Aaaaarrrrgh. The Board ate my post.

I was just going to ask about titles. Let me try again.

I decided to aim high and submit to Newsweek's freelance commentary column, "My Turn". I'm psyched about giving this a try, regardless of the outcome. However, their two-part title/blurb format is very specific. Here are some recent actual examples:

1.

My Turn: It Takes an Open Tent and a Leap of Faith

Admitting we can't go it alone feels riskier than ever, but our very survival may depend on it

2.

My Turn: What I Never Learned at 'Mommy and Me'

The world seems to get scarier every day, and, for the first time, I don't know how to comfort my son

3.

My Turn: I Can Do Anything, So How Do I Choose?

With countless options and all the freedom I'll ever need, comes the pressure to find the perfect life

4.

My Turn: What's Really Behind the Fight Over Dover?

The media seem more interested in shocking us than in paying tribute to fallen soldiers like my son

You get the idea. So I brainstormed a whole bunch of titles and came up with a few possibilities. I think my favorite right now is:

My Turn: The Questions Even a Teacher Can't Answer

I had asked my students to reach out to the future, but an untimely death forced me back to the past.

I wanted the word "teacher" in the title if possible, to orient the reader so that the "hallway" in the first line of the actual essay has instant context. I also wanted to make sure the editor didn't read the title and assume it was a typical "student died, I was sad" kind of essay.

What do you think? Is it okay? Would it intrigue you enough to want to read more?

Also, is the word "even" okay in that title, or does it come off as arrogant? I was trying to play off of the stereotype that a teacher knows everything using a kind of gentle irony, since much of the essay deals with how little I actually felt I knew in this situation. I'm very interested in your thoughts, if anyone has time.

In NON-MEME news, Deb, I'm really enjoying the prologue. I read it tonight and thought it was a great read. More specific comments in an email tomorrow.

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However, their two-part title/blurb format is very specific.

I like the one you ended up with, but it's not something you need to obsess over - they probably have copyeditors write those, like other headlines. Just give it one that will give the editors the gist of the piece, and expect it to be changed.

And the whole McCoy/ rat husband analogy

See, that's something I wouldn't have gotten as someone who doesn't watch the show. Which is another reason why Deb is right about pop culture references -- even judiciously chosen, there's going to be a certain percentage of your readers for whom it will completely sail over their heads.

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Also, is the word "even" okay in that title, or does it come off as arrogant? I was trying to play off of the stereotype that a teacher knows everything using a kind of gentle irony, since much of the essay deals with how little I actually felt I knew in this situation. I'm very interested in your thoughts, if anyone has time.

Maybe, Kristin. Although to be clear, your title didn't strike me as arrogant, but I thought the title was too long and that's the first word I wanted to take out. Actually, I wanted to take out "even" and the first "The". But now that I've read what you were trying to do with it, I'm torn, because I like the irony. I'm in the position your magazine readers would be in, as I didn't make it back to your essay, yesterday. I don't know what to make of that, but like them, I will see the title first. I'm going to hop back to read your piece now, and see.

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coffee and pie

Kristin, oh my word. That is heart-wrenching. I am so glad you're going to have it published. And definitely, do whatever you can to hold onto as many of the rights as you can.

I was taken out of it a little by the way you've ended. You have:

In the years that have passed since that winter day, I have had to move beyond my guilt and my fear. I resisted the temptation to give up the assignment, to play it safe. Instead, new students have filled my memory and heart, and new letters have swollen the drawer—puffed full of predictions and crumpled twenty dollar bills and revelations I can only imagine. I have finally reclaimed much of the joy of January as I sort through the envelopes, remembering and hoping. But from then on, every year as I have sent out these letters to students I once almost knew, I have wondered.

Don't get me wrong. It's lovely. But when I look at what you've told me, this ending overstates things, or something. Urgh--I'm feeling inadequate, because I know I'm never going to get across how much I love this piece. Please know I'm picking because I love it. I'm going to try again, and it's going to take me 500 words to say what I should be able to say in 20.

