Author: Matthew Groff

  • Screw It! Snow Day!

    Funny thing, snow days. I wrote yesterday about how NYC schools would stay open online, even though the buildings were closed, and in effect; no more snow days. And that is what happened today.

    But… We tried to have a snow day anyway. We went out and ran around in the snow twice today. Oh, we made snow angels, tried to have a snowball fight and to make a snowman, but the snow wasn’t the right type. Not the big fluffy flakes that pack together well. It was fine, skiing snow, in my opinion. We had fun; the kid made a friend while running through snow drifts, and we ended up at home, wrapped in blankets, and having hot chocolate. You know, snow day!

    I remember my first snow day. I was about my daughter’s age. My mother woke me up for school, as normal, but on this day, she took me to the back patio sliding glassdoor, which had it’s vertical blinds drawn. Then with a nod, my mother pulled the shades open to show me that our square suburban backyard was covered in an amazing, for Texas, two inches of snow! I remember making the tiniest of snowmen, and just playing, and running around to hear the crunch of snow under my boots.

    It’s nice to know that snow is still magical to kids who don’t get to see it very often. I grew up down south, I’m 44 years old, and I still get super excited when the weather says snow is on the way.

  • The End of Snow Days

    I don’t know if you have heard, but a Nor’easter is headed for the northeast today. If it holds true, then NYC will get hit with 5-10” of snow over the next 12 hours, and New England could get over a foot. Yup, here comes winter.

    My daughter is super excited! She hasn’t seen snow in over two years, and has been asking me if we can build a snowman when the storm hits. We bought new gloves over the weekend, the good kind that are made from Gor-tek that won’t get wet, and are best for throwing snowballs.

    With all of this snow, and the possibility that it just might be enough to shut the City down for a day, there still won’t be a snow day for the schools. With all the kids in NYC remote learning now, school will always be in session. No more checking the news in the morning, watching the scrawl at the bottom of the screen, seeing if your district has been closed. No more playing in snow all day. Now, she will have to wait for the last video meeting of the day, and THEN she will get to go out and play. No more days off.

    Yet again, we are entering a new world thanks to Covid.

  • I Didn’t Write Today, But I Don’t Feel Bad

    That pretty much sums it up.

    Oh, and I had plans today as well. I had worked on the outline, and I was ready to start taking a second crack at working on the narrative. I even started thinking about the tone of the narrator, and the cadence he would have in his sentence structures, and use of receptive phrases. I was thinking about it, and gearin’ to go.

    And I won’t even say that the day went sideways. It just went, and I had to roll with it.

    First of all, the school had a two new assessment tests that they wanted my kid to take to see where she was on her reading and math skills. I know what assessment tests really mean, but for the kid it was just fun, and she enjoyed all the math stuff. In fact, for a kindergartener, I don’t know where she picked up what she knew about fractions! She’s not getting the math skills from me, that’s clear. Once she had finished the assessment, the app we were using offered some math games to play, which she ate up! And I sat next to her, encouraging her to keep going, and it was so exciting and heartwarming to see that spark of learning in her. That feeling that all the world can be discovered and understood. That horizons are being broadened.

    It through my schedule off for the rest of the day, but it was completely worth it.

  • Outlining a Story

    On Friday afternoon, during my brief writing time, I sat down and outlined a story that I have been trying to write for a couple of weeks. I have been speaking about my need to focus better during the short amount of time I have to write a day, and also the need to have an executable plan when I sit down and write. Hence, the outline.

    I was going to try and follow a simple Three Act structure; first act to establish characters, second to start plot, and third for the climax. (I’m a theatre guy, so I’m relying on what I know.) I also thought about the Joseph Campbell/Dan Harmon “Hero Cycle” structure, which is more about the emotional journey the hero takes. For that “cycle” to work, the hero needs to learn something by paying a heavy price, to return home changed.

    So, I’m trying something new with outlining, which is causing me to go outside of my comfort zone when it comes to creative writing. But, I also need to be honest with myself and admit that writing when the mood hits me has not lead to an inconsistent output of material. I also feel bit amateurish to make this admission; I mean, shouldn’t I know to do this? Well yes, I have known this information, but I didn’t want to admit to it. I didn’t want to admit that this is work, and could be unsexy, hard work.

  • Why I Blog, Again

    What am I doing with this blog?

    I have this thought a couple times a week. (This is the neurotic side of me, where I have to continually affirm my decisions.) I write a blog as a daily exercise to express a concise thought in, give or take, 250 words. It is one part of the three types of writing I try to do, at least, 5 days a week. The other two are journaling, which is completely free form, has no structure, and is the structural opposite of the blog. The third type of writing I try is fiction, which is combination of creative freedom, while trying to stay within a narrative structure.

    It’s a good old classic thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

    That having been said, when I do ask myself “What am I doing with this blog,” I do wonder if I should actively try to “make” something out of the blog. And when I say “make” that word means monetize. If I work had at something, pour myself into it, then I should earn money off of it, right?

    First of all, what I like doing, and I could be wrong as I just crossed over 100 followers yesterday (Thank You!), won’t ever generate enough traffic for me to earn anything. As all of you know, if your blog isn’t unique, niche, or teaching something, then it has zero change to earn, or be sticky, or what other buzz word is used. I know only one friend who has a successful blog, and they still have a day job. Second, I have been so hard wired into believing that only earning an income off of my exertion is the end all be all justification. If I were to limit my creative endeavors to what could earn money, then I really wouldn’t be creatively free. I would be beholden to what the market deemed accessible.

    What if I just want to create and share? No strings attached. Just put it out there and see what happens.