Meet the Faculty: High School Reunion
We return with our second "Meet the Faculty" session, a chance for IHT students and interested onlookers to meet some of the minds who contribute actively to the dialogue of this pop-culture based blog or, in this month's case, a person who contributed mightily to the background of the IHT's Dean waaay back in "the day." Katrina Swaim was Katrina Wright during her days at Shiloh High School, where we struck up a friendship in the eighth or ninth grade, I forget. One of the most gifted writers you'll ever meet and one of my favorite people despite a long lapse in our communication, Katrina serves as "full time activities director and amateur psychologist to two amazing kids" (her words) somewhere in the great untamed land of Idaho, where she lives with hubby Paul. Although we haven't seen each other since our early 20s and haven't talked since Bill Clinton's first term in office, the Dean and the Mommy recently reunited through the magic of the Internet. Different life paths lead to different lessons but my early exchanges with Katrina lead me to believe she is still one of the sharpest, funniest people you could hope to know. She agreed to have our "virtual reunion" turned into a "Meet the Faculty" segment where we can discuss divergent life paths, Harry Potter, online gaming and whether or not reality television was prophesized in Revelations. Scott: I dug around and found an old picture of us together. Senior yearbook, Mr. Chandler's journalism class. During the process of thumbing through the yearbook, I winced a few times. Mostly for other people, particularly the girls with giant balls of curly hair sprayed to the point where the female forehead could be used as a blunt trauma weapon. As a parent, how do you handle it? You want your kid to have friends and be accepted, but being at least a partial outsider (or at least outside of the "popular kids") seems to be a surefire head start on not getting sucked into the vast marketing machine that hopes to vacuum up every boy and girl from age 8-28 and turn them into the Stepford People. You also don't want to cast aspersions on every kid in a Abercrombie shirt, either, no matter how misguided their motives may be for wearing it, because if I know you, you don't want your children judging books by covers, either. When I think about this stuff, I think I'm just going to warp my kid from the start and hope people are terrified of him/her. The kid can sort it out on their own in college. What was the question again? Oh, yes. How do you prepare your kids for the social maneuvering of the adolescent years? To be honest, by the time your kids get there, I think it's mostly out of your hands. So much of the groundwork for social interaction is laid early, from baby's first lessons in interpersonal relationships: "Share." "Don't hit." "Take turns." "Stop shoving marbles in your brother's nose. How many marbles are up there, anyway?" By the time the hormones kick in, your child already knows things about himself--what he's good at, how people respond to him, what behaviors bring about desired outcomes. And the scary part is that a lot of that knowing comes, with or without your knowledge, from you. "Jeremy's my shy one." "Look at this paper Katrina wrote!" "I swear, Mason's going to be a comedian when he grows up; he's so funny!" I think it's important to be aware of the messages you're giving your kids in your daily interactions with them, and with others. They see and hear everything, the little buggers. One thing I'd like to give my kids (and I'm still working out how to do this; if you have any blinding flashes of insight, let me know), is the confidence to swim against the stream. Not non-conformity for its own sake, but the courage to take an unpopular stand for what they believe is right, the strength to flee from temptation when all they want to do is give in, the confidence to find their own way even when it means forging a new and lonely trail. I'm a Christian, and if my son and daughter become Christians, too, as I pray they will, I can guarantee that they'll need all of those things. What you said about not judging the Abercrombie kids is true, too. Hopefully, whatever other character traits our kids develop, they'll cover them all with compassion. I remember being on the receiving end of a lot of compassion in high school, and it's a quality I valued in my friends, even at that age. I think that's why I'm one of the few people I know that can look back at my high school friendships with so much warmth. By the way, if you really want to warp your kid, I think I have an old Culture Club tape* around here somewhere... *Cassette tape—(for young readers) The primary format of music storage before CDs were invented consisted of a magnetic tape wound between two spools and encased in a protective plastic shell. Archaic, I know, but that's