The Path to Genius

It takes dedication, but with some fortitude and maybe some help from like-minded friends, you too can be a Genius. Even if it’s just for the day.—Deb Amlen/The New York Times

For a long time, I have believed that people who read the New York Times can acquire a lot of valuable knowledge. Just by reading the Times regularly, they can make themselves smarter in many areas—from current events, to science, to the arts. But, amazingly, in recent weeks the Times has made me into a “Genius.” And I’m not just bragging.

This morning, for the sixth time in seven days, I was declared a genius by the Times. Of course, I let my family know about my accomplishment, and they just nodded, not really impressed. “Genius, again,” my wife said with a yawn when I greeted her with the news as she came awake a little after 8 am this morning. I had hoped for a warmer reception.

My move up to genius hasn’t required a lot of extra time hitting the books. Instead, it has required my testing how many words I know and how well I can spell those words. But not just any words and any letters.

At 3 am each morning, the Times publishes a word puzzle called “Spelling Bee.” The timing of the puzzle’s appearance each day is important to many readers, even me. According to reporter Deb Amlen, whose quote I included above, some people set their alarm for 3 am to get a jump on the new puzzle and complete it before the rest of the world is awake. I usually start a little later than that, but the puzzle is often my first task after putting the dog out for her morning relief.

Then I begin my battle for genius status. In “Spelling Bee,” a group of seven letters is placed in a hexagonal bee hive—six different letters in the outside boxes, and a seventh in a center box. It looks like this:

The Spelling Bee Hive
Try "varmint" for top score

The task is to make words using the letters. The good news is that you can use the same letter multiple times in forming your words. (For example, you could spell variant from the hive above if you doubled the a or trait if you doubled the t.) The relatively bad news is that you have to use the center letter in each word. The even more challenging aspect of the puzzle is that at least one of your words must contain all seven of the letters. That’s called a “pangram,” a Greek term that I think means, “this is annoying in all ways.” You have to uncover at least one pangram to be called a Genius.

You get points for each word you spell out with the letters. The more letters in each word, the more points you score. As your word list increases and your point total goes up, you progress through a series of levels— Beginner, Good Start, Moving Up, Good, Solid, Nice, Great, and Amazing. 

Then, stick with it a little longer (and maybe find a sneaky way to ask the Internet for a little extra help if you’re totally stuck) and, voila, you too can be a Genius. Luckily, I am learning more words each day I play and cheating a lot less. That’s why, in my mind at least, I have progressed from merely Amazing to Genius. It’s a really affirming way to begin each day. 

I even turned my daughter Amanda on to the puzzle, and I should feel very good about that, except that she beat me to the Pangram word yesterday. Which made me wonder if I have created a monster. Am I willing to move over and accept a second Genius in our family? I’m not really sure.

The genius of the Spelling Bee scoring—if you’ll pardon the pun—is that each level rank is positive. You can feel pretty good if you’re called solid or great or amazing.

I am reminded of a teacher evaluation form I gave out to my students during one of my first years in the classroom. It included rankings such as: Mr. Goodman is an excellent teacher, Mr. Goodman is an amazing teacher, Mr. Goodman is a superlative teacher, and Mr. Goodman is all of the above and more. One student raised her hand to complain, “There’s no place to write anything bad.” The other students howled in mock amusement, and I made an expression of mock outrage.

Checking All the Boxes

I wonder how that student would feel now to learn that in six of the last seven days, I have been declared a Genius by the New York Times, America’s paper of record. She’d probably wonder if perhaps I cheated just a little bit on one of those days.

 Writing Pros

The freelance writer is a person who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.                                                      —Robert Benchley

When I was seventeen and a high school junior, I submitted a poem for possible publication in the journal of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English (GCTE). It was accepted, and I received a double bonus: (1) My poem was published in the journal for all of Georgia to see, and (2) I was sent a check for $25.

I don’t remember much about that poem—I think it was a sonnet. But it turned out to be pretty important for me.  It was the first time I was ever paid for my writing. I was officially a professional writer—in a very small way.

Interestingly enough, when I started my first job as an editor for Scholastic, the schoolbook company, I also submitted a poem for inclusion in a new workbook. It was accepted, and I received a check for—you guessed it—$25. My rate had clearly not improved during the intervening years since high school. [This reminds me of an anecdote that Calvin Trillin, a true writing pro, told about his years submitting columns to The Nation magazine, for which he was paid “in the high double figures.”)  

