Put Half Your Class to Sleep

I don’t talk about ‘how to publish’ unless people start asking my questions after class.  If I get 2-3 people asking, I decide to spend some time on it in class. I can use it for a fill-in when I don’t get much time to prepare, or when I finish up earlier than I expected.

Writing on the blackboard, talking to the class--a lot of this generation gets quickly sleepy or restless when you do that.

I had put a line down the blackboard, and talked about submitting manuscripts the old way, using Writer’s Market and snail mail, and the electronic way, going to magazine websites and perhaps  using a submission’s manager.

Maybe I should have dropped down the screen in front and gotten on the web to show them some magazine sites, but my password hasn’t been working lately, and I haven’t gotten around to finding out why.

Maybe I should have made it exercise where they use their hands, had them bring envelopes and a manuscript. I could have had them write a cover letter in class.

What do you do? Any ideas, or should one not get into it at all in a beginning CW class. They're not, the vast majority of them, ready. They will only get rejections.