And it’s not even for a class or for a project or anything! I finished it FOR FUN! God, I am so freaking proud of myself right now.

I’ll start Draft 2 next month. After writing almost 7,500 words in the last 24 hours, I need time to decompress a bit. Thank God for good hard cider.

But before I do that, I’m gonna pat myself on the goddamn back for a quick second. I have NEVER been able to finish a first draft, I always get so caught up in minutiae that I end up restarting a whole bunch. But I got overcame those urges and I finally actually finished something I started!

If I can spark that deep interest in stories in at least one of these kids, then I’ve done a good job. All I can do for now is keep going, keep encouraging and supporting these kiddos as best I can. They’ve got stories worth telling, and I can’t wait to see those stories come to life!

I wish I had had more teachers in my own life who had valued creativity and storytelling. Family, friends, and a couple teachers from my formative years were all I really had. My insatiable curiosity and unquenchable desire to tell stories did the rest of the job, though.

I have a good number of students who are putting themselves outside of comfort zones, trying to be creative when they have never done so before, or have had poor experiences in the past. I’m excited to see what they come up with in their first stories. And they’re excited, too!