Darkness to Light {CELEBRATE This Week: 216}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I want to remember this moment. 

They are each holding a copy of my brand new book, Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. It's almost a little too much. 

These guys, the ones I share breathing space with, are the whole reason the book exists.

They didn't make it easy to write.

The kids each flipped through the book looking for the stories with their names.

I wrote a circular ending to Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. I didn't want to write a circular ending, but life has a way of turning things inside out.

I learned through blogging to write endings. I learned through blogging that sometimes, whether we're ready or not, the ending has to come. The same is true when writing books.

It's true for life, too.

Sometimes it's time for an ending and we don't want it. I know about that kind of ending. I've sat at too many funerals when the ending arrived and I didn't want it. 

The same was true for Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. It wasn't the ending I wanted, but it was the ending I had to offer when it was time for it to end.

This moment, the one where my kids from hard places held my book in their hands and read their stories of hope and courage, this moment feels right. 

"I like the way you wrote the acknowledgements," Andy said. "They gave me a little lump in my throat."

"It's not easy turning darkness to light," I said. 

"No," Andy agreed. "Your book, though, I think it has the potential to do just that -- to turn darkness to light."

I hope it does. I hope this book lands in hands across the globe. I hope it helps you turn darkness to light in your corner of the world. This world needs more light. And teachers are just the ones to shine it.

Through November 30, if buy the book and forward your receipt to enticingwriters{at}gmail{dot}com, you will receive a free registration to my new course, Enticing Writers Book Club.

Book Bonuses {CELEBRATE This Week: 215}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Last Tuesday, Stenhouse Publishers hosted me for a FB Live event. Each time I do something online to connect with teachers, I love it more. 

Seriously, it is SO. MUCH. FUN.

In case you missed it, I included an archived copy above. 

I was inspired to create a new course to go along with Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. It's the ENTICING WRITERS BOOK CLUB. The book club will officially begin in January, and content will release each week for 6 weeks.

We're going to have all kinds of fun. Each week of Book Club, I will release a video along with discussion topics. One of the things I love about book clubs are the side conversations. That's what this book club is about. Not only will we dig into content, but I'd like to share the behind the scenes details of my writing process, the inside jokes and the way my thinking has evolved since writing Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers.

There's a comment feed within the course, er, Book Club (!), and a private FB Group so we can keep the conversation going.

HERE'S THE TOTALLY AWESOME DEAL...

If you buy Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers by November 30 and send the receipt to:

enticingwriters{at}gmail{dot}com

(make it look like a conventional email address)

...then I will send you a coupon for a FREE registration to the Enticing Writers Book Club!

And another totally awesome deal...

If you buy Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers through Stenhouse (click here) and use the code ENTICING, you will receive the eBook for FREE! (This deal ends October 31.)

If you want a preview copy with shareable images, just fill out the form below. (Don't worry...you won't get double emails from me if you are already on my email list. My Email Service Provider is really awesome.)

Also, the full book is available for preview on the Stenhouse site.

My celebration is sending this book into the world. It's going to be a BIG BONUS celebration if everything works like I intend for it to work. Share your celebration links below.

It's FINALLY Time!! {CELEBRATE This Week: 208}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I've been waiting for a very long time to share this little gem with the world. It is my very favorite of all my favorites. I know you're not supposed to have a favorite, but this one is a favorite.

I want it in your hands and in the teacher across the hall's hands and in principals', coaches', paraprofessionals', counselors', administrators' hands. If someone is in contact with a kid, I want them to read this book.

Sure, it's about teaching writers because that's what I do...but it's so much more. It's really about the power of an adult to help a child rewrite the way the story they are living can go. It's about understanding the way trauma changes brains and how brains can heal when needs are met. It's about my journey as a momma to kids from foster care. It's about my journey as a teacher and learning to love those who are hardest to love.

It's a call to action. We need more adults turning darkness to light. This little book does just that.

It's a professional book, but it's also a memoir and a persuasive essay and some parts even dance a little like poetry. It's skinny and only takes a few hours to read.

You'll laugh.

You'll shake your head.

You'll want to do something different.

(You might want to have a tissue or two handy.)

This is the best I have to offer the world. 

I want to just give it away, but apparently publishers frown on this.

