Grades 4-12, College, and Adults

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This is our eleventh year sponsoring Fine Lines creative writing summer camps for students of all ages. Join writers who add clarity and passion to their lives with the written word.
We will have fun with words, learn to play while developing poems-stories-essays, and discover creative corners of our minds that we did not know existed. Metaphorically, we will take our journal under a “shade tree” and talk together about issues that matter. We will swim around important “buoys” in our educational journeys. We will row a boat to a “lighthouse” that shows us our path through the fog. We will take our minds for a “jog” to the library. We will learn to write more, write faster, and write better. More than anything, though, we will create time to dream about our ideas and celebrate the power and beauty of words.

Where: Beveridge Magnet Middle School
When: June 14-18, 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Beveridge Magnet Middle School is located at 1616 South 120 Street, Omaha, NE 68144-1687. Contact the school office if you have questions (402) 557-4000.
Cost: Make checks out to Fine Lines ($100/person/week). This includes the summer camp registration, a camp T-shirt, snacks every day, several guest speakers, and a yearly subscription to Fine Lines: a national, quarterly, creative writing journal for writers of all ages.

Camp Director: David Martin, fine-lines@cox.net, 402-871-3682
Fine Lines is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization – www.finelines.org
Send checks to Fine Lines, PO Box 241713, Omaha, NE 68124. PayPal is available.

Please see the attached flier for more information and a printable registration form.
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David Martin

When I write at a computer, I often hear instrumental music with a piano leading the melody. I never notice words or lyrics. As I place my fingers on the keyboard, I sense a concert hall and a quiet audience, waiting. I hear a symphony in the background, and I see Ludwig van Beethoven in my mind.

Why music? Why the piano? Why Beethoven? More importantly, why at the computer? After years of wondering, the answer became clear to me one night, as I tied sentences together and coasted into the 3 a.m. darkness.

When I was young, my mother and I argued weekly about how much time I should practice the piano. There was a nice Baldwin in the house, and she wanted me to play it.

One day, I heard Mother talking to her friends about classical music. The name “Beethoven” came up in their conversation, and I paid attention every time his name was mentioned. “He was the best German composer,” she said.

At first, I was curious if I could make my fingers please Mom, and I was serious with my lessons for awhile. I practiced, diligently, so I could perform at a planned student recital a few months away. Would she think I was a little Beethoven? The stage fright I experienced at that small gathering killed my interest in playing. I knew Beethoven was beyond my reach.

However, the biggest competition for my piano playing time was baseball. I wanted to play centerfield for the New York Yankees when I grew up. Mickey Mantle, I imagined, was my big brother. I was the oldest child in my family, and I needed a brother to look up to, so I picked him. Fast, strong, able to hit on both sides of the plate, and unstoppable chasing fly balls that would be hits against other outfielders in Major League Baseball, he was my hero.

I loved the grass in “my office.” It smelled good. I thrived on the isolation in the outfield and knew it was my job to manage the players on either side of me. I dared batters on the other team to get a ball past me. That did not happen often.

The respect I got from the coach and the rest of the team motivated me to concentrate on the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand on each throw, so I could get a jump on the batter’s swing, as he made contact. I had to cover more ground than any other player. I wanted to be the best I could be, and I felt excited when I caught a line-drive on the run, grabbed a pop fly out of the sun, and threw a frozen rope from deep center field to home plate before the opponent on third could score.

My fingers were meant to throw baseballs, not find middle “C” on the piano. I liked the feel of my hand around the leather ball. I felt the gift of strength in my arm, and if I kept practicing, I would receive more praise from my coach and teammates.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., God bless her, Mother would make sure I was seated on the piano bench doing my scales to warm up before practicing the new piece my instructor assigned for the next session. Weekly, this routine took place. My desire to improve was not as great as hers. While she dreamed of “Moonlight Sonata,” I dreamed of the Chicago White Sox visiting Yankee Stadium.

In the spring, one Saturday morning, my life changed. As I sat on the piano bench absorbed in a new piece of sheet music, three of my closest friends knocked loudly on the front porch door, only a few feet away from me, as I was lost thought.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I nearly fell off the piano bench in fright.

