Week 9 Analysis - Is Anyone Else Hearing the Hoover?

So, I'm not even going to try to sugar coat this...Week 9 sucked worse than Week 8.

I really need to get a handle on my motivation and make sure I'm working on my book. If anyone has suggestions, I'm willing to listen. I mean, really, I'm angry at myself, yet not angry at myself, because work has been crazy stupid. You try testing 600+ Kindergarten through 8th grade students while working around their lunch, recess, and specials times. Then toss in non-communication regarding other testing that needs to be done and you have a mild view of what my days are like until late next week.

I mean, seriously...I get to work anywhere from 5:00 - 6:00 a.m., work on my sub plans, follow up with trouble shooting any tech issues that may have cropped up for others, then organize a Writer's Club, a Sewing Club, and a Tech Crew Training Club, while trying to explain to 2nd through 8th graders that "no, I don't live at the school, and no, I don't think it's fun to spend until 6 o'clock at night every night letting them hang out and write or sew in my classroom with me."

I really do like the kids I work with, there are some really great ones, but, Lordy, there are days when I'd rather crawl under the covers and hibernate until Summer Vacation rolls around again.

Okay, whiny, self-absorbed rant over...on to the real reason I'm writing this blog.

I'm not even going to spout out the numbers or the lack thereof, because I know where I fell down on the job - sitting down and working through the story. I think it was the three days of arguing with myself about whether or not I needed two scenes I'd put in the outline. My gut was telling me, no, the scenes were nothing necessary to move the story forward, while my inner editor was chewing her nails to the quick and hyperventilating over deviating from the "plan". Like I've never done that before...Hello! Did we pay any attention to how many times Mattie's and Bryce's story was rewritten?

Suffice to say, I'm giving myself just enough rope to either a) hang myself with or b) climb out of the freaked out editor hole I've created for myself.

We'll see how it goes. Considering we're 6/7ths of the way through Week 10, not sure how I'll fare.

Will get back to you this weekend to let you know how the last day went.

Thanks for sticking with me,
Q

Writing and Insanity

So, the update isn't happening until probably this weekend, when I'll analyze both week 5 and week 6 of the Writing Challenge...

Why is it late? Because I'm going in forty directions at one time and have not found an opportunity to sit down and focus on the data.

My friend Claire Monroe talked about a crazy busy week last week and that's what I've had this week.

Prepping my classroom for the new school year and getting the equipment for all the other classrooms inventoried and distributed as well as dealing with computer issues and the fact that I was informed on Monday that the computer lab would be losing between 1/4 to 1/2 the space to create another classroom made it fun, fun to figure out a configuration for the computer tables that didn't overload circuit breakers and keep kids from complaining about other kids being too close. (*shudder* visions of "he's touching me" play through my mind and it isn't pretty.)

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Good thing is, I have gotten some editing done...not as much as I'd like, but I wrote three (3) of the nineteen (19) new scenes that need to be written, so I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.

Friday is going to be a very long day since I have to head out of town for training, return and work on a painting project in my classroom, then come home, hopefully edit a few more scenes and get back to school on Saturday to complete the painting project so I have all day Sunday to write.

Hope you all have a great day and a great weekend. Be prepared for another post on Saturday night/Sunday morning with my analysis for the last two weeks.

Take care!
Q