Luke and Gene both made good comments about my ambition to write a book about our family’s educational experience. Both Luke’s thought that not so many people would want to read the thing and Gene’s thought that such an effort is a fine thing to do for future generations of his own family seem exactly right to me. I have to admit I was a little offended about the idea that not too many people would want to read my book, but on reflection I think it is true. We, like other homeschoolers, took our own unique path in educating our children. I suppose there are parts of they way we did it that will resonate with almost all homeschoolers, parts that only a few will like, and a lot that most will think ridiculous. Even we think some of the stuff we did was ridiculous.
I think, though, that this will be a good exercise for me, for my family, and maybe for a handful of others who have similar values and educational goals. My take-away from Luke’s and Gene’s comments are that I need to avoid doing this for any kind of selfish motive. I mentioned in a follow-up comment to the previous post that I would write the book with the idea that I would print a dozen or so copies to give to the kids and for posterity, then give the book away as an e-book on this web site. I think that is just about right. I might charge a small fee for the e-book to either give away to an appropriate charity or create a small scholarship fund for homeschoolers, but it kind of depends on whether I think the book is even good enough to warrant that.
Maybe Gene and I can read each others efforts as we work our way through this.
Betty Blonde #123 – 01/05/2009
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
I would be happy to trade drafts with you when the time comes. I write humorous short stories of crazy events from my childhood. It started out from writing funny experiences in our Christmas letters. Then an old family friend from Lorane told me she was editor of an amateur writers magazine and I started submitting stories from my childhood. I cringe at how bad my “skill” was at the beginning, and I am still learning about writing. Here is a link to my contributions to date. I have a couple more stories I would like to add to the E-book, and have completely re-written all of the stories that have been published in Groundwaters. http://groundwaterspublishing.com/Conrad.htm
This is awesome Gene. I would love to take a look at your stuff, but could not see how to read any of your submissions. Do you have anything online? I am sure you are a much better writer than I. I have been wondering why you don’t start a blog of your own. Of course, the kind of writing I have been doing for the last ten years involves spending about 15 minutes per day often without any idea as to what content might be interesting, but with a desire to record a few things that happened as a reminder of what we are doing at a given time. This should be fun!
Gene said it much better than I. I’m so sorry my comment caused offense and discouragement as that was not at all my intent! I agree with Gene: This will be a great thing as recorded history and encouragement for those who do read it (much like this blog). I know I have been inspired by the stories and successes you’ve recorded here.
~Luke
When I grabbed the link I did not notice that the hyperlinks are gone to e-versions of the stories. They have gone to a subscription so that is probably why. I am kind of glad because my writing was much worse then than it is now and I still have LOTS of room to improve. It takes me as least 8 to 10 trips through a story spread out over several weeks to get it to read well. I get to the point that I sometimes wonder if the story is truly done or if I am thinking it is done because I am sick of editing it. I still struggle with the same problems I was downgraded for in high school – weak starts, weak endings and long sentences. A friend that is a writer has given me excellent help and I am trying to apply her advice. When I get all of the stories “done” I would appreciate your feedback on them. It will be a while though, I have at least two more to write. I would be happy to reciprocate when you are ready.
Luke–Ha ha! No worries at all. I have been writing this blog for over ten years now with a very small audience. The funny deal is that certain times during the year (when people are thinking about homeschool, curricula–math in particular, and starting into community college early) I get slammed with hits and views. The 90% of the rest of the time I am writing for friends (including you now) and family. It has been a good hobby and I view the book that way, too. Sometimes I get visions of grandeur and need to be pulled back to earth. Thank you for that and for coming back to my blog now and again!
Gene — I am looking forward to this. I know that writing for a general audience takes a LOT of skill and we both start out with serious handicaps as technical guys. I am sure you are way ahead of me!