well the regularity of the spacing between them – so this is an aspect that we’ve really worked on in training. Although by no means a perfect performance, the practice seemed to pay off as our display at Blenheim was rated as ‘good’ by Richard. Although he also informed the audience that we did have nearly a year to perfect it! Reading between the lines, it’s still early days….
On Wednesday I was able to squeeze in another Two Star training day to our busy schedule. I gained some valuable individual training advice from both Richard and Jonathan; I learnt a lot about doing less on the flat – I need to keep my legs and hands still and let it happen. The jumping exercises were clever and complicated – doing their job of getting us to think more quickly about the next fence. I find watching others to be as valuable as performing myself, although going first, the others had the advantage of learning from my mistakes! Two things I need to remember; shoulders back and soft hands. Not radically new advice, but both make a huge difference to Bow’s jumping.
On Friday we headed to Gatcombe for our first run since Blair. We completed a reasonable test and we show jumped well despite two fences down - I got him too deep to an upright and he was a little careless behind over a parallel. I was riding him in a Waterford for the first time as he decided to run away in his double at Somerford; I felt that I ‘had him’ more securely and was riding more proactively. The training is definitely helping and my nerve is definitely improving so we’re going in the right direction. He was brilliant x-country despite my slightly tentative approach over the first few fences and through the water; unlike me, he had obviously forgotten my unscheduled dip at Blair. I will also put it firmly behind me as we’re now focused upon preparing for our first advanced at Little Downham – two weeks on Monday – thanks again to my new flexible life…
Last Friday I rode at Blenheim with five other members of the long-listed two star team. We performed a training demonstration of the team dressage test in the main arena; a brilliant and enjoyable experience. We had two sets of instructions to follow; Jonathan Chapman directed us as Richard Waygood commentated upon our performance and explained the format of the European Two Star competition. He introduced us and our horses as we demonstrated some of the movements before running through the team test. As part of the demonstration he gave us instruction whilst encouraging the audience to clap at every opportune interval; in this way he generated the kind of electric atmosphere that you usually only experience at a championship and so it became a really good test of the horses’ temperament. Whilst a couple of the more highly strung characters did struggle to contain themselves - we had one dancing around in front of us and another prancing behind - Bow kept his cool and we maintained our all important rhythm.
Performing dressage as a team is much harder than it looks; you have to concentrate fully on where your horse is in relation to the others, whilst also listening for the commands. Movements and transitions have to be executed at exactly the right time, making the preparation of your horse for the movement crucial, ‘ride prepare to half circle left…’ and to be poised for the command ‘NOW’ upon which we all aim to perform the movement in perfect synchronicity. All these factors make it difficult to think about riding your own horse; you have to compromise your individual performance for the overall picture. The judges award a significant proportion of marks for ‘dressing’ – not, as I first thought (being new to this) how well coordinated our outfits are, but rather the harmony of the horses in each movement as well the regularity of the spacing between them – so this is an aspect that we’ve really worked on in training. Although by no means a perfect performance, the practice seemed to pay off as our display at Blenheim was rated as ‘good’ by Richard. Although he also informed the audience that we did have nearly a year to perfect it! Reading between the lines, it’s still early days….
On Wednesday I was able to squeeze in another Two Star training day to our busy schedule. I gained some valuable individual training advice from both Richard and Jonathan; I learnt a lot about doing less on the flat – I need to keep my legs and hands still and let it happen. The jumping exercises were clever and complicated – doing their job of getting us to think more quickly about the next fence. I find watching others to be as valuable as performing myself, although going first, the others had the advantage of learning from my mistakes! Two things I need to remember; shoulders back and soft hands. Not radically new advice, but both make a huge difference to Bow’s jumping.
On Friday we headed to Gatcombe for our first run since Blair. We completed a reasonable test and we show jumped well despite two fences down - I got him too deep to an upright and he was a little careless behind over a parallel. I was riding him in a Waterford for the first time as he decided to run away in his double at Somerford; I felt that I ‘had him’ more securely and was riding more proactively. The training is definitely helping and my nerve is definitely improving so we’re going in the right direction. He was brilliant x-country despite my slightly tentative approach over the first few fences and through the water; unlike me, he had obviously forgotten my unscheduled dip at Blair. I will also put it firmly behind me as we’re now focused upon preparing for our first advanced at Little Downham – two weeks on Monday – thanks again to my new flexible life…
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Footloose but not quite fancy free....