One of the boys yelled, “Hey, Dave, we’re going to the baseball field, and we need you to practice some plays. We want to win that first game of the season. Come on.”

Quickly, Mother said, “Tell them you can play in about an hour, after you finish your piano practice.”

“But, Mom, they need me now,” I replied.

“Your promise to me comes first,” she whispered.

The boys on the porch were all older friends from the neighborhood. They played infield positions, because they did not like the outfield. They thought playing there was boring and too much work. They felt better on the dirt, and they needed me to back them up in the outfield.

I was not going to win this contest. Either my friends or Mom would not like my decision. I could always do piano practice later, like my friends said. They would not wait forever. I knew I would be grown up soon, and the Yankees would call me.

Mom’s hands slowly folded across her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.

Beethoven or baseball? I knew that I loved centerfield more than the piano, so I made my move. Fifty years later, I still feel my legs slowly sliding off the piano bench and moving toward the front door.

“Mom, I’ll be back after baseball practice,” I reassured her, but I did not hear her say anything.

As I reached for my leather glove, she reached for the music pages.

When I stepped through the door onto the porch, the oldest boy put his arm around my shoulders and said, “We need you, buddy,” and the other boys agreed.

As I started down one of the many roads I took to reach manhood, I imagined my piano music being torn in half.

Today, in my mind, I sense a bust of Beethoven behind me when I type, and I always write with his music in the background. His powerful notes calm me and let me find inner paths to explore with words. I have no fear of him, anymore, so I write on.

I find time each day to type a little “music,” and sometimes, I talk to him. The music of reflection is a solitary tune. I roll through the storm clouds of life listening to “da-da-da-dum,” as I hear notes coming from the keyboard. The letters that make my words become piano keys, and I don’t look over my shoulders anymore.

Composing my “music” on paper shows me I learned to listen, while playing the piano and running in the sun. I learned the most in both activities when I did not talk, because there is power and strength in finding silent spaces during the day.

The secret of composition is to not think of the ending and what comes before the last page. The best plan is to write one sentence at a time and measure the steps, thoughts, and days in key strokes.

Today, when I watch a ball game, I recall all the fun, challenges, and respect I received at such an early age playing with my friends. Those days defined who I would become many years later. I liked sports, and I could not get my fill. I would love to return to those games and play them one more time.

I raise my hands above the keyboard, once more, and hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with those famous four notes. I am still practicing, Mom. This time I hope to make music, as I struggle to form complete sentences and developed paragraphs. I listen to Beethoven’s notes, but I write my own internal rhythms and play my own tunes.

David Martin

16.4 Winter 2007 Fine Lines

(Often, David Martin stuttered in school, because he could think faster than he could talk. Many times, he felt like a slow learner, but he wanted to become a better student. On his own, he figured out that most class situations revolved around reading issues. If he could read better, he thought he would perform at a higher level. He read as much as he could in his room, alone, and when he started getting better grades, he stuttered less. When he learned to process his answers after hearing the teacher’s questions and was allowed time enough to think his thoughts through, he stopped stuttering altogether. He figured this out by learning to enjoy reading.)

When I was young, I took many things for granted. Like most young people, I assumed things were the way they were for my benefit, and it was hard to put myself into other people’s shoes. I only knew what it was like to have clean drinking water, have three meals a day, have all my limbs working properly, be able to go to school, and receive a college education. I was naïve, self-centered, egotistical, and still had a lot of growing up to do.

Today, I feel like a different person. I do not assume life will work the way I think it should. I see the world through older eyes, and I still count my blessings every day, but I most appreciate being able to read and write.

Only 1% of the people living on this planet have a four-year college education. Although I am the first person on either side of my family to finish college, I knew from the time I was in sixth grade that I was college bound. Mother blessed me with a desire to read. She showed me it was “cool” to go to school. She smiled when I made thoughtful comments. I was no genius, and I was far from the smartest student in my class, but she gave me goals to reach, and those goals included books. She received enjoyment from words, and I could not avoid her enthusiasm.

Before I went to kindergarten, I knew the power of books. Mother read constantly to me and talked about the ideas she learned in those books she brought home from her weekly trips to the library. Next to our church, our town library was the most holy place for her.

