Last week was my first week back to teaching after having the summer off. I needed to take a little break from writing to get my sh*t together so I can make a living. I have now made it through week two of classes and am about as settled in as I am going to get. Sure, I still have lesson planning to accomplish each week, and soon I will have composition papers to grade as well. However, all of my front-end preparation is complete, and I am ready to get back to writing.
These past few weeks, I have felt as if I was holding back a dam of words. I tried to squeeze in a few minutes of writing here and there, but life was pretty busy. It’s like, once I had gotten into the habit of writing every day, it was hard to stop. Now I am faced with the fact that I have written little for two weeks, and now I have to get back in the habit.
Although I often complain of how broke I am raising two kids alone on a part-time teacher’s salary, I am grateful for the flexibility I have when it comes to writing and taking time for myself. Let’s face it, if I had a regular full-time job, there is no way I would have managed to write a sixteen chapter rough draft of a novel in sixteen days.
I have ideas for a few other novels that I would like to write, but for now, I think it’s time I focused on finishing something. I recently agreed to do a novel workshop with a group of talented ladies from my professional writing program. I also agreed to be in the first submission group, so this gives me additional motivation to get to work. I have to submit a draft of my novel to the group by September 29th. So yes, it is definitely time to get back to writing!
My first task is to decide which project to submit for feedback. I could either submit the 16 chapter roughy I mentioned before, or part one of the project I worked on for thesis. I truly believe I can finish one of these two novels by the end of this year if I just buckle down and do it.
I am leaning toward finishing part one of my thesis project since it is far more polished than this new project. Yes, I have written sixteen chapters. However, it’s only around 22,000 words, and full of holes. It will take a LOT of additional writing to clean it up to the point where it’s fit for someone else’s eyes. The first part of my thesis project is pretty much written. It’s just a matter of figuring out the best place to section it off from part two and then turning what I had originally written as part of a larger novel into a complete “book one” in a trilogy.
So yeah, once I’ve published this blog post, that’s probably what I will work on next. I just need to formulate a plan (or maybe even just a schedule) to get myself back on the writing track so I make sure I am writing at least a few days a week again.
What’s your next big deadline? Please share in the comments below.
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Write on the World 
Both submissions sound promising. At least you have something to submit, and it sounds like you’ve put a lot of work in, so why not take a break? I always feel guilty for taking it easy for a while. I haven’t written or worked on any of my projects since the spring. I think I might be depressed. Anyway, I’m still up for getting that tattoo with you:).
I just think it’s about time I finally finished something. It seems like I’ve been doing this forever. Plus, if I stop writing for even a little while, it’s hard to get going again. I’m still having trouble getting back into my thesis project. I feel like using it for thesis ruined it. 😦
I’m still up for getting tattoos too. Let’s plan something!