Recognition from Wattpad...and Apologies

Yesterday I received a very cool recognition from Wattpad for being one of their most-read authors! Here's the little widget they sent. As I couldn't fit it in my sidebar (darn!), I thought I'd share it here.

And I apologize for not updating Only by Moonlight. I had grand plans for writing my heart our for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and generating chapter after chapter of raw material for the story. I got a good start going...until I saw my class list for my new online class: Literary Analysis: The Great Gatsby. Most of my literary analysis classes have 8-10 students, occasionally 12 at most. But this class was FULL. At capacity.

Twenty students.

20.

The big 2-0.

Crap was my first thought. There goes NaNoWriMo.

And I've already pulled two all-nighters since class began on November 4, trying to keep up on all of our amazing discussions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel--perhaps the most important American novel of the 20th century--and perhaps of all American literature. The students are incredible. Ranging in ages from 13-17, they are wonderful and insightful writers. I adore them all.

But they are keeping me far busier than I've ever been in teaching any class in my nearly twelve years of teaching online classes to homeschoolers.

They're writing three major responses to discussion questions per week, then commenting on each other's responses as well. Multiply those six posts (minimum) per week times twenty students, and I have a minimum of 120 posts to read and comment on per week. Plus I still have my Expository Essay I and II classes I teach at our homeschool co-op and--oh, yeah--my own two teen boybarians to homeschool.

It's crazy. Fun, but crazy.

So that's where I've been this month--NOT doing NaNoWriMo and NOT working on my stories very much. But teaching my own kids and other students is my other passion, one that was confirmed to me in a very unusual way last night.

So I needed this affirmation from Wattpad about my writing during a month when I've felt disappointed and a wee bit guilty for not being able to pursue NaNoWriMo and Only by Moonlight (and a second story I've started writing by hand in a composition book with my trusty fountain pen). So, thanks, Wattpad, for being so good to me!! :)

So back to writing in December, I hope!! 

Love to you all,
~Cassandra 
xxxooo