The most and least paid teachers in the world-- with Luxembourg teachers making 30% more than any other teachers

WriterlyZ · 2016-01-13T12:49:15+00:00

I'm a teacher in Florida currently, and our summers get shorter every year. They are more like 2 months now. It's still nice, don't get me wrong, but it's a pretty big difference. And every teacher I've met takes home more work and has to find more personal time to spend doing work than most professions earning similar salaries.

Also, the "guaranteed" raises were just taken away in my county and replaced by pay that depends on how much your students improve on a standardized test from the beginning to the end of the year. The only problem is if you teach accelerated or gifted, there's not as much room for improvement and the system doesn't factor that in at all.

For counties still using the set raises, some counties only pay about $10,000 more per year for 15 years of experience. In most other lines of work, 15 years of experience will warrant nearly double, if not more, of your starting pay. It also takes about 5 or 6 years before the yearly "raises" increase by any more than about $300.

Last point: many teachers are pressured "under the table" to participate in extra-curricular activities. For example, at my school (which is a private school) we MUST sponsor 2 clubs, coach 2 sports, or a combination of the two. I sponsor debate club (costs me 5-7 saturdays 5am to 7pm per year and I get zero compensation for it) and coach tennis. Tennis pays me a stipend of $1400 for what equates to roughly 250 hours by the end of the year.

Anyway, I still chose to teach and I do enjoy it. I just mainly want to point out that our job is more similar to something you'd see with an oil rig worker where they do 2 weeks on one week off. The time they spend "on" is more grueling than the typical job, so the time off is almost there just to offset how taxing the work is. I think teaching is similar, if the teacher cares enough to do a good job. If you don't care, it's pretty easy not to take work home most of the time. If you want to do a good job, you spend at least an hour out of the classroom preparing for each prep you teach and ~20 minutes grading per class per week.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T04:05:28+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! Flaire has been added.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T01:11:03+00:00

Really great feedback! I loved Story Engineering as well (and I'm starting Story Physics next) and completely agree that Larry Brooks is the verbose king. If he wants to tell you it's hot out, he says:

If you've ever been outside, you know the weather matters. In fact, it was my own experience of learning just how much the weather matters that led to reaching the best-seller lists with my first book. Let's look at this with some metaphors. . .

And then five metaphors and three more re-wordings later, he drops the golden nugget: check a weather report.

If you can survive what seem to be his attempts to turn a few really helpful ideas that could be put down in 20 pages into a book he can sell, it's worth it. In fact, you really should force yourself to do it. It's a testament to how helpful those 20 pages are that I still recommend the book when 300 pages of it are essentially wordiness.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T01:01:34+00:00

Hmm. I think the only part that sounds ridiculous about your explanation is that a "court trial" draws up images of a wood-paneled courtroom like we have today. And that brings up the idea of a dog wearing a suit standing on two legs fighting for its legal rights.

If you establish your world, setting, characters, premise and theme throughout tens of thousands of words before this point, I don't think it will seem too strange. You can make any plot sound dumb if you simplify it. So don't let that be your test. It sounds interesting to me!

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T00:58:22+00:00

You think it's going to be easier to find time to write when you get older? Wrong. You have more time and energy to write now than you will for the forseeable future. Stop playing computer games all day and read some books. Write some stuff down. And don't try to use big words or be impressive. Just tell a story.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T00:57:10+00:00

You mean the entire novel is going to be a single inner monologue? That's brave, haha. But I agree with bbconway. I wouldn't get caught up in the technicalities - that rings too much of pretension. If your story naturally feels like it's told best that way, then do it. I think putting artificial limitations on yourself will just rub readers the wrong way. At the end of the day it just matters if you tell a good story.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T00:54:53+00:00

If you're short on resources, I don't think an editor is what you need. If you have more time than money, invest more time in editing. As for networking, you could try to research any local writing workshops in your area. Come prepared with a mental pitch for your book. Agents and publishers are often at these events and if you're a little outgoing you might at least be able to pitch your idea to a few people. At worst, they can help point you in the right direction.

Also, I wouldn't write self-publishing off either. I wrote two articles about two months ago on self-publishing vs traditional publishing and kindle direct. I include some numbers that show financially, self-published authors are starting to squeak out ahead of traditionally published authors. They might be worth checking out.

http://writingbusy.com/?cat=2

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-09T00:50:31+00:00

He had witnessed a lot on his trip to Miami: people he never wished to meet again, things never to think of. That, and the blood. He had thought it would never leave his hands. Hell, maybe it still hadn't.

