Grinning my Evil Teacher Grin

housekeeping, my writing, teaching, , ,

The_Evil_GrinI am hoping to update this thing weekly, so here’s a very short update before I leave work and go home: I wrote THREE (okay, like, two and a third) pages this month. That is two-and-one-third pages more than I have written in the previous six months!

I am also having a heck of a time with my creative writing class, as usual. They are delightful. Today we started our poetry unit and several of them were comfortable enough to admit that they HATE poetry (usually they try to pretend they like it because they think that’s what I want to hear).

I like this because I know that now I get a chance to change their minds. >:) >:) >:) >:)

Step 3: Profit

my writing, Shakespeare got to get paid son, , , ,

money-finance-bills-bank-notes Everyone has get-rich-quick schemes, but as somebody with an infant, I’ve been thinking a lot more lately about passive income (“get-rich-slowly-but-steadily,” maybe?).

I’m currently “supervising” anime club, by which I mean I’m updating my blog instead of grading papers and the anime club is watching netflix on my projector. I had lots of plans to use this chunk of time productively. Some of the better ones:

  • Work on writing (too distracting in case of emergency–the anime club does occasionally require some supervision and/or intervention from an adult).
  • Publish lesson plans and materials that I’ve developed over the last ten years to Teachers Pay Teachers (requires a lot of polishing and also double checking that I’m posting my stuff, not stuff I begged/stole/borrowed ten years ago).
  • Draw line-art for a literary coloring book (coloring books are in right now and I’m a huge nerd with passable drawing skills… this idea has merit, but I’m not sure where to start).
  • Start querying for a line of children’s board books based on famous classic (read: old enough to be out of copyright) American poetry (this is also a good idea, because baby lit is trending and also the baby book market is crowded but much of it is grim in terms of stuff that isn’t stultifying to the adult or too complex for the baby, in my nine months of experience).
  • Update my blog (the current winner).

So, I guess I’ll close with a question…

What scene from literature would you like to color in first?

I’m thinking I’ll probably start with stuff to go with Romeo and Juliet, since my frish-frosh will be reading that in a few weeks. Or maybe some poetry, which they’re starting later this month…

But I’m open to requests!

Those old familiar tales

cowriting, fanfic, my writing, NaNoWriMo, revisions, , , , ,

reading-clip-art-reading-clipart-3Well, NaNo is going awfully (as expected… November is a TERRIBLE month for this! –at least for a teacher like myself) and I’ve been slacking on blogging, too. What’s a girl to do??

Well, I’ve been reading through my “back catalog,” if you will.

Of fanfic.

Continue reading Those old familiar tales →

Starting All Over Again

my writing, NaNoWriMo, writing exercises, ,

While I’ve been away from the blog, I’ve had several new starts come my way. I got back from Hawaii–which was amazing–and had to start again at work, teaching/planning/grading, trying desperately to get caught up. I’m still flailing when it comes to catching up on writing–I’ve missed the last few pages deadlines for my crit group, and jokingly-not-jokingly told them that my goal this month is to write “EVEN ONE SINGLE PAGE.”

So far nothing.

However, I am trying to get back on the horse just in time for a perennial favorite: NaNoWriMo.

Fifth time’s the charm??

Continue reading Starting All Over Again →

Aloha!

adventures, cowriting,

Today is a wonderful day, and a terriblilo13le one: I’m headed to Hawaii for the first time ever! I’m going for my cousin’s wedding, with my husband and without our son (which is both awesome and terrible, of course). And, being a well-organized person, I obviously was up packing until almost 2am, up with the baby at 3:30, up for the flight at 6, patted down and bag-searched thanks to my breastfeeding supplies… and about to spend the next 14 hours on planes/in airports (if I’m lucky… if anything gets delayed, it’ll be longer!).

But, as I sat in the waiting area with Cameron, we were joking about trying to find a way to write off this trip on our taxes as a writing expense. Sadly, I’m not working on anything set in Hawaii… and none of my cousins are getting married in post-apocalyptic Siberia this year.

So, dear readers, where in the world would you go to research a novel if you could go anywhere in the world?  Continue reading Aloha! →

What’s in a name?

agents, cowriting, IRWA, Lilly grant, write on the river with Bob Mayer, , , , , , , , ,
juliet_capulet
That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet…

Today at Janet Reid’s blog, they’re talking about pseudonyms. The discussion was brought on by a particular case in which a man published poetry under a pseudonym that was deliberately chosen to sound Asian (the man is white). Sherman Alexie, one of my faves, writes about the situation here, in case you’re interested in more info.

So, the commentariat at Janet’s place are now discussing the issue, but from the perspective of writers seeking representation: should you use a pseudonym? If so, should you tell your agent?

I was planning, actually, on setting this blog up and writing under the name M.P. Larkin. Much like J.K. Rowling, L.M. Montgomer, L.J. Smith, and, yes, okay, fine, E.L. James, I was going to do the lady-using-two-initials-to-maybe-pass-as-not-a-lady-but-maintaining-plausible-deniability thing. Recently one of the writers at Jezebel realized this might still be helpful in getting published, just like the Brontë sisters had do to… Continue reading What’s in a name? →