Last week I couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that I should have been somewhere else…..Schools around here have had a staggered start to the new school year and so I was almost able to pretend that I wasn’t missing anything. Bumping into some of my recent GCSE students at Moreton show last week end reminded me quite gently. They told me how brilliantly well they’d done in their English exams, which as I still haven’t managed to get hold of a copy of their results, was fantastic news. Every student needs their magic grade ‘C’ in English in order to progress to college, sixth form, university and beyond…. One of the best things about teaching is helping students to achieve those results that they need to progress. For me, learning of a less academic student achieving a grade ‘C’ has always given me a greater sense of achievement than the high fliers achieving their ‘A*s’. It’s often been a much harder climb, especially having nagged the less motivated students every step of the way, but when they do reach their goals, it seems somehow all the more amazing. Those moments sharing the students’ successes and seeing them move on to greater things, are aspects of the job that I’m really going to miss.
Although one student told me she was going back to the sixth form, others were moving on which made me feel a little less isolated in my departure. I also bumped into a retired colleague from Prince Henry’s on Saturday night; a vivacious blast from the past she was warm and generous in her greeting and animated proof that ‘life outside’ can bring happiness and fulfillment. She told me a funny story about one of my recent GCSE students; he’d been to see her for help with an audition for college, apparently he wanted to be a stunt man.It just shows that teachers only see one side of their students.I’d always had him down as the shy, retiring, quiet one who was lacking in confidence! She told me that not only did he achieve his magic ‘C’grade in English but he was also accepted onto his drama course; brilliant news. After a week end of such uplifting chance encounters I felt quite buoyant about moving on; positive, upbeat and a little less like Cinderella than I had on September 1st.
That elation soon evaporated when my P45 arrived in the post on Monday morning; weird how a piece of paper could leave me feeling like I’d been slapped in the face. Although I’d sort of adjusted to not going back to school it was still a shock. A rude reminder that I’m footloose but not quite fancy free; although I now have the time to pursue my dreams, I still need to find a way of funding them. I have begun working for my trainer which is great as it was always part of the plan; riding more horses is definitely helping to improve my technique. But the writing hasn’t quite taken off yet. I’ve done some and am waiting for feedback. I can empathize with students waiting for their results; wondering if what I’ve done is good enough to help me onto the next stage of my life…..
Although one student told me she was going back to the sixth form, others were moving on which made me feel a little less isolated in my departure. I also bumped into a retired colleague from Prince Henry’s on Saturday night; a vivacious blast from the past she was warm and generous in her greeting and animated proof that ‘life outside’ can bring happiness and fulfillment. She told me a funny story about one of my recent GCSE students; he’d been to see her for help with an audition for college, apparently he wanted to be a stunt man.It just shows that teachers only see one side of their students.I’d always had him down as the shy, retiring, quiet one who was lacking in confidence! She told me that not only did he achieve his magic ‘C’grade in English but he was also accepted onto his drama course; brilliant news. After a week end of such uplifting chance encounters I felt quite buoyant about moving on; positive, upbeat and a little less like Cinderella than I had on September 1st.
That elation soon evaporated when my P45 arrived in the post on Monday morning; weird how a piece of paper could leave me feeling like I’d been slapped in the face. Although I’d sort of adjusted to not going back to school it was still a shock. A rude reminder that I’m footloose but not quite fancy free; although I now have the time to pursue my dreams, I still need to find a way of funding them. I have begun working for my trainer which is great as it was always part of the plan; riding more horses is definitely helping to improve my technique. But the writing hasn’t quite taken off yet. I’ve done some and am waiting for feedback. I can empathize with students waiting for their results; wondering if what I’ve done is good enough to help me onto the next stage of my life…..
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