Question: How Can You Write So Much?

New section. Judging by the poll results so far, you all like my stories. So I will be posting more of those. However, I am looking to you for help on the topics. I get asked a lot of questions all the time (which I don't mind) so I'm going to start answering them. Some will be hella long stories like this one and others short responses. So ask away and I'll see what I can do for you. Send me an email or leave a question in the comment area (you can do so without signing your name if you really want to) and I will start answering.

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The Question: How Can You Write So Much?

The Answer:

There is one person (and one class) to thank for my ability to write 3-6,000 words every day in the matter of hours for you all to read and enjoy. She was my AP English Literature and Composition teacher I had my Senior year of high school. But before I jump into how this teacher prepared me for such situations as composing two drastically different fanfics just off the top of my head as well as maintaining a blog of jokes, poetry, and stories, let me explain some of the background story involved.

In my high school (or most with these available classes) there was a progression started your Freshman year. Should you prove 'gifted enough', you were placed in an English I Honors course. Your Sophomore year, it became and English II Honors course. Then Junior year, it became Pre-AP American Literature course. (AP meaning advanced placement or college/uni course you could take while still in high school) Then something magical happened Senior year. You were given a choice. Take English Lit/Comp III Honors or AP English Lit/Comp. Why was there suddenly a choice? Because it was the school's way of attempting not to either fail half of the senior class or prevent them from dropping out of school completely.

I confess now that I had no desire to take the AP class, but I succumbed to peer pressure and found myself enrolling in it despite the numerous horror stories that had been fed to me since my very first day of school three years prior. To further explain, when one teacher starts lecturing a student for not paying attention in their class and doing work for another, the lecture immediately stops once the name 'Bonnick' is mentioned. The lecturing teacher cowers and returns his or her attention to the rest of the class, leaving the one to continue their AP studies without further interference. Another example is a Facebook page entitled “Come Hell or High Water... or FCAT.. or Death, I MUST go to Bonnick's Class”. Yes, you can look it up. It does exist.

Why was this class and teacher so dreaded? Look at the latest response on the Facebook page's wall. “Three chapter responses, a revised essay, and a poetry response... all due Monday!” You see, I'm not talking about a paper or two due every week. No, no, no. There is much, much more. So let me run down the list of what all is entailed in this Monday through Friday, 90 minute class.

Firstly, every single day starts out with either a poem or exert from a short story which we are given 45 minutes to read, analyze, and write a five paragraph essay in response to. So right off the bat, that is five essays a week. Then comes the take home essays. Two of those a week. We are also assigned to read a total of 12 classic novels and write bi-weekly essays on those as well. That brings the total up to nine essays. However, these are not just any essays. These... are perfection.

Should you use past tense when writing an essay, that would result in ten points off your grade. Contractions (I'm, You're, They're), ten points off. Use a 'be' verb (is, are, was, or were) that is another ten points off your grade. Each! Use a linking verb (verbs that do not show action: The cat looked happy), you guessed it, another ten points off your grade. Now, use a comma splice or improper usage of a semi-colon... twenty points off. Use the words 'you', 'I', 'us', or 'we', the same twenty points off your grade. After tallying all of those up, then she would grade your paper from there on content. I can honestly say that it took me thirty minutes just to write just an introductory paragraph for one essay.

But those are just the essays (most of them anyway). You see, in the class itself (after the in class essay), we don't actually do much because our time is spent listening and giving presentations. Everyday. Poetry presentations, completely with visual aides and copies to pass out to the class, were done at least once a week if not twice. On top of those, we head back to those novels we were required to read. After taking two tests on each, the class was lead by fellow students to then teach the book to each other through a presentation referred to as a seminar.

In these seminars, we were assigned topics: characters, author biography, background history, literary techniques, setting, theme, plot, etc. All of which we were to teach to the class using visual aides, class participation, costumes (yes, we had to dress up... which leads me to another story about dropping my pants in front of my class...), music, and food and drinks. This happened over a two day period and was followed by a third test and you guessed it, another in-class essay.

If you think this class is about wrapped up, you are terrible mistaken and this blog entry may in fact rival that first chapter of the story “There's Always Tomorrow”. Because we have yet to cover mid-terms, mid-term projects, and AP reviews. So lets start with the mid-term. The final for this class is an AP test to see if we qualify for actual college/uni credits. It's a four hour test taken at the end of the semester and we get the whole day off from school for it. The mid-term, however, is a previous year's version of this AP test. The problem with that... is it is four hours long! How can you take a four hour test when we only have class for 90 minutes a day? You can't. Not during the week that is. Yep. We were REQUIRED to show up at school for more than four hours on a Saturday to take our mid-term. Suckiest way to spend your weekend ever, I'll tell you that much. That test, by the way, was not just multiple choice but also short response and accompanied by an additional two essays.

The second thing left to cover is the mid-term project which is actually a list of 50-100 literary techniques (juxtaposition, paradox, pathetic fallacy, quibble) that we were to define, lists uses for, and give examples of using only the material, books, poems, short stories, and other crap that we had gone over with that semester. I think mine ended up being over ten pages long and I didn't even do it all. I gave up. I admit it. I turned into a slacker.

And lastly, were those damn AP review sessions. They were held after school released and started at either three o'clock and went to five, or started at five o'clock and went to seven. Don't think it's required to attend an after school study session? Neither did I. Until that is, I didn't go to one and the teacher actually called my cell phone at home to find out why I didn't show up. Yeah, that was weird. But yes. That class and that teacher is my answer for your question of how in the world can I seem to write so much, so often (this post is over 1,300 words itself).

As my final note. Should this teacher ever read anything that I have written... not only would she pray for my sinful ways, but she would then kill me so there was no proof that I was ever one of her pupils that actually passed her class. She would have given me straight F's on everything you have had the 'pleasure' of reading from me. Especially seeing as that last sentence was written in the past tense... And I used 'was' in the sentence after that... And 'I' in the one after that.