Liz'+Page

**Liz Rollans' Page**

Elizabeth Rollans has always enjoyed stories. She favors fantasy and science fiction, but also any story which spins the truth out of the universe and onto the page. Having grown up a much-traveled military brat, she now finds herself pleasantly surprised to be teaching secondary English in her family's home state of Arkansas. She has studied English and education at the University of Central Arkansas, where she is currently a graduate student. After attending the 2011 Great Bear Writing Institute, Elizabeth hopes to be able to share writing lessons with other teachers in the state. She also hopes to pass on her love for literature to her students and to her toddler, whose first word was "book."

Anne Lamott Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

If ever you have desired to read a book about writing that was witty and fun while still being practical and helpful, this is it. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is tremendously funny at points but is also one of the most motivational books on writing I’ve ever read. Lamott tells us to take it bird by bird, that when we get stuck we should just tackle a tiny bit of our work at a time. And then she gives some very specific solutions to many specific writing issues. Do you want to know how to quiet the Negative Nancy lounging around in your head? Do you need strategies for handling criticism and jealousy (your own)? Want reassurance that everyone writes shitty first drafts? Well, those are some of my favorite chapters in Bird by Bird. But you’ll not just find the answers to the most common of writing concerns here, you’ll also feel as though, in finding this author, you have found a kindred spirit. I know I did.



Our Inquiry Group:

Linda and Liz

A Portrait of the Writer at Twenty Six

Ignoring the seven other paintings, I regard Totanka. An animal of dreams, With form ill-defined, Materializing and fading into Outer shadows of canvas-laden panes. Small dark eyes weep spirals of Blue and white through coarse fur. Horns held high above a back humped like mine, His gaze wrests upon myself, Eyes grazing on my half-eaten bagel, My open notebook, a waiting pen. Across from him beautiful baristas, All short hair and open tattoos and playful smiles, Make tip-toed attempts at hanging a sign. Totanka stares and I pause, sleepy eyes shuttering Like a lens, click, click, close. His mouth spreads open and the words float out To mingle with lingering coffeehouse aromas. A resolute “Remember your dream,” Fades into a whispered, “Remain in the storm.”

A dream returns through half-wakened eyes.

A trampling of hooves, A plowing through the hinged porch door, then Into my dreaming enter Apparitions with crowned horns held high As they tread past my Trembling, bewildered form. Two great and terrifying deities guard me from Re-entry into assured safety. They block my path in silence. I must await the roiling storm alone and among Rattling tin-foil windows and Splintering benches. I had come to retrieve sustenance. Through the screen door, dark clouds gather, The wind a calm green, delivering deadly Spirals of danger. I’m left now with raw poultry. I slip meat from bone, Lick blood from red fingertips. Totanka affirms my choices in silence.

I’m afraid, but I’ll consume what I have.

As I pick up my pen, I realize This isn’t reconnaissance, it’s a restoration of origins.

The Chaperones

An improbably long procession of the mourning Halted my transit. Impatience overwhelmed me. Enraged, I clenched my jaw. I mumbled. I fought the urge To use the suicide lane, To evade the mourners, To accelerate and to go go go. And this slow moving score of souls Marched onward, steadfast, With dim headlights like lanterns, Torches lifted as monuments for their dead.

As the first of the lamenting survivors Turned off toward burial grounds unseen I sighed with relief still tempered by staunch impatience.

But as this car turned so flew a murder of crows. My breath caught at the first glimpse Of these winged chaperones. My body became alight with a tangible awe. So many feathers worked to flock toward the grave. My skin tingled and my energy pulsed. My mouth dropped open as I leaned forward, Hands still gripping the steering wheel, Head upturned toward black wings Eclipsing the sun. The crows traveled in unison, Accompanying the remains of the living and the dead. I watched, reluctant to return to my own rushed journey.

Here's a link to my Glog: My Beautiful Glog

Unfortunately, my digital story was too large to upload here. I think it's an HD file... And I'm not so sure about posting it to YouTube...

This is an excerpt from the first bit of my story, entitled **Demise: The Fate of Bones and Grace of Souls.**

Aglaia, with failing health and clouded sight, teetered somewhat ungracefully over to where the bones’ last fragments lie. Atropos strode up beside her and reached into the earth. She retrieved the bones, carefully dropping them onto the shroud in Aglaia’s outstretched hands. Atropos’ duty was to gather the bones; Aglaia’s, to witness the ritual and to care for the remains. These half-sisters, they are all that remain of the old blood within this realm. Their broods had abandoned them long ago, as the remaining immortals had either perished or moved on to more splendid existences. What remained in this place but bones and two old hags of sometime importance?

