It’s been ten days since I posted anything on here. I had hoped to post more frequently, but stupid life has been getting in the way. Work wise, I have two more days at the office before Spring Break. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m going anywhere. Hell yeah, to the library! To write! It couldn’t come at a better time as I try to whittle down my MS to 20 pages (from 67) before adding 20 more. Then there’s the nasty business of writing a critical paper. My last one, an exploration of how POV is used in Eleanor & Park went okay (and by that I mean it went exceptionally well because I don’t have to rewrite it.) This time around I’m at a loss for a topic. So maybe some days off of work will help – I can focus on the task at hand.
Of course, my daughter goes to school in the same district that I teach in, so she’ll be home with me next week. Not super conducive to getting lots of writing done, but I will say this for her: she is generally a good sport about me working. She will spend time in the same room with me reading or writing while I try to tap out some pages. At least for a while. We had a parent-teacher conference today, and were pleased to learn that she is doing well in school. If you’ll permit a moment of parental bragging, then I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that my first grader is reading at a fourth grade level. This leveling is somewhat meaningless, but it does reveal something important – she loves to read and she does it well. That skill will help out a lot in life.
We also learned that she writes with quite a distinctive voice. Mrs. L. can always tell when she’s reading one of my daughter’s stories. Hopefully some of that will rub off on me as I wrestle with this manuscript.
I got quite a bit of writing work done last weekend, but have slowed down since then. I find that I’m too exhausted to concentrate on writing at night, so I just read instead. Right now I’m reading The Chocolate War, which is the second story about douchey boarding school kids I’ve read this month. I don’t know about this one. The author will use a limited POV for one character for most of the chapter, and then switch into the thoughts of another one for one sentence before going back. It’s very jarring. When I started reading, I thought, “Oh, this story is being told through the eyes of two different characters. Looks like they are alternating chapters.” But then, randomly, some chapters are told through the eyes of kids that haven’t been mentioned before. Also, I think I’ve read four instances of teenage boys masturbating so far. It’s weird. It seems like the author really wants to get that point across. So much so that he has to have several different characters do it (and it gets mentioned awkardly – So and So hated This Other Kid, and couldn’t wait to see him fail – and then he put his hands down his own pants to play around for a bit.)
So, I don’t love it. I’ll have to pick something that’s sure to be a winner next, because I have to get moving on the reading as well.
So much work to do!
I’m lucky in that Anne gave me a topic to write about for my second paper. Which, yay, because as you know i have to rewrite my other paper too.
I pretty much have a week and a half to tackle both of them. And i am dragging my feet. Boo on papers. BOO!
Ha. Kelly sort of kind of suggested a topic I might explore. I could write some of the manuscript in the first person and then analyze how that changes the piece, vis-a-vis the comments she sent on the MS. I might talk about what is gained and lost, but first I need to get the writing done, if I need to do extra writing just to satisfy the critical. Blerg. I have next week off, so I’m hoping to hammer it out.
I’m trying not to stress out about my workload but I’m a leeeetle stressed. I think I won’t actually have too much trouble writing the two papers next week, but I’m also worried that I didn’t do enough to revise like Anne wanted me too. I guess we’ll find out when she sends it back to me