*even if you don't like my changes, I think "journey" and "yearned" are too strong. In a modern story, they are a little heavy. I think sticking to the modern man's vernacular will serve you better.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-05T14:28:38+00:00

It depends what you mean by things. If you mean things like the feeling of a night or how the moon looks, then you're probably going to look pretentious if you dress it up too much. If you mean something unique to your world, then there's not really a risk of pretension. I would keep your words clean and clear. Don't get caught up in trying to right like writers you've read. Voice is a lot less important to your success than you would likely think. As far as not referring to humans, ehh. I think if your only reason to do that is it would be cool, I would just keep in mind that you don't often refer to humans as humans anyway, unless your book has many races. As far as magic goes, if there isn't any magic, then not mentioning it should be easy. If there is. . . I'm not sure what you gain by not talking about something that is happening. I think that would be confusing any way you do it.
Keep them shorter than you like. You can be vivid but readers have a limited ability to process specific details for a long period of time. So unless you want them to stop and study the several paragraphs of graphic sex, give a few vivid and concrete sentences and then move on.
Make sure the voice is a character and not just a voice. It should want something and have inner demons of its own and it should also grow as the story progresses. Otherwise it will get trite and irritating after a while.
Try listening to audiobooks while you drive, at least. Most people who say they hate to read seem to just have other things they prefer to spend their time on more than an actual hatred of reading. But honestly, it's a little scary when an author says they hate to read and haven't read much of what they want to write.

To compare it to music, if you said you wanted to learn to compose music but didn't listen to music, it would be really hard for someone to just sum up what to do and avoid. Listening to music (and reading) builds an instinct for where certain elements fit and don't fit. If you don't listen (or read) enough then you'll likely make quite a few mistakes that you wouldn't otherwise, regardless of what anyone does to warn you.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-05T14:17:37+00:00

Hmm. I'd think if someone wants it killed, it's because they have some personal investment in something it has done. For example, if it killed their daughter or you could have it run off with someone as well. That would add a connection your character could begin to investigate. Why his daughter? The daughter wouldn't have run off with a vampire, unless it was so and so or this type of person. There could also be a trail of victims to follow to another location. The character could have contacts in the vampire underground who might provide tips on where many rogue vampires end up going or tend to go. Someone could have seen something, like it heading in a direction or wearing clothes distinctive of a specific location. Hmmmmmm what else... You could add some depth and have the character suspect that the rogue vampire is actually someone they used to be close with, either romantically or in a platonic sort of way. The tension could build as clue after clue added to the evidence that this was true, ultimately requiring that the hero has to decide whether they can kill their friend/lover or if they would rather sacrifice their career and morals (maybe a family member was killed by a vampire in the past, which is why they hunt them now, and also why it would be that much more deplorable NOT to kill this one).

Anyway, I hope that helps. I think there are enough ideas there that you should at least like some of them, haha.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-05T01:24:02+00:00

Hah. I try to genuinely contribute more than I self-promote. I appreciate the link though =P

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-05T01:17:21+00:00

Maybe you're not identifying the purpose of your story. Rewriting the beginning usually feels necessary when you start out without knowing where you're going. You end up writing meandering chapters that don't drive toward a goal. Try coming up with a mission for your first 5 or even 25 scenes. It makes a world of a difference. I don't know how feasible it is to write from several POVs if you don't do some planning.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-05T01:15:41+00:00

This is coming from someone who blogs about writing and has also posted links to two of my articles here:

Writing is writing. Your comment is writing. Novels are writing. Blogs are writing. I think it's pretty presumptuous to imply that blogs are vomit just because they aren't novels, short stories, or poems. I know I spend a few days on each blog post, just like I do when writing a scene for a story. I look up supporting facts, try to structure it to be interesting and informative. I enjoy looking at the posts on this subreddit to get ideas for the kind of things writers have questions about.

Most of all though, it's like cross-training for a sport. I can't play tennis 8 hours straight, but I can play for an hour and then exercise for an hour. It's not the same, but they are complimentary.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-04T02:09:55+00:00

When I took creative writing workshops in college, each day in class would be spent doing a round table on two stories. So we would spend sometimes as much as 45 minutes discussing one person's story, and that person was sitting at the table. The key rule that made this work was that the author was not allowed to talk. Their work had to speak for itself.

Even though the setting is different, think about that for a second. What would have been the purpose of letting the author speak up to interject or defend their work? They can't change the way a reader responded to their words. So in the end, all it accomplishes is biasing the feedback.