There were still the insects and the rodents. And there were still the humans, though hardly the same creatures of years past. And, of course, there was still man’s creation. His skyscrapers and his concrete and his technology. His dominion, however filled with corruption and pestilence it may be. In abolishing wilderness, humanity had begun promoting its own demise. Atropos gently cradled the forgotten remains within the shroud.

“What once was cherished rots here, forgott’n; so Abandoned, man’s long journey ends, unjust.”

Aglaia feebly nodded her head in ascent to the finality of Atropos’ words. Like they had done for half a century now, Atropos performed the ritual and Aglaia mothered the bones. As the living expanded their ranks, land had become scarce. The world’s cities burst with life, and humanity had no more room for the dead. The fate of the living was sealed. Before the cemeteries were condemned, before the trees were felled and the ground paved, Aglaia and Atropos had attended to the fate of the bones. Once this duty was finished, once all the old souls were put to a final rest, Atropos would perform this same ritual for Aglaia herself. Their time together was stretched and worn and thin. It would soon be over. Atropos took the shears from her belt and cut a strip of cloth from the shroud. She stood among the crumbling remnants of the gravestones and exhaled.

“Your soul is freed. You must not linger here, Your bones are now just so much earth and dust.”

Aglaia took both the bones and the cloth, cradled them within her arms, and whispered a gentle lullaby. Atropos severed the cloth in two. The hags who used to be known as Grace and Fate dropped these last remains into the heavily burdened wheelbarrow they had brought. Sleepy Hollow was among the last of the cemeteries to be forsaken. This grave among the last to be evicted. This man’s bones some of the last to be allowed to decay among the creatures of the earth. Aglaia peered up sightlessly from the mound of weathered bones they had unearthed. Atropos shook her head.

“No, Sister Grace, there’s more to do before Aglaia’s death. Our final task arrives.”

The sisters looked up and toward the entrance of the region of the cemetery known as Author’s Ridge. The boy and the girl were just visible as they clambered over the crumbling memorial statue at the beginning of this last bit of death-ridden wilderness. Their fate would be devastating. It would be the fate of all mankind. It would be this realm’s demise. And it was unavoidable. Aglaia nodded once again, and raised her hand to indicate what it was the children sought. As she pointed toward the grave which would lead the children to their journey, the grave from which they had just unearthed the final remains of Henry David Thoreau, Atropos sighed one last sigh and raised her hand to join her sister’s. The two tarried crones stood, arms raised in unison, tattered robes flowing above the ravaged grave, pointing toward a destination most grim.

The Story of Liz the Great Bear

There once was a young girl named Liz Who loved to write and for whom thinking was big. She wrote all through high school, Used writing as her tool, To work out what her brain bade her did.

In college Liz wrote like a fool. She wrote plays, she wrote stories, and she ruled. When she began her profession, She had this obsession, She got things right; did her job; focused on school.

Then one day Liz met some Great Bears. They got her writing; told her stories; made her care. She’s now better at teaching, Her own writing’s now teeming With life; She’s now Liz the Great Bear.

A Poem for My Students

My students are wonderful. They're the best all around. They know metaphors, use similes, and alliteration abounds.

These are the saintly devices, the safe ones to claim. Don't ask them about those others, or this is what they'll say:

"No way! We don't personificate! What are you accusing us of? We keep things in things' place.

"Hurricanes do not gobble. The clouds do not weep. The wind does not whisper, and my feet do not st. . . Oh.

"Okay, so my feet are the garden of roses that skunk just walked through."

Here's another they won't claim:

"The toughest word to get through, the hardest word to say, that one starting with 'h' with 10,000 syllables in the wrong place?"

"Hyper bowls are the worst. They're my poem's worst fate. Why do we have to use them? I never EVER exaggerate!"

"Okay, so my poetry exaggerates like my daddy fishes. We've really just thrown them all back so that they can grow a few more inches!"

The worst thing to ask, so really, don't you dare, is that my students use assonance with love and with care.

"What? We don't need to see how these words sound the same. Why not skip that whole lot and just jot down what we think?

"Alliteration is much more acceptable. It's the right choice to make. Forget that foolishness and use your yearning brains!"

As you can see, my students actually know more than they'll admit to knowing- to me, anyway.

This is the link to my wiki, which is being used for my workshop: Mrs. Rollans' Class

I've already invited everyone to join this wiki, but please don't make any changes to it until we discuss the workshop on Tuesday.

Thanks!

Liz

Thanks, Christie, for the sudden fiction idea! Here's mine:

Shit. I’ll look around for my. . . Oh, shit. That shouldn’t be there. Definitely not my house. Oh, man, I’ve gotta run! Shit!
 * Consumed Time Traveler**

Mi Familia