Blogocentric Formulations

Stephen King scares children... in more ways than one

For those of you that don't know, my wife (who is a far more altruistic person than I) is a special education teacher, currently teaching 9th grade Language Arts, or what used to be called English before California got all "PC". Anyway, she tells me that her kids are having a hard time dealing with the fact that they have to write a 500-word essay in class this month. One of her more vociferously opposed students is a huge Stephen King fan and my wife asked me how she can motivate this student.

Never one to pass up the opportunity to share my obscure trivia knowledge (or frighten children), I told her to let him know that Stephen King recommends writing 2,000 words a day to become a better writer. That's right... they have a month to write an essay that would take Stephen King less than a quarter of his day to write.

I'm waiting to hear whether she used the tactic and if it succeeded (I'd consider inspiring him to write or scaring him into not complaining anymore equal victories), but it also made me remember back to my high school days in AP English (sorry, Language Arts) when my teacher would give us a three-page article which we had to read, analyze, and write a 500-word essay about in 40 minutes. I suppose I have him to thank for being able to write quickly.

And hey, if the Stephen King factoid doesn't scare him straight, I told her to tell them that her husband is going to write 50,000 words during the month of November. That's right, kids. That's like your essay times 100. Now put your eyeballs back in their sockets.