Singer, writer, and statistician Jarod Jeffery talks with Creative Writing Professor Melissa Ford Lucken. Jarod, who enrolled in Lansing Community College after completing two intensive gifted & talented academic programs at Michigan State University, describes his DIY approach to his own high school curriculum, how finishing math coursework early led him to creative writing, and the art of singing pop songs vs. musical numbers.

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Washington Square On-Air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Lucken, editor for the Washington Square Review.

I'm here today, though, as Professor Melissa Ford Lucken with Jarod Jeffrey. Hey, Jarod.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, for sure. So tell us a little bit about how you came to Lansing Community College.

Yeah, so when I was in middle school, I started this advanced program through MSU for an accelerated, like, math program. So I could get it done in two years instead of four. And so then I ended up starting something similar with English freshman year of high school.

And both of those things ended up freeing up a lot of my schedule in my latter junior and senior year.

So I was able to take some more classes that I was specifically interested in that were not necessarily available to me, just being right at my high school. Hazlett High School.

Right. Let's back up just a little bit and talk about the courses that you took at Michigan State University.

So they have a degree department called Gifted and Talented Education, which is specifically for middle and high school students. And they have programs. The math one is called champ, Cooperative Highly Accelerated Math Program. And then Ishall is the English one.

Intensive studies of humanities, arts, languages and literature. And so, you know, essentially you just take for champ.

I took Algebra 1 and 2 the first year in 8th grade, and then I took geometry and pre Calc freshman year of high school. So then I ended up taking AP Calc sophomore year of high school, and then Calc two junior year of high school.

And we actually had enough people who were Interested in calc 2 at my high school. So I ended up being able to take it through my high school. Unfortunately, I didn't take it at lcc. But you.

You know, my teacher at Hazlett was very good, and I did well on the AP test, so that's what mattered. But, you know, that ended up freeing some time senior year with what otherwise would have been a math course to take certain things.

And the other program, same thing, condensed.

Four years into two exactly for high school English. And then that ended up freeing up time. Cause I needed a foreign language credit.

And I didn't necessarily have time because I was also doing band and choir. So what normally would have been elective periods, I was, you know, and for where the Spanish or any other language would have fallen in.

So by doing, I shall. I ended up being able to take a different program that they piloted starting my junior year.

And so even though it's normally, you know, most of the stuff is like aimed at younger because it was a pilot program and I was still going to be a junior and had two years for it. I was in their program called all, which stands for amolinguum Latinum. I love Latin. And so it was an accelerated Latin course.

So I was able to take that, which was, you know, really interesting and fun and weird and it was nothing that I had ever anticipated I would be able to do. But because I was able to take those other accelerated programs, it opened up the time and opportunity for me to do that.

And one thing with the math courses, you know, I took calc 2 junior year. The state of Michigan does have a requirement though that you do need to take a math course senior year of high school.

Doesn't matter how many credits you have. So me having six math credits didn't mean anything. So I did end up taking though Statistics 215, which is just general basic statistics.

And I took an accounting class for non majors because, you know, it's a useful skill.

But the statistics for non majors actually ended up being really, really beneficial because, you know, I learned a bit about statistics, which is great, it's interesting. But then also in college, I ended up minoring in mathematical statistics, which is a fancy term for calculus based statistics.

So because of the way I was able to do my education with the champ and then also stats 215 through LCC, it opened up the opportunity and set me up to minor in that at college. And, you know, otherwise I would not necessarily have looked to statistics at college at all or just generally if not for the requirement, probably.

But you know, I definitely learned a lot and it was very interesting. And I definitely think it affects how I read a lot of different stuff.

With numbers, I'm sure y'. All.

So that was. I definitely appreciate that.

Especially since my major in college was so busy that for that minor I think it was like seven required courses, but I had three of them.

So I was more easily able to fit in four other classes across, you know, my eight semesters, rather than having to fit them all in seven or eight classes. Yeah.

When you first started taking these accelerated courses through high school, what was your motivation?

I was a little bored.

Okay.

In all honesty, I was a little bored. I knew that I was relatively smart. Anybody who goes through those programs is smart. Not to toot my horn.

I, you know, plenty of extremely intelligent people that went through that program with me.

I made wonderful friends that I'm still friends with today because of those programs, because as fun as they are, there is also a little bit of commiseration because, you know, they're tough. So I was mainly motivated because particularly with math, I was just. Yeah, I was bored.

