Day 17: 30,537 Words and The World's Longest Meeting Has Ended

Finally I managed to get my teachers to stop talking about their incredibly complex multi-pronged strategy. There are so many things that have to happen in the next 19,500 words, I should probably buckle down and write some story and stop going off on side tangents. Then again, side tangents are fun! So, here is a little bit of the teacher's meeting that I finally just ended today, because I needed to move onto something else.

"I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Because what is happening to us- it isn’t unique. This has been going on for decades. The gradual, or less gradual in this case, purposeful erosion of conditions in schools. In many cases, the conditions were just always terrible. And, you know, at a certain point, you’ve got to ask yourself, why? Why is so much effort put into making it impossible for us to do our jobs? And you know, I think Logan was onto something when he said that what we do is important,” she saw some nods around the room. “What we do is important, and I think that is precisely why they want to prevent us from doing it. Because what is more dangerous than a thoughtful, engaged, critically thinking, idealistic group of young people?” The question was rhetorical, they all knew it. Because the answer was obvious. Nothing was more dangerous than that. Nothing. Cass continued.

“So, what we are going to do is exactly what they don’t want us to do. We’re going to teach these little motherfuckers, and we are going to teach them so well, they are going to go out there and change the world.” The room erupted. People were clapping each other on the back, cheering, someone was screaming (possibly still triggered by the earlier mention of the Florida Panthers), a couple of teachers were crying. In that moment, it was like the dignity and purpose of their craft, of their calling had been returned to them. They were teachers goddamnit. And they were going to teach."

I then decided to write a little bit about Logan, because I really don't know much about him, and that strategy has worked for me in the past, where I write for that character's perspective for a minute to see what they have to say. For some reason, what emerged first was a lengthy explanation of the origin of his nickname.

"The exact origin of Logan ‘Bam Bam’ Brewster’s nickname is not known to many. He had played both hockey and football competitively, until he reached an age at which he needed to choose between the two. He chose football, but really, it could have gone either way. He was a tough player- big, mean, and completely without fear. His hockey and football teammates believed that he was called ‘Bam Bam’ for his willingness to deliver and take crushing hits.

Logan also played baseball during summer breaks as a child, before training for hockey and football took over his summers. His baseball playing friends had assumed that his nickname had come from his tendency to swing like hell and knock many balls out of the park. He was always big and strong, even as a kid, and that had translated to being a heavy hitter at the plate. It was a believable origin to the nickname, but that wasn’t it either.

He had also been a competitive swimmer- he was no Cody Simpson, that was for sure, but he knew his way around a pool. His swimming teammates had no idea where the nickname had come from, as it really had no relevance to competitive swimming. If pressed, they might have said, “sometimes when he was just fiddling around he really liked to do cannonballs or belly flops into the pool?” They would have shrugged while saying it, knowing that it was ridiculous, and feeling slightly ashamed. “You made me come up with it!” they would whine, and they would be correct. Logan did not get the nickname from his competitive swimming days."