John Irving

John Irving is my favorite author, by far, and I had the pleasure of seeing him speak last night. His new book has an author as a central character, so he was explaining to us that he gave his character his process for writing and he explained to us how he writes his novels. It is amazing to me to hear authors talk about where their books and characters come from. Most often, the characters just ooze out of their minds or pop into their heads from nowhere. Mr. Irving said that he never starts a book until he has the last sentence in his mind...then he can go through and create the plot from there. He always waits until the end just pops into his head. From where?? Anyway, I could make the connection between Backwards Design and his writing process, but I don't really want to do that here. I think the connection is pretty obvious. I do want to share that, last night, I dreamt my lesson plan for today. It just popped into my head from nowhere. Really strange feeling to wake up in the morning and realize that your planning work was done while you slept. And I think the plan would have worked splendidly except we ran out of time. I"ll see on Monday, when I continue the lesson, if it was a success!