At the age of four, I carried her books around the house, one in each hand. I felt older, when I adjusted my stance in order to hold their weight. I was not sure why they made her happy, but if they did, they made me happy, too. I remember sitting on the floor, opening her books one page at a time to feel the different textures of the paper. Some pages were coarse. Some were delicate. I still could not read, but I was amazed at how older boys could, and I knew some day, I would figure out “the code” they learned to decipher the ink marks on all of those pages.

I could not wait to read. I would lie in bed at night wondering what it would be like to read all of those books Mother had in her bedroom and on the bookshelves that were in almost every room of the house. However, my mother refused to teach me. One of her elementary teacher friends warned her about making a mistake if she tried to teach me herself. This teacher friend was worried that Mother would not do it correctly, since she had not attended college. This elementary teacher told Mom that a possible mistake made by her might hurt my chances of performing better, once I reached school, if I did not read properly. Because of this scolding, Mother only showed me pictures from books, talked about biblical stories, and read some of them word for word to me. She would not teach me the alphabet, so I could read myself.

I became so angry, frustrated, and anxious that when I came home from kindergarten, I was crying because I could not read after the first day of school. Mother just laughed and said, “Well, I guess you will have to go back tomorrow, then. Ms. Grimes will teach you some more.”

I started my education feeling inferior. Many of my classmates knew how to read on that first day of school, and I was puzzled. Was I not as smart as those who could read? What was the mystery of all those words on the pages, anyway? I became convinced in my own mind that I would learn what they meant, with or without Mother’s help.

As I got older, I insisted she teach me more than the school teachers tried to do, when it came to reading and communicating ideas. Constantly, I asked her what she was reading and why. I wanted her to tell me what she found interesting in those books. Then, I asked her what the words meant that she used to explain her ideas to me. When she got exasperated after so many questions or when I started asking questions she could not answer, she told me to go outside and play, while she went back to the kitchen.

If Dad happened to be home, instead of going outside to play, like Mom requested, I badgered him to tell me what he was reading in the newspaper before dinner and what he found interesting in those articles. I wanted to communicate with him, but I did not know his vocabulary. While I was growing up, I asked more questions about what my parents were reading than anything else I can remember.

I wanted to tell others what I thought. I wanted to know about life. I did not care if I was smart or not, but I wanted to know what made people wise. I was determined to find out what made leaders find the right answers, so they could lead their people. I wanted to be heard. I knew if I could figure out that code, how to use those letters in the alphabet, I would find out what wisdom meant and how to communicate with others. I felt I had things to say. I had so many questions, and I wanted to discover if there were answers to them. Would people listen? Maybe not, so I became introverted and thought I would be the most important audience for my questions after reading all that I could.

The concept of language centers on having the freedom to know anything. Language unifies people and liberates us. There are languages of anger, music, love, mind, heart, and soul. Language standardizes society and thrives on protest and change.

A healthy language is impure. English is a kind of Creole, a blend, a mixture, a grab-bag language. The English language would not be what it is today without the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes, Welsh, Danes, Vikings, Celts, Normans, Romans, Greeks, and many other nationalities. What a wonder there is in our words. We cannot refute what moves us. All we have are our passions. We can’t teach others, just inspire them, and words do those things.

“About 93 million adults out of a total adult population of around 221 million (42%) are at basic literacy levels or below. People who are below basic literacy levels can’t carry out the everyday functions that they would normally pursue in American society. They can’t read a bus schedule and see how to get across town. They can’t use most of the self-service ATMs. They can’t fill out the average job application to try to get a job or get a better job. Those who are considered at basic literacy levels are still operating on a very rudimentary level in terms of math skills and in terms of reading capabilities, being unable to draw simple conclusions from reading a column in a newspaper (fifth grade level) or reading a newspaper editorial that may be comparing candidates in a local election” (Robert Wedgeworth, President, ProLiteracy, a comment on the 2005 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Report, ChildrenoftheCode.org).

“There is a profound reading crisis in the United States. Almost 40% of fourth graders do not read even at the basic level, and a majority of students do not read at the proficient level” (James Wendorf, Director, National Center for Learning Disabilities, ChildrenoftheCode.org).