Part of the reason this last paragraph doesn't work for me, is because the rest of the piece is plainly honest, and in this last section, you employ some poetic overstatements, which would work for me in another piece, but here, seem to detract from the whole. Even the bones of your essay are powerful enough, that I don't think you need that 'years' in the first sentence of the paragraph I've quoted, or the 'finally' in 'finally reclaimed...January'.

t maybe this is just me You're not looking back over a long period of time. You say Michael wrote the letter and graduated in 2002, and picked 2007 for his letter to be sent. It's only been 2.5 years since he graduated. You don't say when he died, but if it was winter, at most it was two years ago, quite possibly less time. Also, since you introduce Michael saying you mourned him because you barely remembered him, I'm not sure about the 'new students have filled my memory and heart' because you start out confessing he wasn't particularly dear to you, when he was in your class.

The final paragraph as is, sounds like something you'd write 10 or 20 years hence, about a student very dear to you, while he was your student. I think the point of it should stay, but I'm wondering if you should rework some of that language. Part of what is powerful about your piece, is that this wasn't your pet student, and this is the sort of thing that happens to 20 year old kids, each day. Having his probably wise-ass blank sheet (which is such an 18-year-old-boy-thing-to-do) of paper turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy resonates in an incredibly strong--chilling, even--way.

I'm sorry. This is a really personal piece you've written and it doesn't feel proper to critique it. If you were just going put it up in your LJ, I'd only be giving it love, but I know you want to sell it and I want you to sell it. I've argued with myself over whether or not to just keep my mouth shut, because really, I am so moved by this piece, that to nit pick it feels wrong.

t /me

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D'oh. I think Cindy has a point. It does sound like you're writing it ten or twenty years after the fact, when it's really only been a couple.

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Cindy, no need to apologize. You should SEE how much nitpicking it's already survived...and much improved by it, no matter how little I sometimes wanted to admit it!

I very much appreciate your feedback and definitely see your point. That paragraph was the last thing I revised, almost as an afterthought when I realized that earlier drafts didn't really conclude at all, and I knew (quietly, in the part of my brain I was trying to ignore) that it was overstated in a way the rest wasn't.

And actually, I think your point about the passage of time may have been the magnifying glass I needed to figure out how to fix it.

Hmmm....let me obsess a little and do so.

Apart from that, now that you have read the essay, did you think the title worked? I know it was long (one of the alternatives I had considered was the one you mentioned, "Questions A Teacher Can't Answer"), but the models all seemed quit long to me, too. Also, I was hoping the irony would surface, but that might be too subtle. Your earlier post had said it would depend on the actual essay.

Also, Lyra Jane:

I like the one you ended up with, but it's not something you need to obsess over - they probably have copyeditors write those, like other headlines. Just give it one that will give the editors the gist of the piece, and expect it to be changed.

Excellent point. I think I'll make it

My Turn: Questions Even a Teacher Can't Answer

I had asked my students to reach out to the future, but an untimely death forced me back to the past.

and be done with it until the editor changes it completely.

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instant oatmeal:

What about this instead? Is it enough when put in the context of the essay, or do I need more to convey not only that I wonder, but that I don't take their happiness for granted in the way I used to?

It has been a year since Michael died, and New Year’s is approaching. Very soon, I will open my desk drawer for the familiar ritual of sorting and remembering and adding two-cent stamps; even the postage rates remind me how much time has passed since I thought I knew them. But this year as I look at each envelope, puffed full of predictions and crumpled twenty dollar bills and revelations I can only imagine, I will wonder in a way I never used to.

About who they were and who they became. About who filled their future with stories and who never wrote a word.

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That's stupendous, Kristin. I like it. Gives it a sense of urgency, of being there. I like the postage rates bit.

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Thanks P-C. I'm much happier with it. I'm still tweaking, obviously, but I think that's much closer to where I need to be.

Oh crap! Speaking of where I need to be, I have a hair appointment in fifteen minutes, and I'm still in my jammies!

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Hair appointment? Don't you have school today?

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