Author: plainswriter

I'm a poet, fiction writer, and essayist. I'm also a freelance editor at nlhwritingservices.com.

On Reaching 50 Posts

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Last week when I shared some photos from my time in Southwestern Minnesota, I realized that was my 50th post, which prompted me to reflect on why I write posts in the first place.

For any writer, it’s beneficial to regularly reflect on the why: Why am I writing this story draft? Revising this poem? Mulling over this blog post? Moreover, there is the need to reflect on the bigger WHY: why am I choosing to write rather than pursue other interests?

I began this website in 2010, but from that time through 2013, I wrote only 16 posts. From January 2014 to the present, I’ve written 38 posts, and 23 this year already. (Okay, so I enjoy numbers and statistics.) Numbers here, however, need some contextualization. What has changed in the last 20 months?

At the beginning of 2014 I made the decision to write more in this space, that decision coinciding with the publication of my poetry chapbook, Four Seasons West of the 95th Meridian. I wanted to offer more content here, as well as to promote my published writing. Friends and family read what I post, so I thought I would offer them more to read. Lastly, I was inspired by several writing friends who write posts regularly. (Shortening the domain name to plainswriter.com was an added incentive since doing so was not free.)

My posts are not the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction pieces I am regularly writing and revising. Those reside in their own places, but I needed another venue beyond the jottings in a notebook. As an addendum to the previous paragraph, I use this space to try out ideas, to share thoughts about my interests. In all my years writing, I’ve learned (among other lessons) that writing feeds more writing, and that a post might morph/transform into an extended piece at some later date, or perhaps suggest some other piece to write.

I now view my posts as weekly columns, although I don’t tend to write about “big” issues or “hot-button” topics. Although I don’t offer my words on such topics, I do want to make sure that I’m not offering more “noise” to an Internet already full of it. I hope that what I write, even if it’s 500 words on some topic, will resonate with readers in some way(s).

So thanks for reading and following me, and I hope that what you read in the next 50 posts will be meaningful to you, will provide a diversion, will encourage reflection, will maybe simply even entertain you.

On Country Roads and Open Space

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This week, I thought I’d share some pictures I took while back in Southwestern Minnesota at my in-laws’ farm. Their farmstead and the surrounding area is one of my favorite places. Ever. Whether I was out walking in the evening (when some of these pictures were taken) or out running in the morning (note the elongated shadow), there were few cars. Just asphalt or gravel. Birds. Insects. Wind. Sky. A soothing quietness.

SWMN1Note the utility poles leaning to the west. During our time, crews were in the process of “planting” new poles and removing the old.

SWMN2

I’ve always been intrigued by lines venturing out toward the horizon.

SWMN6And then there’s the evening sky like this. Followed the next day by a morning run with this view.

SWMN5

I know that there are no “grand” objects here. No mountains, no forests, no river.  Just corn, soybeans, gravel, shelter belts. And there’s color and openness that expands my soul and refreshes me in ways that few other places/landscapes do.

A lot of my poetry and fiction is set in this landscape, replete with roads and characters driving on them. As to why those elements keep recurring? That’s a post (or an essay, perhaps?) for another day.

For now, there are the images.

SWMN4

On Another School Year Starting

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Though the locations have shifted (Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, Ohio, and Texas) over my years as a student and teacher, what has not changed is my excitement and joy at the start of a new school year. I am beginning my 13th year teaching college, my fourth year at my current institution. Even when I was a student through my 25 years of formal education, I had this energy building up as the middle of August approached.

Part of what (among many things I could list) I love about the college teaching experience is a new start each semester. There’s so much possibility. A different slate of classes. Different sets of students. A certain combination of freshness and the predictable. Even when I use the exact same texts in a class (as I am in one course this fall), the student population is obviously different, and that’s what I find so enjoyable. And there’s the spontaneity factor–I can never know with any degree of certainty how a class session will go, what direction(s) it will take.

While I am often excited for Spring Semester to start (especially when I lived in colder climates because that meant warmer weather would–eventually–be on the way), it would not be the same degree of excitement. When fall semester arrives, I’ve been refreshed by the summer break, nervous to meet my new students, eager to try varied approaches. With the length of the summer break, I’ve had time and space to reflect on what I did in the prior iteration(s) of courses, considering ways I could make them better, even more meaningful for the students, as well as for me.

It sounds cliche to say it, but I’m always learning from my students in so many ways. They come up with those unexpected insights, those off-the-wall topics that keep me fresh and interested as a professor. In my fall Creative Writing course, I find myself excited about the stories my students will tell (both in short fiction and in creative nonfiction), and eager to help them take those initial drafts through various stages of development, offering words and ideas to nudge them along as they try to tell those stories as artfully, as well as they can.

Over these years, I still remember the names and faces of some students from all of those classes in all those places. I still remember some names and faces from my very first class as an MFA teaching assistant in fall 2002, my 7:30 MWF section in the basement of Weld Hall, the floor covered with ’80s-era orange carpet. I even remember topics of papers over the years. (Joey wrote an argument essay about __________. Kayla wrote a short story about ___________.) I occasionally find myself wondering about a former student, wondering about the direction the student eventually ventured.

I haven’t counted the number of students I’ve taught over a dozen years, and I certainly haven’t attempted to count the total words of student writing I’ve read. And as each fall begins, I try not to think hard about what year the current freshman population was (on average) born in. (Doing so would produce all kinds of emotions.) School is in my DNA, and the school calendar is also.