At Bastrop High School, a rural school here in Northeast Louisiana, I teach two classes of gifted high school English, two classes of honors English, and two classes of “regular” students. There’s only fourteen school days left this year. I know because one of my students made a countdown calendar on one of the chalkboards and has been counting down for us. I’m ready for the summer. This will be only the second summer I’ve managed to have “off” in my eleven years of teaching. All the other summers were either spent going to school fulltime or working odd jobs trying to make ends meet, or a combination of both. I cringe when I hear people talk of teachers having all that time off, and I have a conniption fit when I hear talk of year-round school.
First of all, at least here in Louisiana, teachers are nine month employees. That means we’re paid for nine months, and that salary is stretched out over twelve months. I’m not sure where Louisiana ranks now in teacher pay, I just know we’re close to the bottom. I know the money’s not enough to make a dignified living. This is why so many teachers have to moonlight. And many moonlight year-round. I do. I edit books, play in a Scot-Irish band, and try to sell the books I write. And some summers, I’ve done carpenter work, worked for Waste Management, worked in a funeral home, and a score of other odd jobs. (If you want some interesting writing ideas, make a list of all the jobs you’ve ever had.)
Regarding summer: In the face of tougher teacher standards, teachers need the summer to take university courses. Of course, I realize many go to school year-round. Some attend university classes at night, even if they have worked all day with the brain-numbing tasks related to teaching. Then they take care of their family and homes, get all the papers graded (trivia question: how long does it take to read and grade a class set of 25 essays?), and finish all the assignments for their college class. They return to school the next day, try to do a decent job teaching, and do their best to somehow manage to move all the rocks (busy work) that politicians and administrators mandate be moved. Pardon the rant. I’m tired today. Maybe that’s why I’m venting. But maybe I gave you something to think about as well.

The20Cult20-20ChuckPalahniuk.net

I just finished reading The Fight Club. A very disturbing novel. I liked it so much that I ordered his other novels. The author, Chuckk Palahniuk, is a minimalist in style. Here’s a cool site devoted to him.

I’m searching for an agent to represent my next novel, Blood Diamonds of the Lost Bazaar. The writing business is so brutal these days, that I’m looking for Agent-someone to help me. So, yesterday I queried 18–none from New York, deciding to query those agents in the next agent marathon. (I don’t know why I did it that way; maybe it’s a weird sort of psychotic grouping) Anyway, I spent several hours drafting the query letter, gathering agent addresses from Novel and Short Story Markets, addressing envelopes, etc. I needed to be writing, but here I was draining energy and time and spending a fortune in copies and postage–just to query. Ach!

In a used bookstore in 1998, I purchased Louis L’Amour’s Education of a Wandering Man. A great read. His remarks caused me to realize more than ever how travel or journeys or adventures can provide fodder for a writer’s stories. I was raised (I never grew up, I guess) in Dallas, Texas, and I had seen L’Amour’s books on the bookshelves of my parents, relatives, and other people we visited. He may have been the first popular author I ever knew about. I read several of his books at an early age, yet in 1998, the stories took on new meaning because I felt like I knew the man who wrote them.
L’Amour had one intersting habit he developed during those Depression years when he was hopping trains, traveling from one job to another. He kept lists of the books he read each year. I decided to imitate that practice, and my little book diary lists the books I’ve read every year since. It’s the closest I’ve come to keeping a diary or journal in any systematic way, and a good tool for my writing ideas and self-analysis. I think the book diary is also a legacy I can leave to my children. Maybe it will help them understand their somewhat mad, writer-father. More on this topic later.

I’m an English teacher. At last, the standardized testing is over. English teachers dread this time of year. The state mandates, plus the President’s “every child has a behind act” (I stole that from someone at a gifted symposium) take a heavy toll on teachers throughout Louisiana. Perhaps that is why we still refer to the Graduate Exit Exam (GEE) as the “LEAP” test–it is the time when teachers are tempted to “leap” from windows. At a rural, north Louisiana high school, I teach two classes of freshman honors, two gifted English classes, and two classes of regular students. I’ve also taught freshman composition at the university (University of Louisiana at Monroe) for eleven years. But, more on that later.

Welcome to A Southern Missive, the site where I’ve finally placed my thoughts and letters to the world. I hope you’ll return and respond to my rants and ravings, my thoughts and feelings, and my sharing of all things Southern. Also, visit my website at http://www.rickeypittman.com