how it was before Microsoft ruled the world. Scott: No do-overs on Eli Pickering. We tried to get you guys together at prom by stuffing the ballot box for Prom King and Queen with his name and yours, but as I'm sure you remember, that just resulted in Eli getting to dance with Gina Carellas, the goddess of Shiloh High's Class of 91. But I digress. I think getting to watch you as a parent would be a unique joy for anyone who knew you back in those long-lost days. You talk about compassion, but I remember you being the eternally-cheery voice of silliness. I say this with all possible reverence: you were Luna Lovegood before J.K. Rowling ever made her first trillion. I imagine that same endless cheer from high school directed toward the task of raising a child and I am pretty sure that your kids are going to grow up to be smart, independent, self-assured, slightly strange and incredibly interesting people. Speaking of interesting—you dropped Leonidas's name a couple of times in a recent blog, so I'm assuming that you snuck away from the kiddies at some point and saw 300. When I first saw the movie, I loved it and really, really wanted to hit someone with a sword. On second viewing, it became quickly apparent that there were some really subtle themes bubbling just under the surface (and that Klingons are just Spartans in space, although I knew that already). Beyond the obvious-as-a-spear-through-the-gut motifs of loyalty and courage and duty I saw a movie about love (for wives, children and friends), hubris (not just the obvious, but the hubris of Leonidas as well) and the need for a good exercise regimen for one's abs and pecs. I should have expected nothing less from Frank Miller, the man who showed us what it would look like when Batman got old. Katrina: Luna Lovegood? Okay, I'll go along with that. I may not champion the cause of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, but I do hold some beliefs that others might find ridiculous: truth is absolute, the sun will come out tomorrow, and Christopher Marlowe faked his own death so he could spend his remaining years at a timeshare in Italy, bodysurfing and anonymously editing a local pamphlet series entitled "The Verona Sun-Times." No, I've not seen 300 yet, though it's on my Netflix queue and I'm familiar with the story. I'm very fascinated by the spirit of the underdog, the fire within, the faith that allows anyone to take up the mantle of combat against impossible odds in a cause for which they are willing to die. I can see it in so many of my favorite books and movies—The Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Chronicles of Narnia, Henry V ("If we are mark'd to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.") Furthermore, I think you hit the nail on the head; such acts are not about toughness, or pride, or duty, so much as they are about love. Love is the one thing that is greater than fear, greater than death. Love for a country, love for a child, love for God--it is the one force that overcomes all other considerations. Naturally, great abs are a bonus. So what about you? I understand you're writing a novel yourself (an undertaking that fills me with awed admiration, I must admit!) What elements do you think go into a great story? I was interested in what you had to say in an earlier post about bringing a unique voice to a medium in which there is a dearth of unique ideas. How do you do that? Also, I often wonder how fiction authors can enter so authentically and completely into characters that are vastly different from themselves. Perhaps I just lack imagination in that area, since I've never tried that kind of writing. Any insights into the process of novel writing you'd like to share? Scott: Two writers gave me some great advice to approaching a novel. William Deihl, who passed away last year, told me that it was never too late to start or finish your first novel. He said that if writing a novel was what I wanted to do, there was no expiration date on it short of your own expiration date. Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing that the biggest key to writing a novel was to write it—sit down and just type, everyday, even when you didn't feel like it, until you were finished. That's simple enough. What you were talking about is far more complex. I haven't found too many writers who have the same experience telling a story. Some use elaborate outlines and know the beginning, middle and end points of their books before they write the first paragraph. Others—including King—just write and let the story flow from them. I do a little of both. I have an idea of where my story will go, but when I write, it seems as though the characters and situations take on a life of their own. Invariably, those characters will fall into dull, predictable (and realistic, if you're honest about human nature) courses of action. As a