(no subject)

[nny]

Har har har I fail at life. Seriously, I need to do something about this lack of drinking thing because my kidneys ache. I didn't know kidneys could ache. Last week I drank... very little that wasn't tea or alcohol. I just don't like water that much, especially not in this city; I should look into persuasion to drink through the means of squash or something, right? I forget, is all. I don't get thirsty and only remember I haven't had anything to drink when I get a headache.

Working busily away, writing about the process of writing and what a creative piece of writing has taught me about writing from a teacher's perspective. Struggling slightly because my brain hurts so I'm just talking about a description of a computer room I wrote about... er... three years ago? Damn. I'm getting old. It's weird, though; I don't think about writing enough. The posts that I have found in various places are a little too involved for secondary school students, too, so I can't leech your genius. (But why can't we harness that power, Stephen?)

What actually annoys me the most is that my experience of school and writing was that there was a perception of some students having talent and some not, without much in the way of instruction as to how to improve. I mean, I was one of the ones with talent so I pretty much accepted that I would get good marks for pieces of writing and thought about it no further than that. Too much with the fixed intelligence perception, and not enough Vygotsky and Zones of Proximal Development and thinking about where a pupil could be rather than where they are. It annoys me because I have come out of my schooling with the impression that you don't learn to write, that you merely can or can't, and that there's not much in the way of improvement. As a result my meta skills are absolutely dreadful and I write instinctively without consideration of important things like themes, character development, all that - I genuinely do try so hard these days to learn more about these things and read all I can about them, but god do I suck at the application. This is why I am not a particularly good writer. And I want to be, but I'm seriously lax at improving.

I probably make no sense. My head hurts way too much to read through all this again, so let me know if I'm talking crap and I'll go get another glass of water.

Comments

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

cupidsbow recently explained a bit of how to write longer stories. She was even nice enough to give me examples because I didn't get her points at all. :>

Also, I found that if it's cocoa instead of water, I automatically drink more. Those little tetrapak thingies, you know? And if I make an entire thermos with tea, I also drink more. That's how I trick myself.

*snuggles*

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

Ooh, my kidneys have ached before several times. I'm pretty bad about hydration-- although I don't drink much alcohol, so I must be more susceptible than you, I guess. ^^; But yeah, if you drink a lot of bottled water for a few days it should pass. After that just make sure you drink more diet coke or something.

(Don't worry, though, you make sense. I understand what you're saying. I suffer from the same affliction to an extent. I'm better than I was, but only through practice and a keen obsession with human nature. Sometimes I like my own writing and sometimes I hate it, depending on my mood, but that's the one thing I always think is positive-- a driving need to provide a motivation for everything. It helps me make everything else fall into place.)

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

I think you've started down the route that explains my overwhelming hatredof the concept of "talent". Anyone can be taught to write well.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

Assume there are inverted commas around 'talent'. Anyone can be taught to write well but I didn't know that and therefore had this weird conception that learning the tricks of the trade was somehow cheating.

My brain is a stupid place to be.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

No, I completely understand that - I was faced with a lot of the same problems you were (post on subject here (http://apiphile.livejournal.com/740863.html)) with regards to the assumption that Some Kids Can and Some Kids Can't and it's bred nothing but defeatism and arrogance in me. A very unhelpful attitude, imho - what we really need is people who understand that everyone's way of learning is different and that a good teacher *finds* their pupils' paths. Thing.

[chains-of-irony.livejournal.com]

I'm exactly the same with drinking when I'm at uni, the water isn't very nice here. During my first year I got dehydration headaches all the time. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate dehydate you although herbal teas aren't as bad. I solved it by drinking a big glass of squash and doing it at times when I have to remember to take other pills so I don't forget.

Also yay! New episode!

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

Water!
Drink it!

Get like...little straws of Crystal Light and drink it.
Avoid kidney stones at all cost.

In conclusion:
Hydration, you needs it!