Professional Authors

Here is my first post (on this blog) in 2011. I had planned on posting yesterday, but it was my mom’s birthday and the evening got away from me. That said, from this point on I will be posting on Thursday’s and Sunday’s every week. I also said I planned to post more in the past, yet I never made any specific goals about that. That is changing in 2011. A lot in changing in 2011…

I have made a year-long commitment to change and I am documenting that journey on another blog. If you’re curious, check it out here. I will talk a little bit about writing over there, but only as it relates to my grid and the various new things I will trying out in order to remain present in my life.

I started back at Goldrick Elementary on Monday. It felt like home. I’m so comfortable there. I have an awesome Clinical Teacher again and I’m excited to be in the 4th grade. Today, the kids came back and the day was a whirlwind. As a teacher candidate, I have to introduce myself to the class with an “All About Me” poster. It was fun, even if it does feel a bit like a sales pitch. 

My Clinical Teacher is really honing in on the fact that I’m a published author. I will be working with different groups in writer’s workshop’s every week and I will be the resident writing expert in the class. The students seemed excited and that was pretty cool. I’m excited too. I’m hoping to be a good example of how fun writing can be and I hope that some of my passion with rub off. I will get lots of inspiration from them, I’m sure.

I am also committing to a daily grid. I’ve never actually done this and stuck with it. I can be so trustworthy and responsible for certain aspects of my life, but I’ve never been good as an adult in committing to myself and my talents. I want to work to change that this year. I’ll be starting small – 20 minutes daily for 21 days.

I have done a word count commitment in the past, but I never seem to stick to it for long – even if the word count was very small. I think a time period is a better plan for me because I can write more on days when it’s really flowing, yet still get some done on days where the words come with more difficulty. Where if I have a word count commitment, it might take all day to meet it or I  might fall short and get discouraged. The goal is to write every day. I don’t want to set myself up for failure. Failure could happen any way – why make it easier?

Also, I’m committing to the WordPress post a week challenge. I’m planning to post at least twice a week, but getting on board with this challenge can’t hurt. I figure that posting all of this commitment stuff will help keep me in line.

I also think that having to represent professional authors in my classroom will help keep me in line too. Kids can smell a fake pretty fast, so I better walk the walk!