We all have the same amount of time, just different priorities

I have a lot more time for reading since graduation and go to the library at least once a week now.

One of my students started out this semester complaining about how much work she has to do in my class. I cannot even tell you how many times she said, “I don’t have time for this” on the first day of class. She was oblivious to her classmates glaring at her as if they wanted to ask if she truly believes she is the only person who has a life outside of school.

As the semester progresses, this same student keeps asking me if she really has to do all of the practice lessons or if she can only turn in the graded assessments and skip everything else. I am honestly sick to death of hearing it.

This week, I finally told her, “Look. It’s your choice. You do what you have to do. If you fail your assessments because you chose not to complete the practice lessons, then you will have to suffer the consequences.”

“I don’t have time for this.”

Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 8 | I DID IT!!!!

We’re off to Madison for a little staycation to celebrate my completion of the summer novel writing challenge. | The state capitol of Madison, Wisconsin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I did it. I set myself a goal to write a fifteen-chapter novel in fifteen days. I ended up needing an extra chapter, so I wrote a sixteen-chapter novel in sixteen days. I have officially completed the Write Your Novel This Summer Challenge!

At 83 pages and 22,935 words, my first draft is (obviously) full of holes. However, the important thing is that I finished it. The entire story is on the page. I have a beginning, middle, and an end. I did not write a single unnecessary scene. I wrote only the pieces that absolutely had to be there to hold the puzzle together. Now, on to draft #2!

What’s next for me?

After all, it is the weekend.

Life seems so simple when you’re a 6-year-old and a cat.

My six-year-old paid me a visit this morning as I lay in bed considering which part of my creative thesis I should focus my efforts on today.

Do I work on the POV shifts I don’t completely understand and try to muddle my way through filtering my entire story strictly through my protagonist’s POV?

-OR-

Is it more important to focus on the much-needed world-building? My fantasy novel so far takes place in a jumbled mix of worlds that I don’t completely understand myself. It’s no small wonder my first reading left my thesis advisor feeling confused.

Can you do me a huge favor?

Would you mind taking a quick survey about a blog?

Earlier this semester, I wrote a blog post about the new blogs that my Communication Technologies students were creating. Well, they’ve been hard at work blogging all semester, and now they are looking for some feedback on their blogs. Each student has created an online survey asking for feedback on their individual blogs, and we are looking for willing respondents to take a look at one or more of the blogs and then take the survey.

The writing process: A reflection

Image by mySAPL via Flickr

Today marks the first day of the last week of the fall semester. I just finished grading a huge stack of essay booklets from my written communications course and will be grading research papers next weekend. I also just submitted my final poem of the semester for the course I’m taking on writing poetry for children and young adults. And now, it’s time to write my final reflection paper of the semester. The topic for this paper is the writing process.

So, what have I learned about my writing process? For one thing, I can now boil it all down to a few simple steps: