Month: April 2010

Let’s never do that again

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

At long last, I took my Praxis tests today.  It was harrowing.  It was uncomfortable.  Maybe it was successful.

First came the content knowledge test, 120 questions in 120 minutes.  My practice runs had all been fine, so when I finally began the test in that massive lecture hall with my bubble sheet on the wafer they call a desktop, I was confident.  Question one included a short excerpt from a novel and included refernces to a character named Heathcliff… I should know that…but I didn’t.  Bad start.  I filled in the bubble for Wuthering Heights and moved on.  Score!  Process of elimination rules.

I went on (and on and on) and felt like I knew about half of the answers cold, was able to work out half of the others by eliminating wrong answers, had solid educated conclusions on others, and at least improved my guessing odds through elimination on all but maybe four.  I am confident I passed this one.  More to the point, if I didn’t pass, it’s not likely to get much better and the creative writing scheme is over.

Then came the pedagogy test.  I hope to God I passed that because I never want to endure that torture again.  Firstly (always hated that word), they managed to find a room on campus with smaller desk-wafers, chairs from the Spanish Inquisition, no discernible air conditioning in the midst of a freak tropical monsoon, and a wall so close to my personal space that I don’t want to tell my wife about it (she gets jealous).  I feel like I spent all morning staring at my belly button.

Then the tests were (finally!) distributed.  Two constructed response questions, one evaluating the teaching points of a piece of literature, the other dissecting a (fictional) student’s writing.  I thought I was ready for this test.  I did my reading and my SparkNoting and of course my Rocketbooking.  I had outlines prepared for six different high school literary mainstays: Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Beowulf, and as a matter of indulgence, The Hobbit.

All sorts of people insisted that R&J was almost always on the list of stories to write about, so I made it my #2 candidate (behind Frankenstein, whose outline was perfection) in my depth chart.  R&J wasn’t there.  Frank either.  But Gatsby, surely…but no.  1984?  Surely the singular paragon of Old English literature known as Beowulf would be there, right?  No and no.  Oh snap.  But there at the bottom, three stories from the end, was the jewel I never expected to see:  J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit.  It was there.

My first impression: Sweet!

My second impression: What the hell was on that outline?

To make a long story less long, I wrote the evaluation of the student work first (a daydream/adventure about a space ship) and muddled through my Hobbit part as best I could after that.  I finished the rough, low-detailed versions of my responses with time to spare.  Forty-five seconds is technically time, right.  None of my answers were brilliant.  It was okay.  I suspect that test will be a close call on either the pass or fail side.  Hard to say which.

In completely unrelated news, the Anywhere But Here Anthology promptly rejected L.R. this morning.  Running out of places to send that one.  Weird how the world didn’t stop for my test today.

I’m going to take a nap now.

Hey, I still have stories out there

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

Just got an email saying another story at ASIM passed slush round one and is into round two.  It was a nice reminder that I still have seeds in the wind.  I’ve been so absorbed with tests and my novel that I almost forgot.  Heh.

I only have five stories out.  I have others that probably need to be in the mail, too, but they’re currently on blocks in my front yard awaiting new tires and some transmission work.  I know, I know…but that’s where they are.

The five out are at very different stages. I’ll refer to them by initials for anyone who might know them, but I am newly against broadcasting story titles lest they end up in a contest.

  • G.B. has been out at Weird Tales for 122 days.  Long time with no word about anything, not even confirmation of receipt.  I need to start thinking about a query.
  • S.R. is being held byASIM for consideration.  They’ll either buy it or release it sometime in the next two months.
  • D.E., a fantasy flash piece, has been at Every Day Fiction for 65 days, just slightly over the advertised response time.  I expect they’ll buy it, but I can’t be certain as I’ve only sold them one story before.
  • L.R., the story that got me waitlisted for CW 2009, is awaiting the verdict from the Anywhere But Earth anthology.  It may or may not fit there.  It’s only been there 6 days so far.  The editor says he’ll be back to me in four weeks, so I guess 3 more.
  • T.O.L. is the story in round 2 at ASIM.  That also took six days, a lot faster than S.R. escaped the first round.  Then again, S.R. was extra slow considering their normal cycle.