writer, the outline helps me get those characters back on task. My elements of a good story are similar to yours. I like there to be an element of connection to the story between the write, reader and the work itself. I agree that when classic elements infiltrate into storytelling there is a longing by the reader to be more a part of the exposition—a desire to enter the pages of the book like The Neverending Story. I think most good books have a character that the reader connects with and sees themselves in. Certainly, Harry Potter was a messianic figure, but he was also a teenager struggling to fit into his world. Everyone relates to that. In The Lord of the Rings (which I re-read every 3-4 years), all of the Hobbits are eyes for the reader. The Halflings provide an entry point into a fantasy world because Frodo and Company know about as little about the greater world of Middle Earth than a first-time reader does. What the Hobbits do know comes from Bilbo's adventures, which we readers are also familiar with. I would even go so far as to say that Frodo was not the messianic figure in Lord of the Rings. I think that was Aragorn. Most of the time in literature we think of a messianic figure in terms of a pre-crucifixion Christ. Aragorn is Christ returned after a long absence, calling the faithful to his side, raising the dead from their graves and giving them an opportunity to erase their sins and finally creating a more perfect world with his return. Now, once I finish this marriage-play-house-hunting phase of my life, I think I'll have the tools to finally sit down and do what King tells me is the key: just write until I'm finished. Saturday, on the next "Meet the Faculty": More talk between old friends. World of Warcraft, who's calling who a geek and man, things escalate quickly!
The geek kids, though, those castoffs from fashion and trendy sensibility—they look okay. No mullets, no poof-ball hair, no "new wave" sport coats, stone washed jeans, paisley ties or big headbands. Nope, those kids wee jeans, t-shirts and polos. Classic. Even you were "classically eccentric." Granted, we were far from being social pariahs, but we weren't the "it" kids, either.
Katrina: Those pictures! Is that really us? I thought I remembered being a lot more sophisticated and worldly-wise than that girl in the thrift-store cameo and sleeveless Anne of Green Gables blouse. Surprisingly, I can still name half the people in that photo, right down to tiny Sarah Wardlaw standing next to me. (She was my prom date, you know. That's what happens when you hold out for Eli Pickering to ask you but you stupidly don't tell him! Can I have a do-over on that, please?)
Since we're treading on the hem of what elements I most enjoy in human drama, I'll expound. Take, for instance, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a long-beloved literary work and, more recently, a favorite set of films. I can never read or watch them without feeling such an intense pull on my heart's longings that I would, if I could, leap into the saddle and join the fray on Pelennor Fields, to prevail or die in the attempt. I don't feel like a mere observer as Frodo takes step after weary step closer to the seat of darkness in a desperate and nearly hopeless effort to do what no one else can do. I touched on this in the comments on my recent Harry Potter related blog post, but I am a great believer in what C.S. Lewis called "sehnsucht." I feel it coursing through my veins at every second when I'm wrapped up in a great story. The best stories, the ones I love to read or watch over and over, are, I believe, echoes of the Great Story that has been written into the fabric of our hearts by the One who made us. And that doesn't mean only explicitly "Christian" works by professed believers. The amazing thing is that the same themes--redemption, hope, love, sacrifice, salvation--resonate within all of us, whether we believe or not, and emerge, even unintentionally, in many of stories that touch us most. (My point in my blog comment was that Harry Potter is an archetypal messiah character, much the same as Frodo or Aslan or Neo or countless others, and a good example of this phenomenon.)
Back to my novel—I wrote 50 pages of it and some friends circulated those pages with tremendously positive response. But I needed something more to make the story work. I think I've found the key in the voice itself. I talk a lot about voice, because I think it is the most important aspect of any story. The voice I finally found for my novel was that of a friendly neighborhood bartender sharing a tall tale over a cold beer on a slow night with good music pouring un-loudly out of the jukebox. He became the doorway into the story for the reader. He's my Harry or Frodo or Lucy or Stu Redman (I know you read The Stand, because it was my copy you read).
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