The Final Week...

In the last week of "official" class meetings... two more weeks and classes will be officially over. That boils down to a mere 7-10 days to finish drafting the final creative project (complete with Works Cited page!), and about the same to make revisions to my assignments for the teaching class (now that the feedback has finally been posted!)... of course, there's the "Instructor Opinion Survey" that happens at the end of every semester, as well...

In other news, I had been notified by the Fiction instructor from last semester (when he sent out grades) that he was interested in working with me to continue polishing the stories, so I can send out to publishers. We were not able to get any times that worked at the beginning of the semester, but we do have a meeting scheduled for next week (one of the "Reading Days" before exams)... there's two stories to go over, that with any luck I'll be able to spend some time polishing after my other (school) projects are done, and start shopping them around in May... more to follow later...

Looking ahead to the Fall, my class will be "Strategies for Writing the Short Novel", and will coincide with the concepts of NaNoWriMo... so 50k words during the semester. Needless to say it's the only class I will be taking, and will put me very much on the spot. Once the semester is over, it will be the single most concentrated effort (highest word count) for a project. I am already starting to think about what I want to write, and start some initial storyboarding/character development (for several projects).

I've got about 2 years left before I'll be graduating... I am looking at trying to complete 3 works by the time I finish (1 Short Story Collection, and 2 Novels)... since I will essentially have to complete one of those for the thesis. That's becoming my main target... Complete and submit a portfolio over the summer (for official admission into the CW program), which will fuel into the "Short Story Collection", and plug away on the other books...

I've been forced to rethink my degree/career plans... I've been advised that an MFA may be a better choice for part of what I really want to do (the closest ones are in Wilmington and Raleigh), or I may end up having to look at a Doctorate... Definitely some things to consider... But for now, the task is to write...