Catch a Falling Star

Believe me when I say that the teaching-life’s okay.

I survived it many days because I brought bananas to the fray.

I taught within the monkey house and now’s my time to grouse.

Sixth graders are the little monkeys

Small and fast and full of funkies

Seventh-grade are chimpanzees

Who grab and eat whatever they sees

And the eighth, well, they are the gorillas

Who throw their poop and make school thrillers.

And though it makes you crazy and mean

And you feel like life is full of beans

You learn to love the monkey house

Even the bully and the louse

Entertaining them with stories and tasks

Which makes them smile and drop their masks

You trick them into a little learning

And maybe keep the school from burning

And long years end with coos from doves…

They have become your little loves.

There is no doubt about it

As a writer, as a poet, as an author

I am absolutely nobody

I will never be famous

I will never be wealthy

Only a tiny, precious few

Will ever read me, ever know me

But that is entirely okay

That was never what my life was for

In fact, I am satisfied

Because you read this

And now you understand.

I finished the final draft of this bug-boiler during the pandemic, before the end of 2022. It should have been published about three books ago. I have never run into a more complex writing experience than this one.

The first issue was arthritic. I wanted to continue using illustrations to short-cut character depictions. I like to illustrate these novels with comic-book-style pen-and-ink illustrations. But my fingers have lost so much dexterity that I can no longer match the old cartoons and things begin to look a little off. I tried to use pre-existing illustrations from my old notebooks full of such pictures. But my scanner became a problem because the controls of the thing were tied to my son’s computer… the one he gave to his older brother when he went into the Air Force. And my only computer linked to the scanner, which I can no longer link new computers to, is old and wearing out. It takes a week to scan things at times when I need to go faster than that. And the drawings don’t look that good anyway… though much better than any new work I do with pens on paper. And it is the part of the old book that I am rewriting as a series of five books where I have the most new plot and world-building to do… and then cross-check for consistency with everything I wrote back in 2007.

And then the ability to do digital art came along, something I would’ve loved to apply to this book. But the learning curve on that took more than a year. And yet, I am still trying to master the skills necessary to create science fiction art in a digital format.

And this entire last week was consumed with frustration over trying to create the new format Amazon requires with an interactive table of contents. I still have to skip the parts of that which Amazon will still let me skip because it is new.

Anyway, the thing was fun to write, fun to reread, and worth all the effort. You can see for yourself at the link above.