• I signed up for a class to help me make progress on my novel(s).  It's called Your Book Starts Here.  Apparently, you learn how to storyboard and then, presumably, you write the panels.  I'm taking the class online because I don't actually want to talk out loud to other people, but I think typing to them might be okay.
• I'm converting Shef's old study into a studio.  I'm calling it a studio because that seems official and legit, and as a full-time writer, that's also what I want to be.
• I'm learning all about being a blogger.  That seems weird to say because I've been a blogger for twelve years already.  Turns out, there's a lot more stuff to learn like email newsletters, images, Pinterest, search engine optimization.  Actually WRITING the blog turns out to be only one tiny facet of blogging, according to the Alliance of Professional Bloggers.  That's not a real thing, but you can find lots of other groups of them on Facebook.  I will employ the new things that I think are cool and relevant to my blog right here.
• I have business cards.  The cards say I'm a writer, so it's probably true.  I'll keep you posted.

Little pieces of fiction I've written.

The time I decided to quit teaching to be a full-time professional writer, but then I didn't actually do that.

I had an epiphany on my run today, and it was that I should have FUN writing every day.

Making Writing Fun Again (MWFA) is my idea to counteract the deep insecurity and sadness I feel when I try to write novels, which I've been trying to do (and doing) for like six years. 

Quite simply, in the time that I've been a professional writer, I've come to mostly hate writing. Or, to be more precise, I hate the way it makes me feel.

Because I'm a good problem solver, I tried to brainstorm ways that writing could be fun for me once again, as it was in the days of yore. And, I thought of this blog. And, I thought of captions on Strava, the exercise app. And, I thought of Instagram stories.

First, to MWFA, I wrote a long thing on Strava about how writing makes me feel. I wrote about my deep insecurities and fears. I felt good when I hit "Update." And then an hour later, I realized I sounded like an overly emo psycho in that "piece." My hope is that not too many people saw it.

My whole brand is pretending to be normal, right? I need to be a little more surreptitious about my actual neuroses. 

So next, I did a little draft of an Instagram story about MWFA. Unfortunately, on review it seemed a little disturbed, so I deleted it.

And then, finally, I came here, and I wrote this entry. 

The blog is defunct, so I think it's okay. It can stay. If you read this, maybe be careful about letting me know. It's like a journal that's online, but that like no one reads.

It's June, which everyone knows is a delightful month. Lee suggested we all write about things that do, in fact, delight us and that we do it with frequency.

I will now try to engage in this splendid activity. Here's a story of extreme delight:

On Friday, I had my last day of working at my fabulous school. There's an assembly every year at which we honor employees who have enjoyed long tenures. At the end of that gathering, the head of school reads a list of people who have either been fired from the school or who have decided not to return. After she says each name, everyone gives one clap.

It's a one-clap salute, if you will.

Before the gathering started, I told my friends I wanted my one clap to be quite robust. I'm delighted to say it was! The clap felt suitably momentous for quitting my job.

Then, there's a picnic, but I decided to skip it because Shef and I had plans. Dan knew about these plans, and while we were out, he came home from work and left a congratulations banner, helium balloons, flowers, and a necklace with an inspirational phrase. All of this was to send me off on my new adventure as a professional writer, which begins tomorrow.

Let the delight continue!

The other night, I had dinner with an author I admire and a mutual friend of ours. The meeting was a thrilling proposition, as I've read everything this author has written, and I love her so, so much.

My family tried to pretend to be excited when I told them about the opportunity, even though none of them had heard of the person I was so keen to meet. This is not super surprising, as at least one of them thinks "reading is trash."
Thanks, Shef.

"Is it like when I got to meet Cizzorz?" Mac asked, referring to a YouTuber he loves.
"Yes," I said, emphatically, at which point he nodded in a way that communicated he had my back. Thanks, Mac.

In fact, I could imagine myself losing it at the dinner -- gushing my head off and crying from happiness. But this behavior wouldn't be cool. I felt it was important to be cool. After all, I'm a professional writer now, and who wants to have dinner with someone who's gushing and crying?

"I'm just going to be myself," I told Dan, when I'd decided.
"Oh no," he said. "Definitely don't be yourself. She'll hate you."
Thanks, Dan.

I'll have you know that I'm pretty sure I behaved reasonably at the dinner. I casually mentioned that I'd read several of her books, but I didn't recount the details I remember from each and every one of them. I only choked one time on a red pepper flake, and I prudently excused myself to the restroom to cough violently. I was sweaty, but I wore multiple layers so you couldn't tell. I tried to balance speaking and listening. I don't think either of my dinner companions realized how hard I was working to look and act like a normal person.

When I got home, Dan appraised me and asked, "Were you normal, or were you yourself?" I'm not sure any of us will ever know. And thanks, Dan.

The time I tried to get back into shape and fell off the treadmill

The pros and cons of participating in a workplace-based fitness challenge

• Blind Spot: The Hidden Biases of Good People - by Mahzarin Benaji and Anthony Greenwald

• Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher - Carrie Fisher's fast, funny memoir about living a crazy life while trying her best. 

• On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting by Thomas Guskey - It turns out I'm not doing everything right when it comes to assigning grades. Lots to think about.

• Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham - A middle-grade graphic novel about girl friendships.

• Running with the Buffaloes by Chris Lear - I loved this inside look at a successful college running team, its iconic coach, and a deserving national champ.

• Whereas by Layli Long Soldier - Long Soldier morphs clauses of treaties and conveys through wordplay, syntax, and metaphor her own experiences of displacement.

• The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History by Joseph Marshall - This is a wonderful compilation of stories and collective memories about the Oglala Lakota leader and legend.

• Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall - I liked parts of this book quite a lot, but overall, there was just too much going on.

• Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton - Sometimes, I felt annoyed because it seemed manipulative, and sometimes I cried because I found it so honest and moving.

• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah - Engaging and sobering stories of The Daily Show Host's growing up in South Africa during and after apartheid.

• The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin - I tore through this detailed guide to her Four Tendencies framework - a study of how people respond to expectations.

If you're not an English teacher, you probably didn't even know that you should come to the National Council of Teachers of English convention today in Minneapolis.  You wouldn't even have realized that it would be your chance to hear acclaimed and ground-breaking cartoonist Alison Bechdel discuss her path as a writer and artist.

Yes, it's been too many days since I last published a blog entry.  But, as this is already my most prolific year of the last ten as a blog writer, I'm not feeling too terrible about that.

Let's see here:

Entertaining: Dan and I hosted a dinner for sixteen people.  All the food was amazing, even the food we didn't make.  The company was phenomenal.  The fact that three of my five siblings were there was unprecedented and sublime. Let's not talk about how I'm the shortest of all the siblings. It's not fair, but it's reality.

This is a video made by one of my colleagues about the Humanities sustainable development project, which resulted in the cardboard art installation I've been talking about.  I used Gawker to take time-lapse video of some of the steps, which I think is cool. But, I think the video-maker is truly awesome.

In other news, Mac announced yesterday that he did indeed have writer's workshop, and that he's writing a realistic fiction story.

"What's it about?" I asked.

"Jack loses a tooth."

"Cool," I said.  "Is that the title?"

"Yeah, but the first chapter is called Loop-de-Loop because I drew a roller coaster.  So Jack loses a tooth at the Mall of America," he continued. He went on to describe the plot in a hilariously professional way.  I can't quite re-create it here because I can't remember the many twists and turns involved in this significant dental event for Jack.  Another pal was there, and Mac incorporated theme-park elements throughout.

"How did you get this idea?" I asked.

"We had to have ideas," he said.

"But how did you come up with it?"

"If I didn't have an idea, I would have to push-ups."

"Really?!" I laughed, once again in awe of the genius that is Mac's teacher, Ms. J.

"Yes," he said.  "If you don't have an idea, you have to do push-ups."

My students are excellent idea generators this year. Now I know I can attribute this to what might be a full lower school practice of requiring push-ups until one thinks of an idea.  Let's just get the writing started.

• "[I]n order to become productive and professional, your philosophy must be optimism. Unwavering optimism, or at least optimism with a built-in swerve override."
• "The longer an idea 'percolates' in the mind, the greater its chances of being expressed clearly and powerfully when the time is right."
• "If you want to be a writer, don't hope to displace your anxiety.  Instead, find ways of coping with it, tricking it, transforming it."

Reading: Turns out, I finished my New Year's Resolution to read 52 books early.  I'm now finished with 54.  This total includes 17 young adult/children's books, seven books of adult non-fiction, 21 books of adult fiction, three books of poetry, and six teacher professional development texts.  I'm just saying.

Writing: Another New Year's Resolution was to work on my fiction writing.  I have 52 pages of original fiction now.  I printed it out, and I'm figuring out where Alice's story is going.  I need an arc at this point, so I'm developing one.

Teaching: We're doing something new with Writer's Workshop and using Units of Study from Teachers College at Columbia University.  My sixers are cranking out some really interesting information writing.  We're writing non-fiction books next, which excites us.  I'm a writing coach.

Parenting: I become only mildly to moderately exasperated most mornings when trying to get to work with the slowest child on the planet.  I mostly feel only mildly to moderately jealous of other working parents who commute unencumbered.