Racing Toward the Finish Line....

Well, I picked a very busy month to attempt to write 50,000 words before November 30th. Unfortunately, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) occurs every November, right in the middle of one of my busiest months of the year.

So what have I been doing this month?

I've been inundated with essays to grad for my co-op high school writing class at Heritage Christian School--two sets of essays from a class that's full past the class size limit. And the essays required a lot of commentary from me--corrections, encouragement, suggestions, praise.

In other words: time-consuming.

Then I also am completing my high school MLA research essay course at Brave Writer with twice the number of students I had last year. And this month they submitted outlines, first drafts, and final drafts of their research papers, all of which required detailed grading not only of content and usage but also of all of the nit-picky details of the MLA format.

In other words: crazy time-consuming.

Then, add to that the fact that I'm trying to finish editing the first draft of an e-book on grammar for work, and we have complete and utter chaos.

And then I decide to try to finish my novel and write 50,000 words during this insane month?

I really should be committed.

There are two days remaining of the NaNoWriMo challenge, and I have 13,000 words left to write.

Well, that's a vast improvement over last year's challenge in which I posted 14,000 words on the final day, making the midnight deadline with a mere eight minutes to spare.

And I have time to write tomorrow both before and after teaching my writing class, and Friday is fairly clear. I still have the grammar book to work on and a chapter of my novel to post online, plus three teen boys to homeschool, but I am finally seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the NaNoWriMo tunnel.

 Even if I am writing this post at 2:00 in the morning.

Okay, going to sleep now so I can teach and write tomorrow--uh, I mean, TODAY.

Yeah.

Writing furiously,

Winter Schedule at Brave Writer

This winter will be a rather busy one for me at Brave Writer. I love being busy with my classes, but I've never taught two classes simultaneously before--and I will be doing just that starting on January 7.

This week I'll be grading the final essays from the MLA Research Essay Class, a six-week class that began in early October and finished just before Thanksgiving. Fortunately, the final essays are arriving in beautiful shape which mostly comes from the craziness of going through each rough draft with the proverbial (and editorial) fine-toothed comb to clear up inconsistencies in formatting, lapses in citing sources, and any stylistic awkwardness. Plus, not only did I comb through every rough draft, but the students also offered each other detailed feedback. (Yes, I made it a requirement to offer feedback to at least two other students' work.)

I'm still working on a few outstanding projects for Brave Writer that I hope to complete in December, including preparing the grammar class for e-book status since the class is only offered once per year plus revising and revamping several older editions of The Arrow. And perhaps we'll get to work on an employee handbook of sorts as well.

But this is my current teaching schedule for the Winter Term at Brave Writer:

Groovy Grammar Workshop: January 7--February 1, 2013

Literary Analysis: The Importance of Being Earnest: January 7--February 1, 2013

Playing with Poetry Workshop: February 4--March 1, 2013 

So this Winter Schedule should keep me quite busy for a couple of months until the Spring Schedule is posted.

Registration for the Winter Classes begins on December 3, 2012, at Brave Writer. You may take a peek at the other classes available on the Winter Schedule HERE.

If you have any questions about the classes at Brave Writer, please contact me via the e-mail option in the sidebar or via a comment to this post.

Writing with you,