So I collected bits of it -- the intro and a chapter or two from each of the three parts -- and put it together in a little PDF. I'd love if you'd like to read the preview.

I imagine you snuggled in with my words and a mug of something warm. You can imagine me as I wrote it. Typically I'm under a quilt and it is black outside. In the wee morning hours, there's a cup of sweet coffee steaming next to me and when it's past bedtime, there's ice water on the bedside table.

I wrote it in the thick of the mess of life. I wrote it when things were too hard. I wrote it when I didn't have time...

Because this story matters...

Because we have the power to heal children from hard places...

Because educators might be the last hope for healing...

Because we can turn darkness to light.

Shoot me your email address in the box below, and I'll send you the preview copy. Click here if you want more information about the book.

Share your celebrations below!

An Uninhibited Playful Writer {CELEBRATE This Week: 197}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

In February 2016 I was a mess as a writer. I was struggling with my most recent book and my editor from Stenhouse, Bill, said, "Keep going."

"It's kind of hard to keep going when I don't know what I'm making." The words may have been spoken in a tone more whiney than I care to admit. It wasn't the first time I defined the problem for him. I wasn't sure what I was creating. Was it memoir? Narrative? Informative? Professional and practical?

"I can't really find a mentor," I said, "And I need one."

There was silence on the other end of the phone and I wondered if maybe this were the end of the line. Maybe this was the point when Bill realized I wasn't going to cut it as a writer. Maybe this was when we just gave up on the book and on me.

"I think you're writing lyrical essay," he said.

Having no idea what a lyrical essay is, I googled it. 

Bill said, "It's not exactly what you're doing, but I think it's close enough to help you have something similar to look at."

I kept scanning the Google results. and he said, "Have you ever read anything by Eula Biss?"

"No," I said scribbling her name on a sticky note.

"I've been reading her essays and her writing reminds me a little of the way you write. Not exactly, but there are lines that are reminiscent of the way you write."

Before we hung up, I'd found an essay online by Eula Biss. "Time and Distance Overcome" changed me as a person and as a writer. I bought her book, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays, a collection exploring race in America and her response. Often I read snippets of Eula's writing before diving into my own work on the book.

This week I was at a Choice Literacy writing retreat. The theme was Ourselves in Our Writing and the anchor was Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  It was a perfect place to live my decision to embrace a playful spirit. It occurred to me that perhaps Amy was writing lyrical essay also. She is definitely more playful than Eula, but both weave facts and poetry and story together to leave the reader deeply moved.

Decidedly uninhibited, I stopped thinking and jumped into the essayist pool. 

I decided to begin with No. 2 pencils. Brenda (my Choice Literacy editor) thought it would be a good idea for me to jump. She even had a story to share with me about No. 2 pencils.

The next morning, she laughed when I told her at breakfast how hard the writing was. "I bet," she said. "You're going to have to write a lot of the wrong things in order to find just the right things for your essay."

I brought a meager 339 words to response group and explained that I was trying to learn how to craft a lyrical essay. I knew they would be kind with their encouragement, but I didn't' expect it to be so energetic. Maybe I wasn't going to drown in the essayist pool. Perhaps I have a little more than a doggie paddle to keep me afloat.

They didn't have any No. 2 pencil stories, but they did have glue stories. The idea of school supply nostalgia grew out of our discussion. Earlier, Brenda mentioned she hadn't thought of the No. 2 pencil story for years. It only came to mind because of my topic. I began wondering what other school supply stories are buried.

Why not throw it out to the universe and see what people have to say? It's the kind of thing a person with an uninhibited playful spirit would do. Do you have anything to share with me about No. 2 pencils? It can be a joke, quote, passage, poem or story obviously or thinly connected to a pencil. Will you help me spread the word? Please use #SchoolSupplyStories so I can find them in social media. 

Cheers to playing as writers!

Persist {CELEBRATE This Week: 195}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

I have too much to say for a single blog post. So I'll boil it down to the most important information:

I bought a new pair of shoes this week.

They are proving to be wise investment. I was looking for a pair of grass green shoes, but ended up with red...bright red...suede red on the toes and shiny red on the heels.

I bought them for an interview.

Since it's a little bit of a dream job, I decided it warranted a new pair of kicks.

I got the job.

