150th Post! Flash Stories & Poetry Day 39: Autobiography "I Am A Tutor"

 

Hey, everyone.

So, this post is late. How late? I'm writing it after midnight. This is supposed to be a daily exercise and I technically missed the day this is supposed to be on. Why? Because things have gotten complicated in life recently. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, and that fat, little bastard doesn't exactly waddle himself around.

The other problem is we got hit with a huge snow storm yesterday, so I spent an hour-and-a-half today clearing snow because we don't have a snow blower. My bicep is still sore and I ended up taking a nap this evening for an indefinite amount of time because I wasn't paying attention to what time I fell asleep. I only know that I didn't get up till 9:30. And then I had to waddle that fat, little bastard closer to Christmas. And I had to work today. I have a tutoring student. So, things are all farkakte.

And "today" is a non-fiction day. And my 150th post. Well, not technically, but who really cares?

Wheel of Genres, turn, turn, turn! Tell me the genre I will discern!





Today's genre is... Autobiography.

Now, like I said a few days ago, I actually prepare these in advance and I was kind of excited about this one until I started writing it after midnight. I'm also forced to ask the question how does autobiography differ from creative non-fiction? I don't think it does, and if it does, it's some splitting hairs BS like an autobiography is a book composed of several entries of creative non-fiction. So, I guess I'll be taking that out of the wheel. Anyway, I mentioned how I tutored someone today, so I think I'll tell you the story of how I got into tutoring.

Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go.

Let's wind the clocks back to the fall of 2010. No, we have to go back even further to that. Probably back to high school in order to tell this story properly. So, let's do that. Back when I was in high school, I remember people being all a titter about going to college--I was not. I didn't care. Fact was, I didn't want to go to college, and these days I think I should have followed that instinct, but I essentially wasn't worried about college. Why? Because I didn't care if I went. I was sure I would, but I didn't care where, how, or when. I don't have any allegiances to any colleges anywhere for any reason, and no one ever built college up in my head.

So, as you can imagine, because I was so "shrug" about college, I ended up at a community college. Now, don't get me wrong, Macomb Community College is a great school. It's cheap, it's small, it's staff is fantastic. I loved going there. Now, transferring out was a different matter altogether because as you know, in order to transfer from community college to a university, you have to either have a degree or make sure you take all the right courses. Going to Macomb, I had two main choices: Wayne State or Oakland University. I chose Wayne because it was the cheaper of the two and required a more diverse background in Gen-Ed's which I thought would help my writing whereas Oakland was much more focused on English coursework. Looking back, if I had thought to investigate the classes Oakland wanted me to take, I may have chosen Oakland instead. Yes, it's more expensive, but it has free parking, it's not in Detroit, and living where I do now, Wayne and Oakland are equal distances away.

But anyway, going to Wayne State meant that I had to have three semesters of a foreign language. This was tricky because interest in a third semester of any foreign language except for Spanish is almost non-existent not at the community college level. Believe me, I tried. I tried to recruit people to the cause of getting a third semester of Italian, but no one was interested. Speaking of which, that's the foreign language I chose at Macomb since I had had two years of Latin at Notre Dame. And as a result, I excelled at Italian. I was the envy of my first semester class and I was way up there for my second semester class.

So, I finished my second semester of Italian, I did very well, and here I was facing the fall semester of 2010. I don't think I took a foreign language that semester, but I did eventually end up taking Spanish... along with French, German, and Arabic, but let's not talk about that last one. I did eventually get my third semester of foreign language with Spanish, but in the fall semester, I received news through the wire that my former Italian tutor had to take a leave of absence since his wife had fallen ill which meant Macomb needed a tutor. They actually ended up hiring two tutors: one was myself and the other was another Italian student. Both of us were recommended by professors in the Italian department. I didn't even have to interview for the job. I just showed up and they started throwing paperwork at me. The next week, I sat in on an Italian tutoring session just to see how it was conducted, but it wasn't wholly necessary.

At Macomb, they did foreign language in an interesting manner. See, not only did you meet twice a week for an hour-and-a-half, but every quarter, you were required to attend at least five tutoring sessions at any time because there were multiple sessions, and if took more than that, you were given extra credit toward your midterm or final. And as you can expect from the average college student, most people blew off these tutoring sessions until the last minute meaning that while there may be an average of five to ten students per session, that number could explode up to from eight to fifteen, depending on the language. I eventually moved into tutoring entry-level Spanish, and there was one time, there were so many students at one session, they took up two whole tables. Must've been half the class. One time, I tutored during the summer semester which is much shorter and as a result, the class meetings are either longer or more often, and a couple of times, I had the whole class show up for a Spanish session. But, because I had lived through this tutoring experience, I already knew how it was done and I could do it no problem. (Sorry, I lost the plot there for a second.)

