Hello dear readers! It has been a little while since I have created a new post on here, and I wanted to let everyone know what is going on in my world.
This school year I began a new position at a new middle school. After 8 years at my old school, I needed a change of scenery for my own mental health. I was actually at a point of not knowing if I wanted to continue in education after the year I had last year. Horrible kids, and not a lot of support from the administration. My new school is like night and day, and I have a revitalized love for my job!
One new challenge I faced was having a whole class of English Learner students. These are students that have little or no English skill. The first few weeks were defiantly challenging with the language barrier (most of them are Spanish-speaking, and one student speaks Arabic). Thankfully, some of their classmates are bi-lingual, are have enough fluency to communicate. Also, Google Translate is a Godsend!
Now the downside, I ended up taking on more responsibility a few weeks ago. I started off teaching 6th grade Social Studies, but due to some staffing issues, we needed to shuffle some staff. Since I can teach both English and Social Studies, I was picked to join a two-person team with the 8th graders. So now I’m teaching two contents (yay me!). Luckily this is only going to be for the current school year, and I love my co-workers and the kids aren’t complete monsters.
Unfortunatly, with the added workload, it also means that a lot of my writing projects are taking a back seat. By the time I get home from work, I am physically and mentally exhausted most days. So if I’m lucky, I can get some writing done on the weekends. I’m still hoping to have another book ready to shop to publishers by the end of this year/beginning of next year.
On a good note, my work with Medium has continued to give me a little supplemental income. If I’m feeling motivated, I can usually get an article knocked out in a couple hours. As I mentioned previously, the freelance writing has basically died due to the rise of AI (oh well, it was fun while it lasted). If you haven’t had a chance to check out my page on Medium, you can find my articles here.
Speaking of novels, a few of my previous books are now audiobooks with Apple. You can find the links for the books below:
As an independent author, the best tool I have is word of mouth. If you buy any of my books, please leave a review. Sharing on social media also helps to introduce more readers to my work.
The next few weeks will be busy with the looming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas (and a nice 2 week break!). This, as well as a Social Studies conference in Nashville will make for a busy end of the year. In that time, I’m hoping to get some more writing done that I can share with you all.
Until then, stay awesome!