Lindsay Detwiler's Blog, page 55

The Girl I Want To BE

I’m a rational, rule following, square, perfectionist. I like to plan everything from my outfits to my lesson plans to my life way in advance. I agonize over every choice to make sure I’m making one I won’t regret. I worry . . .a lot. I never do anything crazy or anything spur of the moment. I’m somewhat of a homebody. I always order the same things at restaurants. I have the same weekly routine.

In many ways, I guess you could say I’m a bore.

Talking to other women my age, I sense that I’m not uncommon. People think of your 20s as a wild time, a time to live it up. I’ve talked to plenty of twenty-somethings who are living anything but. Work, family, chores, and responsibilities often dictate to us a rigid, conservative routine.

There’s nothing wrong with that. There is comfort in routine, there is pride in reliability. I am proud of my career, my house, my life. I am proud that I made good choices and am able to reap some of the comforts of this.

However, there are times that something creeps into me, a call to do something else, a whisper to live a little. Not that I want to do anything absurd like skydive or pull a Chris McCandless. Just sometimes I wish I could escape the confines of my strict, conservative life, to just do something without rhyme or reason, to let go of the confines of being a grown up.

So, with that in mind, here is the simple yet spontaneous bucket list of the girl I wish I could be. Will I accomplish these? It’s doubtful. But one can dare to dream.

Order something I can’t pronounce on the menu and eat it no matter what~ Drive three hours in one direction and just see where I end up~ Paint a room neon yellow just because ~ Go kayaking ~Go horseback riding somewhere beautiful ~ Experience true southern living for an entire week ~Live at a beach for an entire summer and write my heart out ~ Ignore my needle phobia and get a tattoo ~ Put a streak of hot pink in my hair ~Karaoke ~ Go dancing all night and not care if I can’t actually dance ~Go star gazing on the other side of the world ~ Take a dance class ~ Take a pottery class ~  Spend an entire month without any plans of any time and just see where life takes me.

What are your spontaneous dreams?

Lindsay Detwiler, author of Voice of Innocence

Watch “Voice of Innocence” on YouTube

The Story

I am a walking story. My experiences, background, beliefs, hopes, fears, and dreams have painted themselves into my core. They show through every smile, every glance, every mark on my face, every whispered prayer. I am not one person who can be easily pinned down. I am pieces of myself as a child, as a teenager, as an adult, as who I will be someday. I am a conglomerate of thoughts, feelings, and ideas from all the places I’ve been, all the people I’ve met, all the losses I’ve experienced. I am the starry passions of my youth; I am the reality of my current world’s limitations. Talk to me, and you’ll see a piece of that story, but only a piece. No one can ever see the entire me.

For my story doesn’t stop with me.

My story includes the stories of my mind, the stories I’m working on telling. My story includes the conversations that float through my head from characters who don’t yet exist, from people like me, from people I wish I could be, and from people who I never even want to know. My mind is full of stories, of my own, of one’s I’ve invented, of one’s that have spawned from the pieces of myself I’ve explored.  These days, I am a constant “what if?” I see the what ifs in real life, and they incite my next story. I see beautiful sights around me, interesting people, odd situations, and I think: what if? What if has become my story starter; my mind is the medium for exploration. My pen is the medium for translation. My books, my readers, are the medium for interpretation. There are so many stories waiting to explode out of my mind and into reality. I’m ready to give them life, to tell the story of the characters who are now a part of my story.

I am a walking story. I am a writer. Perhaps I am a walking story because I am a writer.

Or perhaps I am a writer because I am a walking story.

Lindsay Detwiler, Voice of Innocence

Follow me on twitter @LindsayDetwiler

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TMX826K

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/voice-of-innocence-lindsay-detwiler/1121237080?ean=2940046578041

Win! Win! Win! The Romance Reviews Summer Contest

Want to win some summer reads? Go tohttp://www.theromancereviews.com/event.php, sign up for a free account, and play the games. At the bottom of the page, if you click on my advertisement for Voice of Innocence, you earn extra points for entries! There are hundreds of books to win plus a grand prize of a $100 gift card.

~Lindsay Detwiler, Voice of Innocence

School’s Out For Summer! Making Summer Resolutions.

January 1st—that’s when most people make their resolutions. For me, though, January is a hectic time. Between lesson plans, grading papers, meetings, tutoring, and grad school, I feel like there’s little time for self-improvement of any type. During my college days, January meant the start of a new semester while working a part-time job.  So for me, my resolutions always begin on a different day: the first day of summer vacation.

The first day of summer feels like a new beginning. Gone, at least for a few months, are the stressful, busy days of the school year. It’s a time for me to recharge, reconnect, and focus on myself.

My resolutions and goals during the summer aren’t overambitious, but it is a time for me to think about where I am in life and where I want to go. If nothing else, it’s a time for me to achieve some mini-milestones that I just don’t have time for during the year.

What are my summer goals this year?

