Here Be Dragons
This fortnightly journal reflects on why work has taken over writing, and which song was best to kick off a Romance Genre unit in class.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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This fortnightly drop goes through what I’ve been up to in my writing - I have to account for myself and what I have to show for my efforts recently. Have I been productive, or not…? A map of my brain, so to speak, and here be dragons.
2023 -- better.
Sometimes you just gotta work.
I’ve not done all that much writing this past fortnight. It’s a shameful admission to make. But probably one I knew was coming.
Every now and then, my day job swamps me. Last week was a return to classes, and I have a full teaching load of 5 classes, and I was meeting all of my students and ensuring I’d come close to remembering all of the 100+ names I’d be meeting, and outside of that I’m running one of the courses we teach so I’m preparing all of the documentation for planning and assessment, and I’m getting an online writing challenge program off the ground, and I’m organising a Writers Camp [it’s as rad as it sounds] for later in the year, and so the past two weeks have been busy.
In these times, I have to hope that my writing can take a quick back seat. I don’t want to push for less sleep, I’d become a zombie. I don’t want to work even later than I already do because then I’ll miss family. I don’t want to bring too much work home at night because then I don’t get a chance to switch off.
But from 4-6am, I’m used to getting up and working, so most days I’ve been working on some school stuff. This is why I worked so hard in January to get those scripts off my plate, and why I put in a pitch already that I can now wait on, and why there’s not something big looming on my plate. Because I had an inkling of an idea that the year might start this way. And I wanted to be okay with it.
As someone whose writing is definitely the side gig [in money, though maybe not in heart], these kinds of balances become really important. I have to take a real world approach to it all, and do it in a way where I end up happy about the end result. If I resented my teaching about taking away from my writing time, I’d become salty. But I dig my job, and I’ve enjoyed piecing together some of the lessons I’ve crafted. I’ll talk about a particularly good one below.
I know, and maybe it took me a while to come to peace with this, but I know that sometimes life can get a little hectic. At the moment, teaching 5 different classes, all with different topics and texts, where two are completely new courses for me, and all have new texts for me this year - it was going to be a lot. Thankfully, it was also going to be fun.
It just means I need to schedule and enjoy the down time. Reading DOCTOR SLEEP at the end of the day, that’s down time. Watering the garden and every small veggie bed, down time. Playing a board game, same. Exercising in the morning while watching a movie [or a third of one], total down time. I have a tendency to try and do everything that’s either work or writing productive, so I need to really switch myself off at the moment because the rest of the day is so heavy thought intensive.
I just need to have faith that eventually I have everything mapped out, it’s going steady, and I’ll find a new balance. Without that faith, I’ll be cooked. But I know I’ve found it before, so I’ll find it again.
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Maybe I changed some minds about comics.
I did a presentation to some other teachers just before classes went back. We were at this big conference day, over 700 College teachers doing all kinds of professional learning. I did a Ted Talk style presentation about why I think comics are the best literature/artform. There were probably, I dunno, definitely over 50 teachers in the room, apparently 90+ signed up. I try not to eyeball the crowd too hard because a level of disconnect helps me switch off and enter presentation mode - and some good friends were in the audience - so I couldn’t confirm, but it was a decent sized crowd.
Now, I’d spent so many hours on this presentation. Ideation, rough drafts, scripting, timing, editing, trimming, timing, visual supports, editing, timing, and then I just practised my ass off. For a 15 minute presentation, I probably delivered it out loud, in time, well over a dozen times before the day. It was hours of final practice.
So when I got up in front of the crowd, I knew the whole presentation. 15 minutes and I didn’t look at nor move my palm cards. I was happy with the words, and happy with how I presented them.
Afterwards, I got some lovely people coming up and saying they thought I did really well, or that they liked it - but the best was probably from two different teachers who found me after the day to tell me they’d gone home to talk to their partners about comics, and how maybe they didn’t know as much about them as they thought they did, and that maybe they wanted to try giving some a read.
