NaBloPoMo Begins

So it's November 1st, and for the third year in a row, I'm in for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Why? Well, I have to be honest and say I'm not one hundred percent sure. I guess, it's primarily because of the challenge and secondly it's sort like NaNoWriMo, which I love, but which I highly doubt I have time for this year. :(

Of course, that fact does makes me sad. The last two years of attempting NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) have been fun, especially as I've pulled my students into the craziness too. The amount of writing that they've produced has been amazing. The excitement so many develop for the challenge has been inspiring. The lessons it teaches I think are very good. HOWEVER: as I've bemoaned in previous blog entries, this year has brought many changes. The schedule I have to deal with for language arts has forced me to make some tough choices and there's many aspects of writing workshop that have had to be modified and/or cut out completely just simply because of time constraints. It's not something I like, but something I've convinced myself I have to live with because unfortunately the time constraint is unchangable.

And outside the classroom, for just me: free time is still at a premium. I just completed first quarter (hip, hip, hooray!) feeling like my head was only just barely above water. My life (sadly) is primarily teaching, planning & paper grading, and sleeping. Grabbing meals gets squeezed in (often while working), and I'm trying to take one weekend day off for myself (for my sanity), but beyond that time to invest in something like NaNoWriMo just doesn't exist. In fact, I'm even going into NaBloPoMo feeling like my chances for successful completion (i.e. a blog posting each and every day) are doubtful.

But like every single day already this year, I'm just going to take it one day at at time. Here with this entry Day 1 is complete. Now just 29 days to go. :)