Homeschooling
In my eagerness to start writing a novel last weekend, I kind of completely forgot to post on the blog! But honestly, I didn’t have much to say. We finished our NaNo prep and we’re on to writing!
Steven ended up setting the bar high. The “default” NaNoWriMo goal is 50000 words, and Steven’s goal is 67860 words. And here I was thinking it would be easier to write to his goal this year! We’re both a little behind, but we’re planning on catching up this weekend.
I’m assigning a few small things on top of NaNoWriMo, mostly things that will get us through writing units and that might help him with his writing. Last week we did a few things from the NaNoWriMo Young Writers notebook. This week I gave him a quick figurative language activity using this resource ($7). I posted the categories on the wall going up our stairs and put the phrases at the bottom, and then timed him running up and down to match them up. He got a workout and a language lesson!
Focuswriter
I wanted to mention Focuswriter. It’s the software Steven and I use for most of our writing. It’s a simple full-screen interface that eliminates distractions while you write. You can customize the background and writing area. And I recently learned that it has a scene management tab, which is useful when you’re writing longer things like a novel.
Election
Honestly, I don’t even want to say much about the U.S. election. We’ve been following it closely and discussing it constantly and now it seems we won’t have an answer until next week. I am just done.
It’s so stressful and exhausting to constantly watch it, constantly worry about it, constantly think “what if it’s another 4 years of Trump?”. And it’s so close! How, after the last 4 years, can it been so damn close? Biden is winning so far, thankfully. But in some states he’s winning by less than 1%, which is nerve wracking to watch. Today he’s pulled further ahead in some. But we’re still waiting on Nevada, Pensylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska. We’ve been waiting since Wednesday, and we’re going to keep waiting.
Luckily we have memes.
Oh! And I just learned this is a thing. Apparently recently Trump has been ending his rallies by dancing horribly to the YMCA song. And I just die laughing every time I see it.
And that’s all I’m going to say on that subject. Hopefully next time I update the blog we’ll have an answer.
Stay safe!