And then when I looked into the math program, I found out about the English one as well. And so I approached my. At the time, you know, because you applied the year before.

I approached my seventh grade teacher, and he was my seventh grade English teacher. And, you know, he was familiar with the program. He thought it was excellent. He thought I was an excellent candidate.

So I applied for both and I got in, and my school advised me, like, we would normally say start with one because, you know, it can be difficult. And, you know, at the time I was like, I could handle it. They were right.

I waiting the one year before having to do two at once, especially, you know, freshman year of high school when I started, had both of them lining up. It was for the better.

But, yeah, I just got motivated because no matter what, even though, like, I know plenty of people don't love math, I do think math is interesting. And I like. I like being able to conceptualize things in terms of numbers because numbers are, generally speaking, more rigid.

One thing my statistics professor in college said at one point was that mathematicians operate under exactness and statisticians care about whether it's close enough or not.

Okay.

So, you know, definitely a little different than what I had. You know, one of the reasons I love math. But I came to appreciate that as long as it's within the probable factor, it's true. Okay. It helps.

It helped me grow a little bit more flexible in terms of my mindset, which I know my therapist was grateful for.

That's awesome. So talk a little bit about the other courses that you took at LCC during high school.

Yeah, so I, you know, I took the advanced English class, and that was great. I learned how to write an essay, and that, you know, worked very well for college because I was writing tons of them.

Then the second year of that of I shall art professor, she basically was like, so the first year you learned how to write an essay, you learned about all these structures. This year you're learning about how to break them in an artistic but reasonable way. And I like structure. Makes things straightforward for me.

So it was very difficult because we had to do each term.

We had a term project that we would have to do, and it basically could be anything based off of a pretty generic prompt regarding the books we read that term and so, I mean, I hated the fact, like, she would give us ideas, right? No matter what. She was basically, like, if you turn in something to me writing.

We did have to write additional essays, basically saying, like, we had to write an essay that went with the project being, like, here was my approach, okay? And so they both got, like, equally graded for quite a bit. And so it tested, like, no matter what.

It was more about effort with the project itself and then being able to rationalize that effort than actually, like, strictly the quality, since there was so much freedom in terms of what you could have done. But that freedom was terrifying to me, so. But I did find that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The second semester, we ended up reading Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, which is now my favorite play. I really love absurdism.

It was funny because for that term, at the beginning of the term, our professor basically was like, all right, you know, here are all the books we're reading this semester. Pick a book that you want to make one of your term projects about.

And we need to basically group up so that you can have feedback and work with other people. And so basically nobody else was interested in Waiting for Godot except one other person. And I was, like, very adamant.

I was like, I want to do my project off Waiting for Godot. So me and the one girl went back and forth doing our projects and giving each other feedback.

And I ended up essentially writing an absurdist narrative poem, you know, and it was rough because I ended up getting, you know, another friend who was in the class but not strictly assigned to it. I ended up getting, like, her feedback, and lo and behold, you know, she hates absurdism, so not the right person to get feedback from.

It was no absurdum. Not for everyone.

Definitely not. And granted, like, I will say, you know, Dadaism specific, like, subtype of absurdism in terms of, like, artistic movement.

I don't really love Dadaist art, but, you know, Dadai's performance art is interesting. But, yeah, in terms of, like, writing and whatnot, I very much appreciate absurdism.

So that was a great way to practice just a certain amount of creativity and just trying to be less rigid. Particularly because I did like. Like I said, I did really like absurdism, which does not really follow a structure.

Mm.

And so, like, that was the kind of creativity I really did enjoy. And so I went with that.

And so then because I, you know, had been forced to work with being a little bit of creative, I ended up deciding that I wanted to take Creative Writing 1 and 2 through Lansing Community college. And lo and behold, that second one is how I got to meet you.

Yes, it has been a minute. What I remember, I remember the stuff that I wrote.

Um, yeah, I remember outlining a novella, which was really interesting and really fun and definitely, definitely learned about, you know, narrative structure for long form and short form. I, you know, I had tried to write like longer stories before without much success.

And you know, it was mainly difficult to just accept that because I was like, okay, but like a novel is the pinnacle of, you know, writing and whatnot. And my older sister had written numerous novels by that point, regardless of publication status.

So I was like, the fact that I can't write a novel is insulting to me.

But then, you know, I found that I had a lot of fun with writing short stories because that doesn't, you know, short stories can vary widely in length. It's really just about what is needed to tell this narrative in the most effective and interesting way possible.