So, how did I get into tutoring? By being exceptional at my skill and knowing the right people. Unfortunately, tutoring for Macomb never really took off. There were too many tutors and the Dean of Humanities assured me that class sizes had dropped at one point. I actually think there may have been some foul play that saw me bumped off the roster. Why? Well, I was a young man and I tutored a lot of young women. (You can see where this is going...) I did ask once if it was okay to date the students, I was shot down of course, but I do wonder if they were looking to replace me after that or if someone complained about me being leery and the department blacklisted me after that. It's strange too because I still have the official professor's copy of the Italian textbook, a Macomb employee ID, and a key to the tutoring room at South Campus. The last time I worked for Macomb was Fall 2012, and they still haven't asked for them back, so it's possible I'm still employed there and I'm just blacklisted, or they just don't give a sh*t.

So, here I am several years later and finding myself in dire straits. I hope every day for something else to come down through the pipeline, but for now I need a job. My friend John is trying to hook me up with a warehouse gig and while it's a decent opportunity, $11/hr, 40 hours/week, and I get to wear jeans everyday, I'd rather have a position where I get paid $20/hr and work 20 hours/week so I can devote more time to writing. And, I did manage to pick up a tutoring student through an agency, but who knows if he'll stick around, number one, and number two, his parents might think I'm no good. But, I did manage to pick up a Spanish student recently. I'm seeing him Tuesday, so this might be fun.

But what I wanted to mention was that when I was tutoring this young man this afternoon, it gave me a sense of accomplishment, passing on my knowledge to someone who really, truly needs them. I don't know, maybe I should become a teacher or at the very least, look for a more lucrative tutoring gig. I've got the tools and the talent, I'm just worried that I'll let my writing slip and follow the easy path and end up forsaking the dream. Hence, my plan is to allow myself not to get too comfortable, which will also decrease my chances of getting a girl, and allow me a better opportunity from which to get really serious about this writing thing. Same sh*t, many different days ahead.

***

 

Stop the clock! Two seconds left. Phew. That was a lot of writing, and I still have a bunch to do before I go to bed tonight. Good thing I took that indefinitely long nap. Sarcasm intended. But, if any of you though are looking for a tutor and you live in the Macomb county area and you or your child needs help with their Maths, English, spelling, Spanish, or Italian, feel free to drop me a line at bryanclaesch@yahoo.com or reply to this post, and we'll talk it out. I charge $20/hr. 

 

But anyway, that's it for today. If you want to use the wheel I made, you should be able to access it here. And if you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. Also, I reworked my Patreon page, so why not give it a look and consider becoming my patron. I would appreciate it.

Keep writing, my friends.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

My Works:

Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
Facebook: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
Patreon: Bryan C. Laesch
Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar

Flash Stories & Poetry Day 27: Creative Non-fiction "How I Finished My Book"

 

Hey, everyone.

So, today is a non-fiction day, and it was originally my intention to take my last non-fiction piece and split it into two parts. You know, the story about how I decided to become a writer. So, then, I was like, "Crap. What do I do now?" Well, seeing as how there are so many sites out there that talk about helping people finish their books, I thought I might take a whack at it and tell you all how it was that I managed to finish my first book Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens. Buy it here. So, let's giddy up!

Today's topic is... Creative Non-fiction.

Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go!

I originally started writing Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens in December 2007. I was inspired by a mixture of music from the band Nightwish and the video game series Devil May Cry. I had a vision for a story about demon slayers in a gothic setting with over-the-top action. It would be my first real try at writing a book. So, I went ahead and did some research on character names and came up with Azrael Chaos and Nissa Omen, I bastardized some Latin to make a monastic order, the Maleiorcum, and I was away. Problem is, a few weeks later I was done in by a crappy floppy disk. And it was right after I had written a spectacular scene, too.

I halted progress on the book for a year and three months. During that time, I did a lot of thinking about the book, the characters, the plot, and everything else. Finally, in about March or April of 2009, I twisted my parents' arm to buy me a high school graduation present, which I should have received two years earlier, and I got a laptop. A brand new Dell Inspiron 1545 with a red top, and it was beautiful. Definitely better than the HP POS I'm writing on now. I nicknamed it the Red Queen after Nero's sword from Devil May Cry 4, and not the CPU from Resident Evil. A few days later, I had downloaded some songs from my friend Alysa, and I re-wrote the first chapter of ROCCO in a single sitting all to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." I then named the chapter "Ballroom Blitz" after The Sweet's song.

