Full Steam Ahead.

An excellent weekend down at Rye, and then the excellent news that my application for a study grant had been approved. This means the Department of Education will pay for me to undertake some study over then next twelve months. Yay.

Of course it also means I'll have to get back into studying and writing essays, but I think I can cope with that.

On top of that I had an idea for another short story as I was walking along the beach. This is one I'm quite excited about, and over the past three days it's been thrashing itself out in my head.  Can't wait to start getting it down on paper.

I've also been doing some prep for the panels at Continuum this coming weekend. Should be a lot of fun. And if that's not enough, I've also been marking essays for my students. Some of them were quite good.

All in all, a pretty good time.

Marking, Marking, Marking...

Ah, the joys of being a teacher.

In the past two weeks I have marked 105 senior essays, 60 short stories, 50 posters, and 45 character studies.  I've also written around 145 reports and proofread around 400.  If I never see a student's progress report as long as I live I would be very happy.

Of course it doesn't end there.  I have another 45 essays to mark in the coming week. But then after that I get the semester break. And during that time I have my own writing to complete.

I'm not trying to elicit sympathy - just explain why this is a day late. And to explain to some friends why I haven't seen them much recently.

Oh well, back to marking. See you on the other side.

Trudging Through Slush?

I recently had a couple of people suggest I take up slushreading for a magazine. They told me how much it would help my writing by not only seeing the mistakes that other people make but by seeing how well other people write. They also told me how much it had helped their writing.

I understand what they're saying, but I don't have time to take on slushreading.

As for seeing how well other people write, I do that anyway. I read a phenomenal number of books and subscribe to three or four magazines. And as for the mistakes side of it, well hey - I teach English in high school.

I love my writing, but I'm a little concerned I can't devote enough time to it now - never mind taking on the responsibilities of slushreading. I have the greatest respect for people who are prepared to take on this task - and this is despite the completely inane, childish and unsophisticated comments I've received on stories from a couple of them. (And I must point out it was only a couple of them.)

Also bear in mind that as a writer I'm frustrated by the amount of time some of these markets take to reject a story. I've got one story now at its third market - the first two submissions took eight months each to respond. And as I currently don't have enough time to take slushreading on properly, I'd feel guilty about contributing to delays for some other writer.

Over this current two week period I have around 105 essay to marks, 50 short stories, 50 posters and two novels to read, study and be ready to teach next week. And that's on top of the normal preparation I need to do for my classes. And somewhere in between all that I'm also trying to have a life, write a couple of my own stories, edit a couple more that need it, and research markets and submit.

I think I read enough examples of both good and poor work to more than make up for it.