Plugging Along

 I started National Novel Writing Month strong this year. I hit my word count every day in the first week. But as always, work and life have started to slow me down. I'm still working on writing every day, though I am falling behind on my word count. As of right now, I will be finished with this draft beginning of December. Plus I still have a couple works in progress that I need to work on. 

On the upside, I did self-publish one of my first NANO books, "Paradise of the Locusts" this month. You can find it on most ebook providers. It should be available on Amazon Kindle soon. After doing research and getting feedback from people in my writing groups, I think self-publication is the way to go for now. While I still have the dream of traditional publication, I also know that it can be difficult. Finding an agent to take up my work can be trying, as it is also subject to their own personal taste. But, if I self-publish and get some traction, who knows what will happen.

The important thing I keep telling myself is that I don't write to get wealthy. While it would be great, money is not my motivation. Getting to tell my stories that I want to tell, the way I want to tell them is what I am passionate about.

And I have a lot of great stories in my head. It is just a matter of getting them on paper. 

But there are always other things I must do. I have my day job as a teacher, which is always going to dominate a lot of my time. While I love what I do, this year is definitely the most challenging. It seems like I'm never really off the clock. Distance learning has made me rethink and rework all I have ever thought of about education. We have to deal with not only educating our students but being the target for parent frustrations when their child struggles or has tech issues. I had some motivation issues last week and really felt the fire dwindling. But, once I am teaching with my students, that fire got reignited with their enthusiasm for what we were learning. So I'll keep on plugging along.

I also have started doing freelance writing last year. It has been fun as I get to write about a lot of different topics and styles and make a couple extra bucks in the process. But sometimes the topics are not very stimulating, even if I can recommend the best home air conditioning unit for your needs. Some of the topics can be fun, like reviewing the newest gaming systems. And most of them can be finished in a couple hours or less and puts more money in our pocket. So I'll keep plugging along.

Looks like we will have a new president soon. I hope he does a good job. I'm hoping that we can start healing as a country. I'm tired of the hate and ugliness. I'm tired of Covid, though it looks like we may have a vaccine soon. So maybe we will get somewhat back to normal soon. 

But we all just got to keep plugging along.



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