From there, I soldiered on. I shared parts of it with my friend Mary and with the members of my Youth Group, but I wasn't using an outline, and predictably, I stopped working on it. A year or two later, I was terribly bored one summer and as a result, depressed. Out of desperation, I turned back to ROCCO and taking inspiration from my recent stint with Unisoft's Assassin's Creed series, I aimed the book in the direction of Italy and introduced a character based off myself who resembled a member of the Assassin Order. And so I made more progress, and I beat back my depression.

I don't remember what happened after that, but eventually, I found myself staring at my last year at Wayne State, 2014-2015. And due to my schedule, I had a huge three or four hour gap right in the middle of a couple of days. Well, I wasn't going to go home because I lived too far, so I had to use my time wisely and I decided to spend that time writing ROCCO. It's strange, because I can remember writing ROCCO at Wayne's library, but also working on lines from the final scene at the job I had the summer before. I can remember spending the night at the Grosse Pointe Hunt Club, watching over millions of dollars in horses, and writing lines for ROCCO by hand in the wee hours of the morning. So maybe I did some writing for ROCCO the year before actually, the school year of 2013-2014. That doesn't matter. So then, what does?

Well, I managed to finish ROCCO around that time and I even submitted it to TOR publishing. They didn't want it. It's fine; my fault. I called it a dark fantasy when it's actually a Gothic Epic. But the point is, is that I didn't sign up for some webinar or for some online class in order to write and finish my book. I finished my book out of sheer determination and will. I forced myself to write even when I didn't want to. I didn't listen to anyone's fancy advice; I just saw a lot of time available to me and a way I could use it. I wanted to finish my book, so I did.

Now, it is true that since 2015, it has been uploaded to Inkitt and it has gone through multiple revisions. The original draft was 206K words; average novel length is 90K, 110K if you're writing a sci-fi or fantasy novel. So, in steps, I did manage to whittle it down to about 150K. But, I tell you, even to this day, even with it published on Amazon, I'm still making edits and corrections. There's one really big edit I have to make regarding its commas, but no one seems to have noticed it, so that issue is on the back burner, but it is something I'm going to have to address eventually.

But, like I said, the point is, is that I "finished" my novel under my own will power. It took me eight years, a buttload of editing after that, and even editing it now, but I finished it by myself with no support, no webinar, no master class. And here's the thing, so can you. You might think you need a subscription to a group or a mentor so you can stay on task, but you don't. You just need to make your own way. Think of it like this: if it's really that important to you, you'll get it done.

***

 

Stop the clock! Eight and a half minutes left. I think it's better I ended there than try to lengthen it. It does feel short, but I was starting to beat a dead horse toward the end there. But anyway, that's how I finished my book.

 

So, that's it for today. If you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. Also, I reworked my Patreon page, so why not give it a look and consider becoming my patron. I would appreciate it.

Keep writing, my friends.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

My Works:

Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
Facebook: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
Patreon: Bryan C. Laesch
Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar

Flash Stories & Poetry Day 24: Creative Non-fiction "How I Became A Writer"

 

Hey, everyone.

I'm still writing about the importance of writing earnestly and for whatever reason, I'm still procrastinating. Oh, boy. Anyway, today will be a creative non-fiction day where I shall regale you of stories from my creative past and what experiences led to me becoming a writer. So...

Today's topic is... Creative Non-Fiction.

Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go!

I don't remember entirely how it happened, but I do know that there were a few experiences that led to me becoming serious as a writer. There are events and stories going back to my grade school and middle school days, but those are paltry compared to what happened when I made it into high school. Now, when I was in high school, I was still under the impression I would become an engineer like my Old Man. Not because that's what I wanted to do, but because I was good in science and math. My future looked bright in both subjects. But then, something happened my Sophomore year.

In my second year of high school, which was much easier than my first, I took Honors Literature. The funny thing about this class was that the two main things we learned about were short stories and poetry. One of our big assignments for the first semester was to write a short story about something that happened to us but from the perspective of somebody other than ourselves. I wrote about the time I thought I was being clever and told my parents that my grandparents had agreed to take me to the church festival when actually they hadn't. See, the church festival was just down the street, but my parents wouldn't let me go alone. They eventually found out about my little lie when they thought it was getting late and called my grandparents. I was grounded for a month. Anyway, I also want to say that there was another short story I wrote then, but I don't remember what it was about. All I remember is that it had to be less than 750 words which was difficult for me at the time.