And so I definitely had a lot of fun exploring that and existing in that and then figuring out what did I want to do with these stories and what, what did excite them, excite me about them. So I very much appreciated that.

And then also it gave me, you know, more appreciation for the idea of a novella because, yeah, not every, not every story that needs to be told needs to be a novel.

Right? It's true. Yeah, definitely. Some things work better as novellas.

Something that's kind of interesting to me as you're talking is, in my way of thinking, a novel has more structure than a short story, you know, because the scenes are typically very structured scenes and sequels and you know, your hero's journey or your three act structure or whatever. So it seems like the novel would be your more your thing, but you're saying that the short stories were more your thing. What do you think about that?

Yeah, with one short story in particular that I wrote, I remember very much.

It,.

In terms of word count, it was definitely a short story.

And in terms of like just course of the narrative arc and how long it took and what again needed to be told to make the story make sense, it was much more reasonable for it to be in a short story or potentially a novella, because there wasn't, there wasn't as much that was completely necessary to be expanded upon in the form of a novel, but it still very much followed a narrative structure very similar to a novel because you Know, I did scene breaks and whatnot, and I can't remember the exact scene breaks and how they worked, but essentially, you know, like, there was. The first scene was, like, in the morning. The second scene was in the afternoon. The third scene was in the evening.

And these are, like, weeks apart or anything. And then the morning, afternoon and evening, they were all also, like, specific meals. It was breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together.

So there's definitely some structure tucked in there to hold things together.

Exactly. And I didn't realize it until after I had actually done it, but then I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.

And so then, you know, the penultimate scene, without spoiling too much, not the penultimate. It's the ultimate because it was the end.

You know, it's essentially, it's everything coming together because, you know, you can have a breakfast date, a lunch date, a dinner date, and then the final scene is, you know, moving in together. And so it very much tied everything together. So you. Very much. You know, you can do whatever you want with a short story.

That's true.

You can do. You can do structure. You can do no structure.

Yep. I think it just depends on how long the reader is going to go along with you.

I mean, if I find it interesting, they should find it interesting, too.

I think that's a really good rule of thumb. Right. If you're interested while you're writing it, someone else will be interested when you're reading it.

You did tell me. I remember you saying this because a publisher or something had told you. I think, like, no one's gonna wanna read this.

I've definitely had people tell me that.

And then you went ahead and wrote it anyway. And then you did end up getting it published.

And so you told us, write what you find what is interesting to you because that's what you're gonna write best.

I think that's true. Yeah. One of the things that you did. I think this was. You did an analysis of the use of. He said. And she said, yeah, I love that project.

Yes, yes. And talking about adverbs as well. Yes.

Dialogue tags and adverbs.

Dialogue tags, yes. Because we had to read On Writing by Stephen King.

We don't have to share our opinions on it, but he was very adamant that if you're using adverbs as part of your tag, your dialogue tag, then your dialogue is not well written enough. It should be clear from the dialogue. And I was very much like, that's silly. That's just. I mean, especially since, like, we're not adverbs. As words.

We're not using that as much in our everyday language.

That's true.

I think the main place that you see it the most is in a lot of writing.

That's probably true.

The idea that we're like, oh, we only use this, like, 75% of the use of adverbs is in books. And we want to cut it out 100%. Why does it exist at all? And so, yeah, I picked three different books of, like, three different genres.

One of them was a middle grade book that I remember. The girl was like. She was a. I don't remember. She psychic. She was like a love psychic, you know, and whatnot. And so she did, like, stuff to.

She could tell who you were gonna marry and whatnot and read your palms and whatnot. And it was a family business. And then she could never figure out who she was supposed to be with and blah, blah, blah. And it was really interesting.

But, like, that one used it quite a bit more than, you know, maybe some of the older books.

Like another one was this historical fiction called the Gentleman's Guide to why I can picture the COVID and this is upsetting because it's a very good book. It's by Mackenzi Lee, the Gentleman's Guide to Something. I'm so sorry. Vice and Virtue. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.

And that one was, you know, a historical fiction. And she didn't use it nearly as much.

But I, you know, looking at them, I guess I think some of it had to do with the target audience and, you know, age and also just the context and the topic of which they were writing.

But I don't think that made any one better than the other because I can't remember what the third book was, but no matter what, there was plenty of adverbs in all of them.

Mm, I remember that.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been the Washington Square On-Air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc.edu/wsl. Writing is messy, but do it anyway.