I'm the new All Write Director. 

All Write is a professional development consortium, and I'll get to coordinate area PD for 30+ school districts.

Tonight I wore my new shoes again to graduation.

As a school board member,  I have the privilege of handing out diplomas. 

I loved it.

I smiled and shook the hands of 2017 graduates.

I kept thinking about how it couldn't have been all rainbows and roses for them to reach this point. By the time you graduate high school, you've faced a few struggles in life. 

I stood there in my new shoes and I was reminded that life is all about persistence. In the end it doesn't matter what the struggles were...it just matters that we keep pressing on. 

Let me help you plan a writing celebration!

Are you looking for a fast way to plan a formal writing celebration?

Sometimes at the end of the year, it can feel overwhelming to plan one more thing. The truth of the matter is you have time to make a plan for a meaningful writing celebration.

I know because I've helped lots of teachers make quick plans for powerful writing celebrations.

Last weekend I found myself with a little extra time, so I began imagining ways I could help more teachers plan an end of the year writing celebration.

By the end of the weekend, I created a new mini-course. It's designed to be a fast guide to help you plan a writing celebration. I pretended that we had time to grab a cup of coffee and chat through a celebration for your classroom. I created a few videos inspired by the conversations I've been having with teachers in my neck of the woods.

Then I thought about the things I would offer to print for your students. I created a handful of PDFs and added them to the mini-course.

In just an hour or two, you'll have a meaningful writing celebration planned for your students.

Check out the Fast Guide to Writing Celebrations. Because I'm trained in education and not in business, there's an insane early bird price for the mini-course.

For just a few dollars, you'll learn:

• Celebration messages to anchor your celebration
• The three components to a genuine celebration -- 
  • Response
  • Reflection
  • Rejoicing
• A process for planning a meaningful writing celebration

And you'll get:

• 5 video lessons (each around 5 minutes)
• A printable PDF of the Celebration Messages
• A Response Sheet for primary grades
• A Comment Sheet for upper grades
• A list of Interview Questions for Writers to use as a reflection
• A template to guide you in planning a formal celebration

Leave a comment and let me know about your plans to celebrate your students as writers. Happy teaching, everyone!

on mission

Recently someone said to me:

Ruth, you need to figure out what you want to do with your career.

It was matter-of-fact, and the directive gave me pause. I couldn't decide if it was a statement of encouragement or admonishment.  Either way, these words tumbled through my brain and clunked around my heart.

Truth be told, they're still punching my guts.

Figure out what you want...

Fundamentally, I'm not sure it's something I believe is mine to do. Maybe it's not up to me to figure out what I want. Maybe what's mine to do is to show up where I'm positioned and give all I have to offer.

If I keep trying to get things right, then I miss the living right in front of me. Perfectionism comes at a high cost. It's why I decided to become a recovering perfectionist.

To become a recovering perfectionist, there are things one must pretend to know. For example, one might pretend to know how to relax. One might pretend to know how to let things go. One might pretend to know that things will be okay if not on time.

Lately, I've not had to pretend quite so much, because I've been learning to be okay with living my mission.

Years ago I gave it a name...

Honestly, I didn't really know what it meant, but I sure liked the sound of it. Sometimes the sound of things is enough for my writer soul to pursue it. I started tugging on the idea, seeing if I could unravel the meaning of Mission Story. I delivered a keynote based on the idea and have tagged 177 blog posts.

Often I unravel meaning by weaving words.

I don't need to figure out what I'm going to do with my career, because I've already determined how I'm going to live my life.

 I'm living Mission Story.

It's not streamlined; Story is organic. It is alive, constantly changing and adapting. It is unwritten. It's unfolding moments making days unfurling into months and seasons and years.

It doesn't go how it's suppose to go; Story is unpredictable. It's intertwined with others and together we move forward.

Because I trust Story, I don't need to figure out what I want to do. Instead, I collect and curate and connect the stories entrusted to me.

The important thing is I don't give up. As I hold firm to Mission Story, I see things more clearly. The ordinary, nearly insignificant moments that pile together to make a day are my most valued treasures.

 I'm living Mission Story.

I believe in this wild and precious Story I'm living, and I know it is worthy. So no matter how blurry the world looks or how busy I think things are or how counterintuitive my decisions seem, it all comes down to one mission --

Mission Story.