Cross some more books off of my book bucket list. Currently, they include: 12 Years a Slave, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Far From the Maddening Crowd, Me Before You by Moyes, Big Little Lies by Moriarty, The Husband’s Secret by Moriarty, and a few books I grabbed from the bargain table.
Exercise at least three times a week to get back to my most confident weight.
Drink more water . . .if you’re a teacher, you know that water consumption is limited due to limited pee breaks during the day :)
Try an agility course with Henry.
Take a painting class with the husband. At least just one.
Improve our landscaping.
Cook new recipes.
Begin writing my third book.

I think I’ve got a pretty decent list of goals this year. What about you? What are your goals for this summer?

Lindsay Detwiler, author of Voice of Innocence

My MasterPiece

“I still fall on my face sometimes and I

Can’t color inside the lines ’cause

I’m perfectly incomplete

I’m still working on my masterpiece” ~Jessie J “Masterpiece”

It’s never too late to change the direction of your life. You are never too old or too set in your ways to accomplish a crazy dream.

I think sometimes we forget this. Sometimes, we become so locked into our lives because of our ages, our jobs, or what society tell us we should be doing.  Sometimes we give up on our “masterpiece” before we even start it. Sometimes we settle for the lives that have been comfortable, for what we think is realistic because we are afraid to take a chance. We are afraid of being seen as a failure or reckless in the eyes of our conventional society.

I think the most fulfilled people are those who are a little bit reckless, people who aren’t afraid to change their minds. I recently read a wonderful article about a lady who was making a six digit income in a financial business. She was in her late twenties and set for life. However, she wasn’t happy. So what did she do? She sold everything, quit her job, and moved to a Caribbean location to work at an ice cream shop. And guess what? She loves it.

Not all of us are called to give up our careers, our incomes, our houses, or our lives on a whim. However, I think it pays to remember that if your life isn’t what you want, you can change it. Don’t use age or others as an excuse to stay comfortable. Do what makes you happy.

I learned this in college when I was graduating with my Accounting degree. I had done my time in college, working part-time while also attending school. I was exhausted and finally faced the prospect of making money in a steady, reliable career.

But I was miserable. I hated the prospect of sitting in a cubicle with spreadsheets all day. I wanted to teach.

So, even though some thought I was crazy . . .I re-enrolled in a second degree program. I stayed an extra year and a half in college to get my teaching credits and degree. I stayed at my part-time job. I pushed through exhaustion to get a degree that I didn’t even know if I could use; teaching jobs are almost impossible to find in our area. But I did it because I  didn’t want to let “comfortable” overtake my passion.

And now I’m so glad I did because I’m teaching in my dream district.

Voice of Innocence partially deals with the comfort zone issue. Emma especially has become comfortable in a settled, good life. She moved on from Corbin after the guilty verdict. However, once he is released, she has to question whether or not it’s too late to change, whether it’s too late to go after her biggest dream.

We all face obstacles and doubts on the way to our masterpiece. Sometimes our own psyches threaten to stop the masterpiece before we’ve started. Sometimes we fall on our face. Sometimes we color outside the lines.

But whether you are twelve or a hundred, don’t give up. Keep working on that masterpiece.

Lindsay Detwiler, author of Voice of Innocence

@lindsaydetwiler

http://www.facebook.com/lindsayanndetwiler

The Husband’s Secret

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved that this book covered three different women and their stories. The book was exciting and suspenseful. I couldn’t put it down! I didn’t like it as much as What Alice Forgot. I felt like it was missing Moriarty’s humorous undertone that I love so much. It was a heavier read than other works from her. Nonetheless the power of her storytelling shines through. It is a great read!

View all my reviews

The Not-So-Tech-Savvy-Millennial

I didn’t get a cell phone until I was 18; a laptop until I was 24; a smartphone until last year. I still don’t have an i-pod or an i-pad. Yeah, I’m behind the times.

I love technology . . .to an extent. I’m a pro at Facebook creeping, I’m a Pinterest addict, and I couldn’t even dream of handwriting anything anymore thanks to word processing. However, that’s about the extent of my skills.

Cue grad school class in Technology. Also cue my groans, sweaty palms, and visions of “Fs” floating in my future.

Nonetheless, the class has truly helped changed my mind about technology, especially when it comes to the classroom. Don’t get me wrong; Bill Gates doesn’t need to move over or anything. However, I’ve come to realize that by using my Promethean Board as simply a Power Point projector and living in the old school world, I’m not doing anyone any favors. I don’t want to turn into that hobbly old English teacher who wears her glasses too low on her nose and is out of touch. I want to find ways to use technology to enhance my classroom, to speak to the new generation.  Am I still nervous? Yes. Will I be trying Skype anytime soon? Probably not.  Baby steps will be my approach. Below, see some helpful apps and sites that even I can use :)

Socrative

I’m so excited about this program that I’ve already made quizzes on it for next year. Essentially, it is an online quiz maker that takes away the need for the promthean voters/clickers. Students can log in on a device or computer to your classroom and take a quiz. The program grades their quiz for them, giving them and you automatic feedback. Gone are the days of taking home reading quizzes, grading them, and finding time in the distant future to review them. Socrative reporting options even allow you to see which questions the majority of the class missed so you can review them automatically.

