Work Work vs. Play Work

Now is crunch time for finishing grading and submitting final grade reports. I don't mind this time of the semester as I know I have to get grades in by a certain date, which means once I click the Submit button I'll be free. No more papers to read. No more slogging through essays that make me wonder what these students were doing during high school English classes. No more having to break the news to Susie that just because Mom thinks Susie's writing is awesome, this doesn't mean it actually is.

The downside here is I'll only be free for about two weeks. Then summer session begins. I'm not looking forward to it, but I've decided since I have to teach I'm going to take the opportunity to try out some new ideas. This will entail taking a bit of a different approach, an approach that gets me excited when I think about the possibilities. It could be really, really fantastic. It could also end up being a crash and burn summer I'll want to forget as soon as possible.

Amidst all the grading and putting my summer course together, I learned one of my poems has been accepted for publication. Now I have a grand total of two published poems to my credit (I should say I will have two credits once this poem is released). Woo-hoo! The poem will be available at The Voices Project in early June. When it's there and can be accessed, I'll share the link.

This particular poem is from a series I'm working on. Very personal. Very difficult for me to spend much time on in a given sitting because of the subject matter. But I've found in writing this series, I'm beginning to confront a monster that has been eating away at me for a long, long time. I've shared these poems with two close friends who are my writing buddies, and they are also the only two people in my life who I've opened up to about the situation alluded to in the poem that will be published.

Now I'm torn. I know I need to get back to the grading and getting all the have-to-do work finished, but I really want to pull up my poems and tinker with them. It's amazing how getting a publication notice is like drinking a double espresso. I'm all hyped up. But, I'll be the responsible adult and get back to work work. The play work will have to wait for a bit.


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