By Donna Kennedy
Contributing Columnist
My 13-year-old grandson hates to write. He’d rather play Roblox Starscape online, explore Fairmount Park on his bicycle or start a monologue that begins with “Imagine that …” and ends with an idea for a futuristic device. I tell him he could be a science fiction writer.
“Bruh,” he growls. A blank screen or blank paper is a personal enemy.
This is tough on us, the writer grandparents who have raised him and his twin sister for the past eight years. His sister, by the way, dashes out her writing assignments with alacrity. They may not be as elaborate, but they are exactly what the teacher ordered.
Their required writing began with thank-you notes, a big job since their New Year’s birthdays come right after Christmas and their loving relatives are generous. We wrote the brief notes together when they were 5 and could first sign their names. “What did you like best about the toy?” we’d ask. Now they value their independence, so we don’t even read the letters, except to check addresses for legibility. We do get feedback: My cousin said our grandson drew a picture of the Lego tank that she sent. Grandma reported he’d listed every gift she gave him, and Grandpa liked his letter written on a paper airplane.
Sometimes writing is easier than speaking, especially when an apology is needed. An “I’m sorry” note under the door does wonders for family relationships, which can be especially fragile during the pandemic (and adolescence).
The strange thing is that our grandson, when he finally gives in, writes with imagination, specific detail and a sense of humor. When we asked him to compare summer camps from 2019, he concluded:
“Each of the camps had good things, but, to my word, Camp Seely is better. You get a better sense of common sense, knowledge, and you make more friends (if you know how to). Every day you wake up to the fresh scent of forest and nature, the song of birds, and the howl of the counselors for you to wake up.”
Once he starts, don’t interrupt. He’ll write for an hour or more, turning out two or three pages instead of the required one.
Reading his handwriting is tough, though I usually can do it, given my own scribbles. To him, the first draft is the finished copy. “Why do I have to write it again?” he growls, despite his indecipherable handwriting, inventive spelling, random capital letters and neglect of punctuation.
Nevertheless, he ended his virtual seventh-grade year at Riverside’s Central Middle School in triumph, after reading his final project aloud in Language Arts:
“I wake up in a house, the walls made of a type of tree I’ve never heard of, with a fireplace and people sitting around it, like in the memory about love and holiday I had, but this time it’s different for three reasons. One, everything is real. I can tell from how everything is shaded, and how I can control where my body is. Two, I can feel the ache in my back, and my head throbbing with the pain of a fever. Last, but not least, the people sitting on the recliners in front of me look worried, or serious, and have been talking with words like “me” and “I,” which would be against the rules in my society. … ” (Our grandson’s ending for “The Giver” by Lois Lowry was slightly off-topic, but appreciated none-the-less.)
His teacher responded, “You may have the potential of becoming a writer.”
I agree, for sometimes he dashes off a tale on his own. On a day when he was banned from online gaming—and the next book in the “Rot & Ruin” series by Jonathan Maberry had not yet arrived at the Robidoux Library— he disappeared into his room and closed the door. An hour later he emerged to announce with some pride: “I’m writing a diary. It’s fiction. Survival during a zombie apocalypse.”
“Day 1⅔: I woke up in the middle of the night to a high-pitched scream. It sounded VERY close. I got out my airsoft shotgun, filled with metal bb’s. There was thumping. It got closer, and closer. I was alert now. I stood up and shook off my sleeping bag. The door opened. I thought ‘Zombies can’t open doors,’ and my friend P—— came into the room.
He yelled ‘WHO ARE YOU? Oh, B—-??? Are you infected?’
I responded ‘No, why should I be? I’m not walking around gurgling, am I?’”
And there you have it, a temporary happy ending to my grandson’s latest writing project. I can’t wait for the next installment. Will he and his friends survive the zombie apocalypse? Will he keep writing? I’d bet money on it.
Donna Kennedy writes flash fiction and memoir, including “Queen of the Salton Sea: Helen Burns and Me” (Sagebrush Press, 2018), which she wrote with her husband, Bill Linehan. In the past, she wrote features for The Press-Enterprise and taught writing at UC Riverside’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and San Bernardino Valley College.