And that’s it.  I should get the tires back on my rainbow story and get the engine back in E.E., but one thing at a time.

I took today off because my daughter’s sitter is sick.  With the big test tomorrow, I’ll sneak in as much studying as I can while we hang out.  Which means not much.  Writing can resume tomorrow afternoon.

Wish me luck.

Novel Numbers

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 8 Comments

I’m having a hard time believing I can finish this novel in just 50,000 words.  I just finished my first chapter and it was over 3k.  I could probably make two chapters out of it if I must, but the story is still just getting going.  My character will be on the spaceship by the end of the next chapter (probably 2k words or so) and the ship will begin its 50 year voyage at the beginning of the third.  The novel will end before that, leaving lots of sequel room.

Anyway, I took the time to do some more writing tonight.  I had to do it, studying be damned.  I’ll make up for it tomorrow.

3000 words per chapter puts it around 16-17 chapters.  Maybe that’ll work.  I just need to keep the words coming to figure out how long this thing will be.

Writing…not…happening…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Read the title of this post like a dying William Shatner character and you’ll understand how I feel.  I have writing momentum.  I know what I want to write.  I wrestle a little on the sentence level, but that’s what writing is about.  I am ready to write this novel. So what’s the problem?

Everything else.

I know I should be writing regardless of everything else, no matter how thin my time allowance or how important my distractions, but in the realm of priorities, the novel is on a lower rung.  Tests are the main distraction.  My students take their end of course test on May 3rd (even though the course continues until the end of May).  And of course there’s that blasted Praxis on Saturday.  I’m still writing when I get a window, but most of the windows are getting filled with other things.  Next week will be clearer with the Praxis behind me.  May gets even better with the EoC behind my students.  Then the bliss of summer.

There will always be disruptions and distractions.  I find I work better with a bend-but-don’t-break mentality than with a Postman’s Creed mentality.  So the novel will get there…eventually.  Once I break the 10% mark it should be smoother sailing, or so my calendar suggests.  *crosses fingers…then uncrosses them to type*

Down the Drain

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

Did you know that a sonnet has 14 syllables per line?  I didn’t…because they have ten.  Even a first grader can count syllables.  But the Cliff’s Notes Praxis II study guide says it’s 14, as in the number of dollars I spent on the book.

It’s in the answers to the practice test that itt comes up.  It also states that said sonnet is written in iambic pentameter (which they are) but provides an answer that denies this.  Arraagh!!

So what?  One little mistake isn’t that bad, is it?  No, not if it’s one.  Upon reading the Amazon reviews of this book I realized that there is a lot of misinformation in the book, both the study notes and the practice test.  And excuse me for not knowing whether Graymalkin was the cat or the toad in Macbeth.  Really, that’s the type of thing the Praxis will ask.  I hope not.

So I will take my practice test grade with a grain of salt and check my wrong answers with other sources.  Then I’ll double-check the ones I got right but wasn’t sure about.  And somewhere in there I’ll make sure I’m ready for my Pedagogy test.

Are there laws protecting people like me from bad information?  If I fail the Praxis due to answers from this book’s faulty information, can I sue Cliff’s Notes for my eighty bucks (cost of the test)?  Hopefully I won’t have to find out.

Things other than Communism that sound better on paper

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I was going to try to kick my way-overboard caffeine habit this weekend. I made it 30 hours.

I got hit with the obligatory debilitating headache around 4 AM Saturday (still Friday night to me) after avoiding the big C all that day.  I woke up miserable but intending to fight through it.  Then my wife pointed out my schedule for the next few weeks.  I drove to the nearest market for a two liter Mountain Dew.

Let’s break the schedule down.  Next Saturday is the much-blogged-about Praxis tests that will determine whether I will teach a creative writing class or not.  I need to be to the campus, registered, and seated by 7:30 that morning.  (Is that possible without caffeine?)  Between now and then I have to be sure I am ready for said test, which means cramming like I haven’t crammed since I was an undergrad over a decade ago.  (More caffeine.) Oh, and I am teaching my Algebra students to use the graphing calculators we JUST got…and they need to be proficient by May 3rd if they’re going to be worth the effort at all.  (Caffeine may not be strong enough to help clean those stables….no charge for the random Hercules reference.)