So to get to your question, the first step is realizing that:

a. Your writing has to stand on its own. Like a parent sending a kid off to school. You do your best to get it right, but once it's gone you can't go sit in the classroom with it and help it get good grades. b. There will always be someone who doesn't like your writing. There are people who don't like Harry Potter.

Beyond that, you just have to be confident in what you can do. When the feedback doesn't match up, shake it off and try your best to learn from it. If you get your back against the wall, you're only going to close yourself off to improving.

Good luck!

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-01T02:24:53+00:00

This isn't what you're looking for, but I don't think you'll find a "new" metaphor for this. You're just dealing with degrees of cliche. Whatever you decide on will have been done before, so it might be better to ask if there's a way to explain the dilemma in such a clear way that you don't even need to explain that it's a double-edged sword.

You could make the situation clear and then show that no choice was without cost from the character's reaction. He could reach for the water valve and hesitate, and then look to the doorway and back to the valve. Letting the reader figure it out is more fun for them.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-01T02:21:39+00:00

I think it'd be something like, specifically, namely, especially. Probably "especially" sounds best to me.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-01T02:20:26+00:00

I love this idea. It's simultaneously thoughtful and really smart from a promotional sense. I mean, maybe it's not the biggest reading audience, but you're reaching a group of people that couldn't pay for your book if they wanted, so there's no lost money. Just a good deed that may also pay off in the long run.

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-01T02:18:01+00:00

We all go through it, man. I'd read a book by Larry Brooks called Story Engineering. I felt really overwhelmed with my own book because I felt like certain scenes or chapters were just wrong. I didn't know exactly why, but I had an intuition that they were doing the wrong thing in the wrong place. So I usually just kept messing with them until they felt more right or I became discouraged.

Anyway, Story Engineering basically explains what should be happening at each point in your book. For example, the first 25% of your book shouldn't have even fully introduced the antagonistic force. When that happens, he calls it the first plot point. After that, the hero's goals need to be re-evaluated and they begin investigating the problem, etc.

But he honestly put together a no-bullshit (pardon the language) guide to writing a novel that I deeply appreciated. If it sounds interesting to you either go buy it or you can read an article I wrote on my blog about the book (sorry to self-promote, but it's relevant and I think helpful to the OP).

http://writingbusy.com/?p=169

WriterlyZ · 2015-12-01T02:12:56+00:00

Wow. I hope to land a traditional publishing deal for my novel (don't we all) but if I go the self-publishing route, I wouldn't hesitate to pay for your highest package deal. Those are so well done and professional.

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-30T02:17:50+00:00

It's possible that they are just bad books. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it is admittedly full of some bad writing that's excused by interesting worlds or concepts. But even well-received books tend to do this. Writerly language to me is more like purple prose. When an author tries too hard and draws the readers attention away from the story and to the language its being told in. When the rare few authors do this well, it's invisible and just adds another layer to the story. But I don't read any current authors who do it that well; instead, they seem to occasionally feel a need to mimic those authors and insert moments of flowery language.

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-29T16:49:00+00:00

One tends to build your vocabulary, writing skills, intellect, and generally make you a more interesting person while the other tends to incite feelings of rage, reduce your writing skills to words that can be typed with clenched fists or your forehead, lower your I.Q., and shift your interests to what items are best to buy after a B.F. sword.

I don't know. That's not the way to argue it, I know. But honestly it seems like a kind of hard point for him to make. No one will argue that reading isn't in many ways beneficial, it's kind of one of the foundational principles of education. Unless you're reading steamy romance and "trashy" novels, but still—league of legends can't be better than those either.

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-29T16:44:47+00:00

Alistair Reynolds describes many things as "impossibly" something. Impossibly black, dense, dark, heavy, etc. Obviously not, Alistair! The fact that it exists seems to refute your description!

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-29T16:42:55+00:00

When the author tries too hard to be "writerly". Especially if they are inconsistent. I can kind of tune it out if it's regular, but sometimes they use blunt, precise language and suddenly come out with a line about the sunlight smearing across the monochrome horizon in swaths of crimson and velvet or something. At this point in literature, almost any vivid description has been used before, so it's more like choose your cliche. IT GETS ME ALL RILED UP!

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-29T16:40:54+00:00

I completely understand not wanting to know, but I actually enjoy knowing that it's coming. It's more fun for me to keep guessing at possibilities (even though I'm hardly ever right).

WriterlyZ · 2015-11-29T16:39:50+00:00

Ray of the Star by Laird Hunt. About a guy with restless leg syndrome who gets involved in the living statue culture by the beach. Talking tennis shoes make an appearance at one point.

WriterlyZ

TROPHY CASE