I have done a lot of writing over the next nearly 50 years and have received checks for three figures or more almost every time, but I have never felt that I was writing “for the money.” It’s nice to be paid, heaven knows, but very few writers, even professional ones, are really highly paid. We work at other jobs, as teachers or editors or accountants, for example, to afford our writing habit.

Here’s a personal anecdote that shows what I mean. Most of my writing projects are what are known as “works for hire.” I am paid a flat fee, a one-time payment with no royalties to collect over time. Many years ago, I did score a few royalty projects. One was a book called Baseball’s Best, part of the Golden Books “Look-Look” series for young readers. By the way, it is still remaindered on Amazon and Thrift Books, though it is way out of date and not worth buying any more. 

My first "big" royalty project

After a few years, sales of the book slowed to a trickle, and my royalty checks withered. Golden Books sent me a semi-annual royalty statement showing a balance of $2.25. No check. Instead a note was attached that read, “Please be aware that we do not mail out checks for less than $5. If your royalties exceed $5 in the future, we will send you a check (which they actually did do six months later). Then six months after that, I got a new statement showing a balance somehow below zero (did I owe them money?) and a more ominous note attached. This note warned that unless I had a positive balance, I would not receive any future statements. Sadly, that turned out to be the case.

Every author's dream; not always a reality

But I am not complaining. At least, not about that.

Instead I am writing this blog as a small protest to the actions of another writing pro. Recently I heard an author interviewed concerning a book she had written as part of a series of biographies of important individuals from the distant past to the near present. When the author was asked why she had chosen her particular subject, she replied, “Because it was assigned to me. I could have chosen someone else, but this [subject] seemed best.” That’s not a bad answer. In fact, I could make the same reply about several of my own books. But as the interview continued, it was clear that the author still looked on the book mostly as an assignment. She had not developed a real interest in her subject even after doing the research for her book and putting that research to paper. She had not internalized the subject’s life or personality .And that seemed sad to me.

I like to think that I really care about whatever subject I take on, even if the monetary reward is small or fleeting. For me, the joy of writing is the ability to look back over what you have produced and to feel a sense of accomplishment. Of course, getting a check and cashing it also feels good.

Generation Gap?

Yesterday afternoon, the not-so-live DJ on the 60s radio station on Sirius played the song “Dizzy.” And my mind immediately began broadcasting an interior monologue that went something like this: “The singer of “Dizzy” is Tommy Roe, who also had a hit with “Sweet Little Sheila” —“you’ll know her if you see her; blue eyes and a pony tail. Her cheeks are rosy. . .”

That is just the way my mind works, pumping out song titles and lyrics and artists without my consciously trying to prime the pump. And sometimes I don’t even need to hear the song being played to go into my musical mind meld. I’m a kind of human juke box for 60s rock n’ roll or American Songbook standards—everything from John and Paul to George and Ira. I sometimes worry that song lyrics are occupying at least 60-70% of my useable brain space. Which may explain why so many other more important data have slipped away. There is just not enough room available for math formulas or philosophical ideas I learned in high school and in college because Little Anthony and the Imperials is crowding them out. And “let me tell you that it hurts so bad.”

No, I’m not really in pain or even seriously worried. I am just mystified by how my personal history is so tied to the songs that keep running through my mind. For example, Little Anthony’s “Hurts So Bad” was played at the graduation party I attended in June 1966 with my friend Fay, who graduated from high school a year ahead of me. It was a fun party that happened more than 50 years ago, but just hearing that song on the radio today can make that night come back to me so vividly. No other memory trigger is as strong as a song is for me.

And I thought I was unique in my tying personal history to song lyrics until my 36-year-old daughter Amanda and I went for a ride together a few weeks ago, and I turned to the Sirius 90s station for her. It’s the station I sometimes find the radio tuned to after she has borrowed my car. As we listened, she started singing along, clearly remembering songs that were not part of MY personal soundtrack. Then she said, “I know almost every one of the songs they play on this station, and I can remember just where I was when I heard most of them.”

So I’m not the only one, I thought. Horrors! I had passed this malady on to her. There is no generation gap here! Is she doomed to a life where Weezer and Savage Garden songs crowd out Excel spreadsheet formulas and important teachings of Deepak Chopra?  

I might have continued to worry about Amanda’s fate, but then Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” began to play on then radio, and we both said in unison, “That’s the song from the ASPCA commercial with the dogs with sad eyes.”

And together with Sarah we sang:

You're in the arms of the angel,
may you find some comfort here.

It was a bonding moment and one worth keeping stored in both of our overcrowded memory banks.