I think about doing things that can make an actual change in the world, and inspiring people to find a comic and sit with it is one of the finest gifts one can give the world. It made me smile very much.
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Baby, it’s cold [problematic] outside [in this song].
I’m teaching a Romance Genre unit and it’s off to a cracking start. I decided to lead with the ol’ tune - Baby, It’s Cold Outside.
We discussed that we are a genre unit, and I’ve selected Romance, and then we gave initial thoughts/expectations. Then I played the song, and they listened, and we discussed it. Most connected it to Christmas [yes, it appeared in our Xmas Playlists all summer long], and some thought it was fairly mild and sweet - the man is either helping a woman out of the cold or from going out into the cold, he wants to be with her. A few students thought maybe he was a little pushy. But on the whole, the song sounds sweet, so they thought it was probably sweet.
I took notes on the board, and then we discussed it a little more. I slowly unpacked that there are two schools of thought - one is that old mate is a creeper and the song a bit “forceful” in his sexual aggressions, and the other side is that it’s actually an indictment on the views of women in that era of the 40s-50s because she’d have to make excuses just to try and stay with him.
The class was split after the discussion, so I gave them the lyrics and said that I thought the song was on the negative side - it was not a positive portrayal of romance at all - and I wanted them to find lyrics that would either support me, or prove me wrong.
The students poured over the lyrics and the thing I found interesting was how many of them were aghast to find words and lines there that they didn’t hear. “Oh, did she flat out say ‘No’?” “That line’s a bit forceful, isn’t it” Stuff like that.
After a read, the class was unanimous - the song’s a bit off. She says “No” quite firmly and he mows right over it. Even if she’s being coy, that sets a poor example to anyone watching/listening to it and what they should do in their own situation. He talks about his pride being hurt - that’s no reason for a lady to stay. He tells her not to “hold out,” just a gross phrase.
Ultimately, we then had to discuss the context of a man writing the song to perform with his wife, and that no intention was probably put into any of these loaded lyrics. For the 40s. But in 2023, so much of it strikes a dull chord that we can talk about how it might be unintentionally problematic and that to be aware and knowledgeable about it is the best defence.
What I found really interesting, though, was that we watched the clip of the song performed in the film Neptune’s Daughter in 1949 - and because of tech difficulties, we had to watch it in silence. Watching Ricardo Montalban manhandle Esther Williams silently, and enter her space repeatedly, and take her things from her so she couldn’t leave got actual mild gasps from the room. No one was shrieking, but they were easily able to reflect that they wouldn’t want to be handled this way. It’s an interesting watch, especially with a modern view of so much male coercion, manipulation, control, and assault still rife in our communities.
The lesson in the end came to the point that when we hear something we might not think about it, but then when we read it we can think about it a little more clearly, and then often seeing it brings it all to real life. It worked to kick off Romance in a really engaging and thoughtful way. I’m looking forward to the other stuff we end up seeing, reading, and thinking.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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Who is Ryan K Lindsay?
I’m an award-winning Australian comic writer. I’ve been published by Black Mask, Dark Horse, ComixTribe, Mad Cave, IDW, Heavy Metal, Vertigo, and a few more. Kickstarter has been a home for many short comics. I often get to collaborate with great mates, and this brings me joy.
I write about balancing this creative game alongside a full teaching load [currently College English] and a lovely family load and the forever melting brain that is modern man. I think about a lot of stuff, I still don’t know if it’s the right stuff. ymmv.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
My doomscrolling remains at an all time low. The phone is used to message, or to read long form [or still do Wordle].
One month into the year and pretty well clear of social media, and also not had a single dessert, and down to one coffee a day.
I’m glad to take these mentally pacifying supports away, but also happy that this year has started insanely busy and mentally taxing, and I’ve made it a month in. I could collapse this month and still see it as a decent effort :]
What is this "down time" people keep talking about? As always a great read Ryan. Wish i had a teacher like you growing up.