Schedule filling up

I have begun accumulating things to do and settling them into the new schedule. Today was Patches’ first day of preschool. It went off without a hitch. He was glad to go and glad to come home. Then we did lots of talking about everything that happened. Preschool twice a week breaks up my long schedule free days somewhat, but in a good way I think. I still have long stretches of time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that are mine to arrange. It is the afternoons that are beginning to seem a bit crowded. Kiki and Link will be starting art lessons next week. Kiki has taken them before, but this will be a new experience for Link and I’m not sure how he will like it. He really values his play time and often resents anything that interferes. But on the other hand I keep being amazed at his drawing capability and I want to give him the tools to be good at it. Art lessons are on Tuesdays, which is also my writer’s group day. Wednesday is cub scouts and Kiki has youth group activities. Thursday is Howards evening out. Fridays have nothing and I’m going to leave it that way. Monday used to be completely empty, but today I got a call from a PTA person at the school. She runs the Art Club there and was wondering if I’d be willing to do a six week creative writing class. She called because of a conversation I had with my neighbor last year where I described how I would run such a class. I said yes.

Even though it complicates my schedule, I’m looking forward to running the creative writing class. I remember taking a couple when I was in grade school and being frustrated with them because they were essentially assignments. Read a poem, then write a poem. Read a story, then write a story. My approach will be to start by teaching the elements of story, protagonist, villain, setting, etc. I want to work with narrative curves and story structures. I’ll do that for the first three weeks or so, then for the second three weeks we’ll work on creating stories and editing them. The end goal will be a print-on-demand book that contains the stories that the kids wrote. I know this sounds complicated, but the concepts can be taught without all the confusing vocabulary. Particularly if I use picture books to demonstrate the points. This time will be the trial run. I have my eye on taking the same class and doing it at a junior high level. Kiki would like that I think.

Schlock book work continues and occupies most of this morning. For awhile I was worried about all the afternoon craziness and making sure I had time for business work and writing, but I have so much more time in the middle of the day. Having only Patches at home is worlds different than having Patches and Gleek. She was constantly bored and she solved boredom by coming to me for attention. It is all going to fit. I can see how, but I definitely need to find a good stride and stick with it. Not too fast, not too slow.