GailD!
I'm mostly thinking that 3-4 hours of homework every weeknight is a bit steep for a 12-year-old, but I don't quite know what to do about it.
Liz! That does sound like an excessive amount of homework. Is your daughter in the 7th grade? When my grandson was in the 7th grade he also had a huge amount of homework every day. The teachers explained that this was part of preparing them for high school. (High school begins with the 8th grade here.) But every year it seems to get more and more. When do kids get the time to just be kids? Seems unfair to me.
Gail,
I can't tell you what I'm up to. 
Mostly I've been working. My biggest, most headache-y book goes to the printer the week after the election. The rest of the year then becomes much more pleasant. And vacation time happens. Until then: work; sleep; repeat. If only I could add "practice ninja skills" in there.
I knew you couldn't
really tell me what you're up to.
But seriously, the Week After The Election can't come soon enough. Looking forward to seeing more of you then, right?
Let's see:
- School, where I'm the "managing editor" for a class blog for News Writing and Reporting
- School, where I'm also a contributing writer to the school paper
- Formatting the dead tree edition of Don't Stop Believing. I've been invited to do a book signing next month. It'll help to have books for that.
- Beating myself up for not getting more done on Book 2 of The Sad Girl. It's been sitting at 13k words for most of the year. I've just been ignoring it for some reason.
- Dealing with personal stuff and facing a decision I really don't want to make
- Traveling to Ft Lee next week to see my son graduate from Army AIT.
Wow, Bob. You
have been busy! But seeing your son graduate from AIT should be such a nice reward! (And we'll be wanting pics of that!)
After having a 'behind-closed-doors-with-the-curtains-drawn' mini meltdown over the declining sales of my book, I've picked myself up (thanks to some wonderfully kind AW'ers) dusted myself off and got back to my fiction WIP. I wrote a whole, whopping 735 words yesterday.
I know, but it's a start, right?
I was very excited to write anything that sounded halfway worth keeping. Let's do more of it!
Yes!!!
