Tuesday, April 14, 2009

State of the writer

Following a long weekend (kids and hubby were home 1/2 day on Good Friday and boys had yesterday off, too), the writer is back at her desk. Today's activity? A good old-fashioned tug-of-war between "this story sucks and so do I" and "this story is SO close to done, no way am I stopping now." Good sense is winning thus far, but I have the headache to show for the efforts.

I subbed at school last Thursday--for the third grade this time. Oh boy. Great kids, too much chaos for my poor little control freak, introvert brain. We all survived and even managed to get most of the work accomplished that their teacher left. I loved the kids, but I was still really, really, really glad when that last bell rang. One of my fourth grade tutorees stood with me as I was watching over the third and fourth grade out in the pickup line and chatted my ear off. She told me that she was sure she'd passed her math ISTEP this time, and she hoped she got me again next time she had to have a tutor. And then, after regaling me with (unrelated) tales about trampolines and dachsund puppies and her mom's adventures in nursing school, she informed me that I was really fun to talk to.

There's part of me that really wishes I could handle the chaos on a regular basis, because yeah, I really do love the getting-to-know-the-kids part of it. Although then I'd have a whole roomful of children to let go of every year. I'm pretty sure I'd suffer some emotional distress over that.

The current project weighs in today at 39,500 words. I'm shoving the story boulder up that final slope toward the climax, and although I know what happens, finding the specific words to make it happen is proving to be harder work than I expected. WHY I expected it to be less difficult, I'm not sure. In the future I will lower my expectations.

Back to work. One slogging step after another.

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