http://www.writerq.com/mobile/pford001/ Latest updates from Preston Ford http://www.writerq.com/mobile/library/856/hello-and-welcome/
First, congratulations on making the decision to further your education; learning leads to better living. I am pleased that you have registered for my course, and I hope it will provide you with a challenging but enjoyable learning experience.
There are some important things that you should know about this class.

1) This course does not teach reading skills. You have a much higher chance of success if you are able to read and understand high school level English. If you have a diagnosed learning disability or an individualized educational plan that requires accommodation, please speak to me privately after our first class meeting.

2) You are responsible for keeping track of assignments, submitting them on time, and tracking your progress throughout the course. Some students believe the instructor should be able to tell them what their average is at any given moment, but students who are serious about learning will always know how they are doing in a class, and they won’t wait for someone to tell them.

3) You must be proactive. The forty or so hours you will spend in this class are not enough by themselves to make you an effective writer. You must read and write EVERY day, whether or not there is an assignment.

4) Finally, the old saying about homework is true: If you do not have time to study, you do not have time to pass. Most adult students have many things to attend to besides school. There are jobs, family matters, other classes, and many more things that require our attention. Even so, each of us is responsible for prioritizing our activities and making sure there is time in our week for homework and other school-related tasks.

While I insist that students take responsibility for their own learning, I am happy to provide extra assistance to anyone who requests it. Remember, I am here to help you build the essential writing skills that you will need throughout college. Becoming a proficient writer is neither a fast nor an easy process; it takes time and effort; however, the more time and effort you devote to writing, the more confident you will feel each time you sit down to do it.

Ford]]> http://www.writerq.com/mobile/library/856/hello-and-welcome/ Tue, 03 Feb 2015 03:45:54 +0000 Preston Ford http://www.writerq.com/mobile/library/712/“the-wake”-from-the-autobiography-of-mike-keegan-written-posthumously-by-th/ When he thought about it later, he decided it was the phone call that broke the camel’s back. And not to mix metaphors, but the phone call from his mother was like that last dirty tee shirt tossed onto a pile of laundry that sent the whole heap spilling to the floor. There were other possibilities, sure. But if he’d had to make a bet, he would have said the phone call did it.
His telephone rang in the middle of the night and, when he picked it up, his mother told him they had found the big German shepherd, Roughage, hanging from the fence by her collar. His father had not been sure, but he thought the dog had committed suicide.
Mike Keegan had just fallen back to sleep after staring at the ceiling for an hour and wondering what the hell was wrong with his life. He had first dreamed he was standing in the bushes outside the Dunkin Donuts near his home. He was naked except for his glasses, and he’d been nagged by the feeling that he ought to go inside the store because people who worked there might think him rude for watching through the window. When a loud, insistent buzz forced its way into the dream, he thought that it God signaling him to get out of the bushes and go home. When he realized it was the phone, he groaned and reached for the receiver.
His mother’s befuddlement foamed out of the earpiece.
“Do you think she was depressed?” the woman asked after telling him what had happened.
Only a woman whose coffee looked and tasted like gravy would call a man in the middle of the night to ask if a German shepherd could be depressed, Mike thought, and he continued to groan while she talked about his father’s phlebitis and the liver spots on the backs of her own hands.
It was three o’clock in the morning.
“Ma, please. I gotta get up for work in a few of hours.”
“Michael Evander Keegan, are you so put upon by work that you don’t have a few minutes to talk to your own mother?”
“What the hell is he bellyaching about now?” Mike heard his father in the background.
“You see,” said his mother. “That’s all it takes to upset your father. As if he weren’t distraught already. Now you’ve gone and made it worse.”
“I didn’t DO anything!” Mike insisted.
“Why are you raising your voice? Is it too much to ask that you show some concern for your father, and for the family pet?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’ll bet you are. You always think about yourself, but never your father and me. And poor Roughage…”
His mother began to weep, and Keegan thought about putting an ice pick through his eye.
“Ma, I have to go. I’m sorry about the dog. Tell Dad—”
The phone clicked in his ear.
He threw the handset across the room and draped a forearm over his eyes.
By day, he was an accountant, one of an infinite number who haunted the business district and roamed the innards of the city government. But in his heart, he was a writer, plying his trade at night and on weekends. He had completed only one book thus far, and thus far he had had no luck finding an agent or a publisher. He had thought that his title, Cooking with Hitler, would be a sure-fire attention getter.
It was not so, however.
Of the three publishers who bothered to answer his inquiry, two had mistaken the book for a humorous take on der Fuhrer, and the third had told him his idea showed such poor taste that he need never contact them again.
Two little known facts about Hitler were that he was a superb baker, and that he often served strudel made with his very own recipe to members of the Nazi high command when they gathered at Berteschgarten. In the months between the Battle of Britain and Operation Barbarossa, he had combated the mounting stress by focusing on his lemon wedges. As preparations for the invasion of Russia moved into high gear, he had become so frazzled that he put aside desserts altogether and threw himself into roasts and poultry with a gusto that no one had seen since the burning of the Reichstag.
Michael was no Nazi sympathizer. Oh no. He simply appreciated the cosmic irony of the world’s greatest murderer longing in his heart of hearts to win the Dusseldorf Bake Off. If that wasn’t material for a book, what was? Michael had labored two and a half years to document the German leader’s endeavors, and when he was done, when the completed manuscript was in hand, he’d presented it triumphantly to Candace, his girlfriend, and she had given him a stricken look and then gone to bed without speaking to him.
Candace was gone now, of course. She had moved out two weeks ago, but not because of the book. She had packed her things and left two days after Michael came home with a letter from the Human Resources department at his firm. The letter said simply that his position (along with twenty-three others) was being eliminated. There were details about his severance package and a promise to help him locate and transition into a new blah blah blah blah. He had not yet told his parents because, well…because they were his parents. His mother, who cared more about the dog than she did him, would blather on for days about how she had told him to at least try to get into medical school because no one ever heard of a doctor being out of work. And his father, who had the dangerous habit of drinking beer while he fed the wood chipper in the backyard, would grumble in agreement to whatever she said because it was easier than thinking about the thing for himself...]]> http://www.writerq.com/mobile/library/712/“the-wake”-from-the-autobiography-of-mike-keegan-written-posthumously-by-th/ Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:22:49 +0000 Preston Ford http://www.writerq.com/mobile/pford001/ http://www.writerq.com/mobile/pford001/ Sun, 28 Sep 2014 03:04:34 +0000 Preston Ford