Later that year, we had to write poetry and I came up with some banging pieces and put it together in a volume called Poetry that Rocks!!!!! I was getting big into Rock and Heavy Metal at the time. Anyway, the experience showed me how good of a writer I could be, and I learned to love literature. This was also the year I started to really get into history. I was still good in math and science, but now I was equally competent in English and history.

Come Junior year, I found myself at Bishop Foley because Notre Dame was closed. One of the big differences between the two schools was that Foley was more difficult academically. I actually slipped a little in my science courses, that year I took Chemistry, and I almost failed my math class, Honors Geometry and Trig II; that was the first and last honors math course I ever took. Unfortunately, I only did marginally better in my AP Euro History course and Honors Brit. Lit, but I had fun in those classes versus Chemistry and Honors Geometry where I didn't. Chemistry eventually levelled out, but Honors Geometry continued to plague me. I have no idea why I struggled so much in that class, but I did. I took regular Pre-Calc. the next year and was the second best in all classes across the board. I was almost the best in fact, but that's a different story.

Going back to Honors Brit Lit, I had a little meeting with my teacher Ms. Welicko after our first little writing homework assignment. She told me I was a strong writer and had a talent for the "craft." I was also one of the few boys from ND that she liked. Apparently, the rest of them pissed her off. Anyway, Ms. Welicko was the moderator for an after school club called Rhapsody which was the school's literary/art/photography publication. We would collect people's works as well as add our own, and then make a magazine of sorts out of it and sell it at the end of the year, sort of like the school's paper, but we only came out with a single issue every year. I wrote a few pieces for that and that gave me more of a taste for writing, not to mention all the good Brit lit I read in class.

Senior year I took AP English and in my second semester, I took Creative Writing where I really got to cut my teeth on writing. My teacher, whose name I can't spell so I'll just call her Mrs. S., was really impressed with my writing. Like, really, really impressed. One of the best compliments I've ever gotten on my writing came from her, "If I had known a student of your skill was in the school, I would've hunted you down and made you join the paper." Mrs. S. was the moderator for our school's paper. But I mean, talk about a feather in your cap. I didn't win "Best Writer" award in the Senior elections, but recognition from Mrs. S. is probably better. I even won an award, which surprised me, for my creative writing. There was an awards/honors dinner at the end of the year, and I was named the winner for my work. Suck on that, Pat Higgins. (No, but Pat was a cool guy.)

Skipping ahead into college, I took the Fall semester off so I could try to sell Cutco professionally--didn't work out, but I was back in school my Winter semester. Unfortunately, I hadn't been to see my counselor and didn't know what classes I needed to take, so I registered for them all blindly on the spot. One of the classes was a Creative Writing class. My professor, Dr. Brooks, was my first encounter with a real writer in the wide open world. She was a bit weird, but I enjoyed the hell out of her class. She loved my writing, especially the creative non-fiction I wrote talking about my high school crush. I hadn't re-read it before I submitted it and I thought it sounded whiny. I thought my classmates were going to tear me a new one when my piece was workshopped. They didn't; they thought it was hilarious, and my professor admitted that I had a unique perspective that lends itself well to writing: the perspective of being on the outside and looking in.

When the class came to a close, Dr. Brooks gave us all feedback on our writing over the semester and one of her pieces to me was she said she wouldn't be surprised if I ended up being published some day. That made me feel really good. And while it is true that I am published today, that is self-publishing which doesn't quite have the prestige of traditional which is probably what she was talking about. But regardless, because of that class, because of the three previous years I had in high school, I was "ruined." I was on the path to become a writer. Engineering and reliable careers be damned! So, what's all this got to do with you, dear reader?

I didn't write this piece to relive my glory days, but to impart a bit of advice. I graduated in 2007 and I took that creative writing class in '08. I only recently self-published my own books and I only recently started keeping a blog. I wasted 9 to 10 years of my life doing the easy thing rather than working on my talent and skill. Just think of how far I would be if I had given myself the beans and started writing as if it were a career and not just some thing that I'm going to do somewhere in the foggy future. And that's the point of this story: don't rest, don't sit, don't do the easy thing; for the love of God, write. Write, damn you! Everyday is an opportunity for greatness; use it!

***

 

Stop the clock. Little less than a minute left. I must admit, that isn't the glorious ending I wanted, but it does get my point across. Hopefully, you've learned something from my story.

 

But anyway, that's it for today. If you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. Also, I reworked my Patreon page, so why not give it a look and consider becoming my patron. I would appreciate it.

Keep writing, my friends.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

My Works:

Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
Facebook: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
Patreon: Bryan C. Laesch
Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar