What did I get myself into?

As of Friday, 35 kids had signed up for NaNoWriMo!  Really, it's more than that but a couple of kids decided to write in pairs and I'm good with that.  One fifth grader heard about it from her brother (who didn't sign up) and wanted to try, so I told her no problem.

I even have to order more pencils because I ran out!

Today I will be going to a write in and I will also finish preparing tools to distribute to the kids tomorrow: progress charts, writing prompts and such.

I'm floored.  I am absolutely, gob smacked and floored by the response.

I figured the best way to do the writing prompts was to print them on business cards and put them in a small box for each classroom.  That way, each set of kids have their own set to reference during their writing time.  The writing count chart is a little more difficult as each kid chose a different amount of words to write.  The most common are 50 words a day (1,500 total) and 100 (3,000 total) but there are a lot of one-upping as well.  The adding one more to a count over a friend as a bit of a challenge and rivalry.

Although one of the real tests for me won't actually come until the spring.  My theory (and this is the stuff of which graduate theses and dissertations are made) is that these kids will excel when it comes to the MCAS because they will know that it's no big deal to write an essay.  That this month they are building a habit of writing and over the next couple of months they will learn about other writing traits (revision, editing, etc.) as we clean up their November work to prepare to upload stories and publish them with their create-space code.

Of course, I also have to write my novel through all this while finishing school, working and life, the universe and everything.

To be honest, I don't know what else I'd do with myself if I didn't have all this on my plate. This is my happy writing time, I hope it is everyone else's as well.

Let the Madness Begin!

It's November First, that means it's National Novel Writer's Month!

Along with leading a bunch of 3rd graders through the process this year, I'm also writing my own 50k work novel.  Unlike past years, I have no idea what I'm writing this year.  All I have is an opening:

My family is the punchline of a joke: an Orthodox Rabbi, Catholic nun and Buddhist Unitarian Universalist minister sit down for a family Thanksgiving dinner together.....

I'm not sure but I think it will involve a (possibly) haunted house, an overgrown park and pixies.  I don't know the gender or age of the main character as they haven't told me yet.  I have a vague idea where it might be going, but I'm not positive.

My 3rd graders are excited.  Yesterday they received a composition book and a NaNoWriMo pencil that has "There's a novel in this pencil" printed on the side of it.  I have stickers and pins for the kids as well and I'm going to have a couple more pins I'm going to have made up for them.  Many of the kids are shooting for 100 words a day (kids set their own word count).  Part of the reason I'm doing this is because I believe that many of the reluctant writers will will lose their fear of the MCAS - a huge source of anxiety already - if they know writing an essay is no big deal.

Heck... after writing a novel, it will be no big deal.

It will be interesting for me because these kids really only made the transition to being writers a month ago when Writer's Workshop started for them at the beginning of October.  Last time I lead a group of students through, they were fourth graders who had been writing, many of them reluctantly for a year.  It will be interesting to see if this group of 3rd graders go into 4th grade thinking of themselves as writers and how that changes them as they continue on.

I have been developing some tools for the kids as well: writing prompts for when they get stuck and progress charts (which I have to modify as different kids are going for different counts).  I'll keep talking about here as well as my own progress.

In the meantime, think about jumping into the deep end with us this year.  There's still time and 1667 words a day isn't too bad.  It's a great habit to get into.