As reported in CNN tonight (click here to read the article), a tragic scene unfolded today as a lone gunman took several students hostage. After he had released all but two of the teenage girls, SWAT teams stormed the school to rescue them. The gunman, however, was too quick for them, and he was able to kill one of the hostages before killing himself.

As a human being hearing this story for the first time, I wonder what would have happened had they not stormed the school….

As a teacher, I view every student in a positive light. But I am also on edge in the classroom, from the beginning to the end of each class, simply because I know that these tragedies that have struck Colorado high schools (Columbine is just 40 miles away from today’s attack) can happen anywhere, at any time.

One of the stories that came out of today was that the gunman accidentally took one boy for hostage with the six girls. When told he could leave, be free, the boy turned and said, “I’d rather stay here with the girls and protect them.”

The gunman allegedly put the gun to the boy’s head and told him to leave for good. The boy had no choice, and he was soon off.

Today’s shooting brings to light my sub-conscious role as protector of the classroom at all times. I try to keep it concealed from them as much as possible, but I don’t want anything happening to my kids, not to mention the rest of the students at our high school. And so I keep these tragedies in the back of my mind and err on the side of caution whenever necessary.

As a teacher, it’s my responsibility to protect these students.

As a human being, it is my responsibility to love these individuals and allow them the chance to reach their potentials….whatever they may be.

Love to all,

Rus

I think that one of the greatest skills we can learn as writers is how to be good listeners.

In the last week alone, I have closed my mouth and opened my heart to hear more stories of love, tragedy, revenge, and sacrifice than any one human being can rightly claim to hear in a lifetime. The key for me has been simply listening without interrupting.

Talkers love to find good listeners, as most others are telling them to shut up or, at the very least, give it a break. But talkers have much to share, and when they are given space to really let go and dive into a subject that they’re passionate about–well, look out.

I write this not because I’m necessarily proud of my sudden ability to shut up; I write this because Nano is coming up, and I hope you might join us and write a book in the month of November. I’m going to be spending a great deal of time on this site writing about nano, how we prepare, what strategies are out there to do such a task, and tips and words of motivation that will keep all of us in a place where we can muster out just a few more strokes on the keyboard.

The stories I have heard are all gellin’ nicely for my story: a psychological thriller that is similar to my other works in this genre.

More on the story line later.

Who’s thinking about doing this? Nano’s great! You should consider joining us….Much fun, that’s for sure!

I am leaving school now, as traces of dusk hint on the horizon. The temperatures fall so subtly, like the few leaves that have already found their way to the ground. The humid breezes begin to shift into their blustery, autumn siblings.

This is the best time of autumn, transition within transition, the marrow within the veins of each leaf falling.

The very core of life itself.

On this Sunday Morning, I think not of the back-to-school meetings that have passed, of the 30 or so reviews for my book Cold Rock that are now trickling in, of the passing anniversaries of my father’s birthday or his marriage to my mother 62 years ago, of the many meetings with students and parents and teachers that have focused on all the right things in this early school season, of my younger daughter’s first days in preschool and her first practices in soccer, of my love for autumn.

I think not of any of those things.

I think of This Sunday Morning. The possibility of love and of life suspended in each drop of dew that droops from tired Black-Eyed Susans and Butterfly Bushes outside my window. The magic of the many micro-moments that make up this single passing second, this moment, this chance to smile and to listen and to cherish simply what is.

This Sunday Morning. This Sunday Moment.

It is good to be back here.

In this Moment.

With all of you.

Now that “In the Living Years” is published and off the docket, my plate has been cleared to finish the final revisions to Journey to Cold Rock, the novel I wrote last November during Nanowrimo. I wanted to finish it much earlier in the year and have it sent off (and under contract, and published, and bringing in tons of money in royalty checks…), but alas, that was just not meant to be (thanks in large part to the “Living Years” piece–but that’s okay….it needed to be written, at that time, in that way…). I do want to finish it, though, before October 1, when I start gearing up for the big Nano Show in November….

