The Best-Laid Plans....

I had some awesome plans for July. It's Camp NaNoWriMo time, and my goal was to write a very do-able 30,000 words on my new novel during this month. Yes, I knew that I was also teaching the Fan Fiction class at Brave Writer this summer, but the class has averaged about eight students in the four previous years that I've taught it. No problem! I can teach this class and have plenty of time to work on my new Jane Austen novel.

So when I was blessed with 24 students (25 is full-capacity!), I was thrilled, but I also knew that my precious writing time would have to take a backseat. I've written about 5,000 words on my new novel and 3,000 words on another project, and I hope to squeeze in a little more writing time between grading some amazing stories written by students as young as ten years old. The first batch of stories came in this week, and I am so thrilled with the quality of their work!

Yes, the best-laid plans.... Well, there is always August, which I have off from both Brave Writer and Heritage (our private home school group), but I'll also be planning the next home school year for our last student--yes, I'll be back to homeschooling just one after graduating the older three. I'm also teaching only one class at Heritage's Class Days this year instead of two as I did last year, and I'm also teaching more family workshop classes instead of the intensive literary analysis courses at Brave Writer.

Thus I hope to return to writing more of my tale of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, starting at the end of Pride and Prejudice and moving forward into their married life together. Yes, many Austen Variations exist (I've spent the last year reading over a hundred P&P novels!), but I want to give my own spin on Elizabeth and Darcy's engagement, wedding, and marriage. I figure that if I can read so many of these variations on Austen's books and never get bored, other Austen fans would also enjoy mine. We shall see. All I know is that I can't wait to get back to crafting my little novel...even if it won't be as popular as P.D. James' last novel, Death Comes to Pemberley. 

So on this Sunday afternoon with the welcome rumble of thunder and charcoal-gray clouds releasing even more welcome rain showers, I'll finish grading the first round of fan fiction stories from my online class and plan my week...with a few time slots set aside to write. Although I most likely will not meet my original goal of writing 30,000 words this month, every little bit I write takes me that much closer to my goal of completing this novel, the first one that I hope to publish on Amazon and perhaps earn a little money, unlike my other novels and stories which I have posted for free on other sites. They were fun practice works to write and have been very popular with nearly 4 million reads between the two sites, but now to get a little more serious about writing....

Wishing you all a blessed week!