Writing is collected intimacy, a warm hug when the world falls apart, a good looking woman just out of reach, a steaming cup of coffee in the kitchen while the blizzard outside threatens to blow the roof off, seeing a pair of bright eyes across a crowded room, a red-rubber clown nose on a man in a business suit, and stringing sentences together from 3 a.m. to 10 a.m. without moving once from the chair. Writing is more about finding the important questions in life than the correct answers. Discovering what we need to know, what we can’t stop thinking about, what have become our obsessions, and what our passions will do for us – these are the reasons we need to read and write well.

The best teachers are story tellers: Jesus and his parables, John Steinbeck and the Joads, Ernest Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea, Natalie Goldberg and Writing Down the Bones, Lynne Truss and Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.

In school, I disliked history classes because the focus in each one was learning dates and arranging unconnected information. Now, I find myself addicted to the History Channel. Its television programs tell such well written stories, and history is now interesting.

Writing is humanity’s most far-reaching creation. Words convey meaning, are flexible, have magical powers, overthrow governments, and change history. Its forms and designs are endless. Sumerians started writing 5,000 years ago, and today, 85% of the world’s population writes in some form. Writing has the power of innovation and can move hearts and minds. The Egyptians’ phonetical alphabet occurred 3,500 years ago, but there was no mass literacy until after Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. Now, there are more than 800 font styles of type.

The Greeks created the first alphabet to have one symbol for each sound. The Latin alphabet evolved from Greek in the sixth century BC. However, Chinese is the only one with individual characters representing individual words.

Writing combats loneliness, creates a sense of self, shows affections of the soul, alleviates depression, boosts the immune system by increasing T-cells, lowers blood pressure, and lets individuals be heard. More than 10,000 languages have been spoken throughout history, but most were never written down. Pages were created in place of scrolls in the second century AD, and spacing was not placed between words until the seventh century.

Reading aloud died slowly. Making sounds while reading was an honor and a mark of distinction showing one’s intelligence. Only recently did we learn to appreciate reading silently. Sharing written language unites people. It is a miracle when a child first puts thoughts and emotions onto paper. Writing requires work at both ends, forming thoughts and reading them.

John Gardner said, “A writer seldom exceeds in quality the books he reads.” Writers, if they are serious, should read all they can, experience life all they can, and write all they can. Only in this way will they acquire worthy content.

William Least Heat Moon, author of Blue Highways, said, “Get off the main roads like the Interstate. Follow the blue roads, the small ones that go through the small towns. Meet the people who really make this country work.” If we want to see the world and pursue our own paths, the most exciting and worthwhile knowledge and wisdom will come to us on those small roads that lead us away from the massive crowds and toward roads less traveled.

According to Bill Wheeler, “Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” Increased clear vision arrives with good prose and poetry. We do not need more “stuff.” We need to use the “stuff” we have in different ways. Let’s make sure our “stuff” has juice in it, the essence of creativity and vision. Good writers and artists of all types transform the ordinary into the extra-ordinary. Do we really need $12,000 of new photographic equipment to take that picture? Can’t we use words to place a “photo” in the reader’s mind of what we want them to see?

Celebrate what is “write” with the world. Use words every day to see the world with new eyes. Focus on clear thinking. Turn mistakes into opportunities. There is more than one right answer. Some people say the answer to good communication is to act like a radio. As far as I am concerned, we need more listeners, because this is the primary aspect of good, specific communication.

John Muir was devoted to nature, and his photos and writing made going into the wilderness attractive to many people. For him, life was beautiful in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Art is the ultimate objective for those who wish to communicate, and he tried to make his life a work of art. Shouldn’t we all?

Artists have three steps to remember. They feel curious and vulnerable while taking risks to capture their passions in their chosen medium. Focusing on the right perspective with the metaphorical right angle and right lens brings clarity to the object. Using the proper technique reframes the difficulty addressed into an opportunity for understanding.

Writers of all ages must remember that good writing is specific writing. Let’s do what we do best and do more with less. Life does not make appointments. It just keeps coming at us. The angles, the colors, the courage, and the joy point our words at universal themes. Keep searching. Believe in small things to make big things happen.

Mother did not have an advanced education, but she possessed the knowledge of many scholars. She read, voraciously, and I saw her wisdom increase with each trip to the library. One of the most important things she taught me was that I must take some time to read every day for pleasure.