So I’m now immersed in rewriting the climax, where the protag needs to be more aggressive in taking ownership in dealing with his past. The challenge has been in merging the old text (which, for the most part, I love) with the new (which gives the protag more control over his destiny). I don’t want to delete too much of the old, but I have to let go of some of it to make the scene work effectively.

Which leads me to this:

Yesterday, during a 5-hour workshop in cultural proficiency, I was sharing with a great friend of mine (KC) what this experience has been like working on this final scene. I drew (I always draw diagrams when I talk—God be with you if we ever go out for a drink…) a circle inside of a circle, and inside of that circle, I drew a bold dot. In my mind, I was thinking, bullseye, center of the zone, the core.
“That,” I said to KC, is where I was last night as I was revising Cold Rock.”

She looked at the diagram and said, “You were the sun?”

And that was just when I had one of those moments where the world washes over you in a giant watercolor brushstroke, and find yourself on somebody else’s canvas.

“The sun?” I asked. “You mean, like the big bright ball in the sky?”

“Yeah. Center of the solar system. All that.”

I looked back to the diagram and saw it. Last night, I was the sun. I could not have been closer to the core of the origin of creativity and of life. She was right.

I then focused on the circles around the sun, and I started identifying the planets by their rotation around the sun (this, though, required a little help from our in-house astronomer), and KC asked:

“So where are you now?”

How perfect was this analogy? I looked at the diagram one more time.

“Oh, I’m definitely venus right now. Definitely.”

She smiled, and I knew that we had stumbled on what I am certain will be a most brilliant and long-lasting analogy that will be so overly used by yours truly for weeks, months, oh hell, YEARS to come.

me :)

oh–and just in case you are wondering….I’m mercury right now!

When I decided to join the 2,996 project, I found myself once again torn emotionally by the events that happened five years ago. To focus on a single individual, however, was more overwhelming than I could have ever imagined.

After i agreed to do this, and I hit the return key to find out who I would be remembering on my blog, I wasn’t ready for the rush of feelings that hit me.

Nothing, though, could have prepared me for seeing that first picture of Brett, a life filled with love and energy, great plans and dreams, all taken from him and his countless friends and family that will forever miss him and hold him dearly in their hearts.

Like a magnifying glass concentrating all the sun’s rays into a fine stream of light, I guess that seeing Brett’s picture brought the intensity and the magnitude of 9/11/2001 to me through his eyes.

It mattered. It matters still. And we will never forget. Despite all of the political maneuverings and mishaps and disasters that have come upon us in these past five years, one thing is certain: Nothing, or nobody, can ever diminish the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and nothing, and certainly nobody, can ever erase the memories of the 2,996 individuals who lost their lives on that day.

May we all say it together, keep it forever in our hearts, in 50 years, as strongly as we do today.

We. Will. Never. Forget.

I’ve included some text from a New York Times tribute to Brett printed several years ago, but as you read the words, look deeply into the pictures of Brett that I’ve added from other sites. See the love, the life, the energy, the beauty of a man so young to be taken from us. May God bless him, and may God bless his family and friends, for now, and for always.

Having spent his teenage years near the ocean in Bricktown, N.J., Brett T. Bailey seemed to pass whole seasons wearing a wet suit — whether it was winter, spring, summer or fall. “It was hard to get him out of the water,” said his father, Kevin Bailey. “He loved surfing. He loved swimming. He loved anything athletic. He was very playful.”

Mr. Bailey, 28, worked as a lifeguard when he was a teenager but there was little question that after college he would become a broker, like his father and three uncles before him. “The financial world is kind of in his blood,” Kevin Bailey said. He worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange before taking a job as an options broker three years ago with Euro Brokers in 2 World Trade Center.

Mr. Bailey was a determined athlete. He started the summer with a 26 handicap in golf. By September, his handicap was down to 19. “That tells you what he was like when he set his mind to something,” said his father. “But one of the most interesting things about Brett was his ability to make friends very quickly, almost upon meeting them. He had such a diverse group of friends. From the New England fisherman to the Wall Street broker, they were all equal to him.” (source The New York Times)