I could have navigated this weekend with the hangover-from-hell style headache, but it would have sucked, and I ran the risk of scarring my daughter for life in reaction to her very natural tantrums.  (Worst case scenario, but you get the picture.)

On top of all that, I’m trying to write a novel (ha!), teaching regular classes, raising a three-year-old, enduring feuds, scrimping to save money to afford the new car we bought (Kia Sorento, quite nice)…I even mowed the lawn today.  So I have much going on.  I need not add caffeine withdrawl to the mix, so I won’t.  We’ll save that for the future.

Full disclosure: I have been caffeinated most of my life, but the few times I was able to wean myself, I really had a lot more energy.  Unfortunately, even though the headaches dry up after a couple days, the energy boost takes a week or three to really kick in.  So yes, I intend to get there eventually and try to stick with it when I do, but it’s a tough bridge to cross.

It Has Begun

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

I have officially and formally begun my as-yet-untitled YA novel.  I’m aiming for somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 words, so let’s call it a cool 50,000.  (Maybe I’ll get a progress bar set up some time.)  

I’m currently sitting at 1500 words.  That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s 3%.  Woohoo!  At that rate, I’ll have a finished draft in 67 days (2 days to get those 1500 words).  I do intend to speed up a little.  

I’ll aim to have my first draft by June 15th.  It would be better if it was done by the beginning of June, before I go to ConCarolinas.  We’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully my outline will help ward off writer’s block.

No to go home and get another 1500 or so tonight.

Frankenstein

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

Got through the nearly 3-hour Frankenstein Rocketbook.  Whew.  But drawing up the outline for the pedagogy test was a snap.  I hope the story is on my list!

I managed to find two major literary characteristics without touching on either Gothic or Science Fiction literature.  I opted for Romanticism and Metanarration (narration that draws attention to itself, particularly Robert relaying Victor’s telling of the monster’s story) and the questions of reliability this brings about.

Anyway, next up is Beowulf.  Only an hour again this time, thank goodness.  I’ve got good assignments for this one, particularly the write-you-own-epic-poem assignment, one I actually did in high school.  Our string of limericks for Frosty versus the Sun was memorable.  (Frosty lost.)

In other writerly news (which is what this blog is supposed to be about, right?), my novel outline moved along well until recently.  I haven’t tried it much of late.  It has deliberate attempts to sit back and let the story progress instead of the short story technique of pushing the plot along as fast as the narrative can support.  It shouldn’t take more than an hour to finish the outline.

After that, I’ll move on to character sketching.  I have an urge to start writing again, but it’s still too soon.  Maybe I’ll write a few little backstory scenes to help get the feel for the characters, scenes that won’t go in the novel.  (I’ll sell them in the future when the novel is a huge commercial success.)  Prewriting is important.  I am still resisting the urge to skip it.  But I need to get moving if it’s going to be ready by mid-August.

Mysterious Testing

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Yes, I’m a little preoccupied with this Praxis test thing.  It’s just over two weeks away,

I took the 90-question practice test out of an ebook and got 75 of them right.  75 out of 90 sounds pretty good, right?  That’s 83 percent.  To pass I only need…I don’t know.

The tests each have a raw-to-scaled conversion table based on the test’s relative difficulty.  I need a scaled score of 157 out of a possible 200 to pass the content knowledge test (minimum score of 100).  Al I can be sure of is my raw score.  Supposedly there are conversion tables for specific practice tests out there, though no general conversions.  I can’t find any of them.  If some other practice test told me that 83% translated to a 183 or a 143, that would at least give me a ballpark idea of where my current performance falls.  [Note: the real test has 120 questions, but I can use proportionality to get some idea, can’t I?]

This is a test that includes some education theory.  Part of education theory (even questions relevant for the test) say that students should be aware of the scoring ruberic and/or passing requirements before they take the test.  Ironic that the real passing requirements are such a mystery.

I have ordered another test prep book.  It was cheap and I should be able to recoup half the money reselling it, so I went ahead and bought it.  It may provide a conversion table, but I don’t know.  It should help.  I may be cramming for a test I could have passed the first day it was suggested or I may be wasting time prepping for a test I will never be ready for.  I’d like to know one way or the other.