Man! I thought I felt guilty before?

I haven't written in this blog since October!

Wow!

A bunch of stuff has happened that are worthy of the blog too!  Well, I guess I'll start with my writers group I started at my school.  So I teach middle school kids.  6th graders to be specific. I've been doing this job for about 10 years.  And every year I have had students approach me with their writing and wanting me to read it.  And I teach science! Now I'm not proud of the fact that for the most part I blew off these students.  I'd been reading their essays for years and let me just say I cringed at the thought of reading their stories.

But then it hit me.

What is it that every writer yearns most?  Well, aside from writing.  Having their work read by anyone And have that person talk about it with them.  And then I realized that's why most writers quit.  No one reads and they take that to mean they stink and give it up. Before they get really good at it.  And before the deep seated love of writing has a chance to sink in and solidify.

So I decided to emulate my own writers group I belong to with the entire school.  It has been illuminating.  I had no idea what these kids were capable of creating.  My goal is to publish some of their work on our own Higgins Literary Journal.  When I do, I'll post it here.

Now, I've also applied to the Boston Public Library's Writer-In-Residence for Children's and Young Adult novel writers.  It's meant for burgeoning writers, I hope I qualify.  I write for three to four hours a day and was published last year.  Heck I won the Tablo.io NaNoWriMo contest last year as well. I won a 3,500 dollar edit and analysis of my novel, as well.

So I hope I qualify.