Kahoot.it

This website is aimed at elementary, but I definitely think high school will enjoy it. Kahoot is a game maker. You essentially make quizzes on the website, adding pictures and video as you like. Again, students can use a laptop or device to log in, join in the game, and answer the questions. The game gives the students points based on correct answers and speed, building a fun, competitive atmosphere. I’ve also started making games on this for next year.

Class Dojo

This website is definitely elementary, but I’m going to give it a trial run for a week or so next year with some of my classes. This behavior system gives each student an avatar. You can click on their avatar to give them points or take points away for certain behaviors. You can customize the behaviors. Students’ scores are kept in easy to read reports. Parents can even create accounts to log in. I will be using this purely to keep track of participation at the high school level.

NEWSELA

I love this program. The common core has pushed for nonfiction, supplemental materials to be added to the English curriculum. This website, which is free, allows you to set up classes and assign nonfiction articles that are current and sorted by subject. Even science, business, or history classes can find relevant articles. Articles come with quizzes which can be taken on line and scored. Student progress is recorded in reports so you can track growth. The best feature? For each article, you can change the lexile level. This makes it seamlessly easy to differentiate for all readers in your class. The articles look exactly the same, too, so students sitting beside each other will have no clue.

Do you have any apps or websites you can’t live without as a teacher?  Feel free to comment about them below!

Cats, Glitter, and Poe: Why I Love Tragedy

I’m an English teacher cliché. I love cats and books. I spend my weekends on the couch with said cats and books. I adore Poe, and I wear a lot of black. I use a lot of big words in my everyday language, and I often point out literary devices when my husband’s talking (he now knows what alliteration is thanks to me always pointing it out).

Oh, and I love teaching sad, depressing, heart wrenching books where most of the characters die.

Am I a creepy person who hates humanity and, therefore, enjoys reading about death and loss? Hardly. I mean, a girl who loves pink, glitter, and kittens can’t be all that morose.

But I do believe in the value of reading tragedy. I adore teaching Shakespeare (where you can be assured that at least half of the characters will die dramatic deaths by the end). I love the creeptastic style and topics of Poe (hiding someone in the floorboards…creepy. Hiding someone in the floorboards as described in Poe’s picturesque language? Deep literature). I like teaching Oedipus, Hamlet, and literature about the Holocaust. I like Of Mice and Men; I like 1984. I love books with depressing, dark endings that make you go: what?

I’ve been asked so many times by students: why don’t we read happy books? True, happy books have their place in this world. It’s nice every now and then to read a feel good book or a humorous one. But in the classroom, I like the tragedies.

It is by reading tragedies that we realize we are human, that we can truly be moved to feel something more powerful, bigger than ourselves. By reading about heart wrenching events and terrible losses, we can be moved—moved to explore our empathy, moved to do something to help others, moved to make the world a better place.

I believe that pain is the most powerful emotion we can feel; isn’t that the goal of writing? To make us feel something? Does it have to be positive? I don’t think it does.

I think that we do a disservice to our students and ourselves if we only read literature with sunshine and rainbows, where everything works out. Life doesn’t work that way. In many ways, life is one big tragedy, filled with sorrows, losses, regrets, and disasters. Our lives are filled with tragic events. By reading about them, we teach our students that A. they are not alone in their difficulties B. Life isn’t always fair and, most importantly C. They can survive even the most devastating loss.

Finally, tragedies remind us to appreciate the lives we have and to cherish the moments when life isn’t a full-fledged tragedy. I am reading Night with my students right now; talk about making you appreciate every morsel of food, every hug from a loved one, every day you wake up and get to make choices about your life.

So call me morose, depressing, or even creepy, but I’ll take tragedy every day of the week. When I read, I want to be reminded of the depths of my humanity. I want to feel something in my core. When I teach, I want my students to do the same.

So if in the afterlife there is a writer’s corner where all of the greats are sipping coffee, I’ll be at the table with Poe, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. I’ll be the one with glittery wings and ninety thousand cats. Look me up if you get the chance :)

Lindsay Detwiler, author of Voice of Innocence

Follow me on twitter @LindsayDetwiler

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TMX826K

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/voice-of-innocence-lindsay-detwiler/1121237080?ean=2940046578041

Voice of Innocence Updates

Today is the last day to enter to win a copy of Voice of Innocence at Goodreads!  Here’s the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/135806-voice-of-innocence

I’m up to 19 reviews on Amazon, including one from my book signing in Winchester, which was really exciting!  If you’re on the fence about reading, take a look at the reviews OR if you’ve already read, please consider writing me an honest review! I would greatly appreciate it!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TMX826K

I’m also on Twitter now, so follow me @lindsaydetwiler

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be posting information about a huge giveaway I’m a part of for The Romance Reviews. There will be chances all month to win many prizes, including a $100 gift card. How exciting!

As far as writing goes, I’ve finished the draft for a second stand alone novel (also women’s fiction/romance). I started the first chapter of a third novel and plan on writing the rest this summer. I’m super excited about both my second and third books I’m working on!

Thanks, as always, for all of your support!

Lindsay Detwiler, Voice of Innocence

lindsayanndetwiler@gmail.com

Check out my NEW book trailer below: