I was in the most incredibly useless teacher conference all day. I was, as I am every month in these things, with other freshman English teachers who were as irritated as I was by the consultants’ “Process” based approach, so we cut through the time-padding shit and did the required work so fast we had lots of idle time to talk and do our own thing, so I got some major restructuring/replotting done on Warden’s Call, which may now be part of a series called The Long Walk instead of The Wardens of Andari, but we’ll see. I suspect a lot of that might be more in a future publisher’s control than my own, and worrying about that now when I’m still beginning the writing process is pointless in the extreme.
Anyway, that’s some progress there. I’m hoping to get moving on writing. I have about 3600 words already, which is relatively nothing, but I want to get it to 8,000 and send it as my submission to attend Viable Paradise–though, considering that I may not actually be able to pay for it this year (not that we’re doing badly, but I AM on the pinkslip parade again, and the budget situation for my school district might mean I actually get laid off this year), so maybe I’d be doing better to apply for NEXT fall’s workshop–but what the frell; I might as well attempt it. You never know–if accepted, I might be able to pull it off.
In talking with the wife, the current plan is that if I AM laid off, I’ll work as a substitute teacher as many days as I can, and work on writing on the other days. Even nine days a month would cover the tuition on my kid’s school, and anything else would be for bills and such. If that happens, we’ll have to cut back, of course, and eliminate some things, but we’ll handle it. I don’t think we’d be in any danger of losing the house, and if we did, frankly, meh–as long as we can still feed ourselves and not live on the street, I could live with that.
I’d still rather have a job, though.