grading

Grading Is Done!

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low angle photo of fireworks

(Photo by rovenimages.com on Pexels.com)

Yay! I finally finished grading for the second summer session classes I taught at the Muhlenberg College School of Continuing Education in Allentown, PA. I had two courses in the second summer session: Literature and Film and Renaissance Plays In Process, and both courses had a full enrollment.

I had a wonderful time teaching these classes, and of course, I had much to grade at the end. That leads to a question–who is the person who assigns these papers anyway? Hmmm . . .

And now it is time to finish syllabi for the Fall semester which begins in one week!

And I can also return to writing. I had to take a few days off to complete my schoolwork.

A Progress Report

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paperstograde

After I finished the piles of end of the semester grading, I was able to attack again the third draft of my Young Adult speculative fiction novel. Even though I had to put the writing aside briefly, I am still on the pace I had hoped for. I just reached 100 pages.

dreamgoal

I will continue to try to revise at least 10 pages a day though the rest of May. My target for this month is to reach at least 200 pages. If I can reach that goal, I will be very happy with my progress. I have given myself a little bit of wiggle room, since there are 12 more days left in this month, and if I do all 12 days, I would reach about 220 pages.

Drum-Roll-Please

Now, after the drum roll please, I hope that I have this draft done by the middle of June. It should be 250-300 pages. If I can finish that draft, then I put it aside as several people read it for me, and then soon again, I will begin the next draft. And the process of writing and revision will continue.

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A Goal Reached

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fireworks

I wanted to finish a first draft of my third novel by the end of this month, and I have done that.  I am not impressed by the draft, because it needs a mountain of work.  I see numerous serious narrative issues that I will need to address in future drafts.  In fact, I am not sure if I will continue with this one–I have to let it percolate for a while before I decide what to do with it.

percolator

This completion of the first draft does lead me directly to my next immediate writing goals.   I intend to attack the completion of the third draft of my second book, a Young Adult novel over the next couple of months.  I want to have a third version complete by the end of May, which is optimistic, or June at the very latest, which might be more realistic.  If the third rewrite moves well, I will then aim for formal editing, and perhaps, just maybe, begin submitting it.

writingontypewriter

As the semester grows to a close,  I will soon be able to finish my grading work and devote more time to the work on this revision.  I hope I am able to complete this goal.