I find significance in story. I find magic in moments posing as meaningless. I seek these bits and write them down. This is my mission -- to find significance in story and inspire others to do the same.

It's not the sort of mission that marches with dominance across the top of a resume. It's not really a mission to support a career.

It's a good thing I don't really want a career.
I want to live a good story.
And inspire others to do the same.

The Ed Collab {CELEBRATE This Week: 187}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Today I get to talk about ENTICING HARD-TO-REACH WRITERS as part of the The Ed Collaborative Spring Gathering. All day long, The Ed Collaborative is offering cutting edge sessions free for educators. Check out the agenda here. I am so excited to be a part of the generosity and learning of The Ed Collaborative. 

Thank you, Chris Lehman and The Ed Collab team. You are what is good and right about our profession.

Also, make sure to scroll to the bottom of the agenda page. You will find the adopted charities for the day. As a way to say thank you to The Ed Collab, feel free to donate to one of the day's charities.

I'm looking forward to sharing the way my storylines as a momma, teacher and writer intersect to help kids -- all kids -- write their stories and use their voices to make the world a better place. The information I'm sharing is straight from my heart and straight from the pages of my new book, which is in production now. 

If you want to join me at 1:00 (EST), I'll be sharing how to get past the behaviors of kids who don't want to write and instead meet them in their hearts and help them to know their voices matter.

Share your celebrations below.

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New Writing Buddy {CELEBRATE This Week: 184}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

I waver between a love and hate relationship with stacking Friday night words. All day I was looking forward to writing tonight, but when the time finally came it was a struggle.

The boys are putting finishing touches on Sam's Pinewood Derby car. The race is tomorrow. Sam is making adjustments, Andy is his assistant and Jordan is the DJ, selecting heavy metal tunes off Andy's playlist.

I might be procrastinating. Finally I pull out my computer and settle on the couch. Sam brings me a Lego creation he built last night. "Here's a new writing partner to keep you company," he said, walking the husky pup across my keyboard and setting her beside me.

"Kids at school are giving me free build Lego challenges." A husky was last night's challenge.  Then Sam said, "I know finishing things can be hard, so this guy will keep you company as you finish your book."

It must be a little magic, because suddenly I have a few paragraphs. Writing always gives more than it takes. We just have to make space.

I hope you make space to celebrate this weekend. Share your link below.

Happy Teaching! {CELEBRATE This Week 169}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

Guys! I am so excited to share this with you -- I've taken a giant step toward my long-time dream of offering online workshops (or courses) for teachers of writers. I expanded my website to include a new resource. It's my pleasure to announce...

Happy Teaching with Ruth Ayres

Happy Teaching with Ruth Ayres is a home for online workshops to help teachers (and coaches) make teaching writers manageable and enjoyable. Imagine getting cutting-edge professional development for writing instruction without making guest teacher plans or traveling to a conference or dressing in school clothes! It's self-paced and once you register for a course, you have lifetime access.

I believe in making the world better through story -- listening to stories + telling our own + researching to know the story behind information. It's necessary for kids to learn to write well and to use their voices to impact the world. That's why I made this space -- a place for teachers to learn how to make teaching writers manageable and enjoyable. Because, after all, it will be teachers + stories that save the world.

I'd love your input about what kinds of courses to create. The next course will be Keeping (& Using) a Conference Record System. It will launch in February 2017.

Will you leave a comment and let me know the answer to this question: 

If I gave you a magic wand, what would you want to change about your students as writers OR about your writing workshop?

Also -- and this is EPIC (as my kids tell me is the replacement for "cool") -- to celebrate this next step, Andy and I have decided to give away a FREE course. 

Quick & Meaningful Writing Assessment

It's totally inspired by my grading nightmare that I shared in my vlog earlier this week. It's a 5 session, video-based course with a few PDFs and a general grade sheet.

You can find out more and enroll here. 

If you aren't already on my email list, we will become official Email Pals. If you are an Email Pal, still enroll. (No worries, you won't receive duplicate emails -- my email service provider is awesome at taking care of those kinds of details.)

So there's my celebration...one more step toward a big dream of making teaching writers manageable and enjoyable. Share your celebration below.