It has been almost a month since posting mainly due to an extremely busy work schedule. We are faring pretty well financially here in the south as compared to the high expenses of Chicago. Lets just say we have caught up with the boat and are climbing on board compared to the near drowning state of a year ago.
I did decide though to pad the finances by teaching an overload. Sounds like fun huh? So I am not doing laboratory research or advising students leaving plenty of time for another class. A normal load for me consist of a stacked intro to bio class (all students in one lecture) with 2 labs (1 per week each) and a stacked microbiology with 2 labs (2 times per week each) for a total of 17 contact hours per week. BTW: This was considered an overload in Chicago, but included many other responsibilities. So an overload is an additional course, I chose a night microbiology for an additional 7 contact hours per week bring the total to 24 contact hours per week. The money is good, but it is a bit of stress in trying to keep organized. But all in all, still less stressful than Chicago.
As if I did not have enough to do with this workload and family commitments (it is the holiday season), I have also decided to participate in NaNoWriMo during the month of November. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) is a full force attempt to motivate lazy (excuse me: undermotivated) or aspiring novelist to crank out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. They emphasize putting words on paper instead of editing as you go to jump start the production of a first draft for editing. For people like me who have evolved to become editors instead of writers, it may be the boost I need to get back to writing.
This is also an opportunity to try out a piece of software I have been wanting to try for awhile now called Scrivener by Literature & Latte, LTD. Scrivener is a writing tool which utilizes the method of research based writing I learned in Jr and Sr High school and used throughout most of my college days. This "notecard" approach reminds me of trips to the library (before the internet of course) with a pack of fresh 3x5 index cards and an assignment in hand. Each little tidbit of interesting or relevant info read from a book or abstract index was written on its own index card and then coded to denote source and topic (now called keywords). When a bunch of cards were completed (no set number just the arbitrary "bunch"), they were laid out on a table (or bed) and organized into an outline. Then the real writing began.
Scrivener is setup to record text (or snippets) on individual "note cards" and then to organize by moving around on a virtual corkboard. This promotes a focus on putting words on paper and capturing the flow of ideas during writing and not on formatting and editing. After you are happy with the text and organization, the output is exported into a word processor for final formatting. Since much of my writing for class is research intensive, this will likely be valuable software for organizing my thoughts and research clippings and writing as I did in the good old days when I considered writing to be fun. I will keep you posted and probably post snippets of the novel over the course of the NaNoWriMo timeline.
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