This week didn’t go smoothly.  The schoolwork was fairly intense because a lot of new skills and actions were introduced.  First, analyzing a Longfellow poem with a kid who is literal to the bone is an act of patience.  “Dust thou art, to dust returnest” became “you can make art from dust” and that was how we started.  It was cute, but ‘Psalm of Life’ was 9 stanzas long.  He began reading ‘Hatchet’ too and loves it, but the book can be fairly difficult for him.  Then, there was the introduction of citations for answering questions.  I spent the last few months telling him to answer in his own words and now I’m telling him he can use the words of others as long as they’re quoted and cited.  All important skills and I get it.  Yet, it took a lot of time to get through everything.  We didn’t get to do anything really fun on Tuesday and had to skip Lego Harry Potter on Wednesday for the first time in months.  So, it was a slog.

On a more positive note, we did get to play some Super Smash and put together a special edition Lego set.  The Death Star trench battle, which will tide us over until we get a full day to work on the giant Millenium Falcon I got him.  Anime watching at night has been a big thing too.  Even if we don’t get to have fun during the day, I make sure that he gets his 3 episodes at night.  It was Naruto, Fairy Tail, and My Hero Academia, but we recently finished the last two.  At least as far as Hulu is concerned, which means I’m getting the Funimation streaming this week.  He’s beginning to understand character motivation and development as well as emotions through these things, so I want to keep it going.  Not to mention it’s the only consistent father/son bonding thing we get.  Although, he noticed Digimon coming to Hulu and wants to go back to that.  He also saw an ad for Sailor Moon and wants to add that to the rotation.  One of them might become the morning show once he’s done with Sonic X.  Lunch is still Yugioh.  Honestly, we do enough schoolwork to allow for these fun shows instead of sticking to educational ones.

For those who want to say that TV before bed is a bad idea, it doesn’t actually make much of a difference with him.  He might wake up and come into my room with a question about what we watched, but he’ll do that even if he doesn’t watch it.  He’s currently trying to design his own superpowers (My Hero Academia), magic ability (Harry Potter/Fairy Tail), and jutsu (Naruto).  It’s entertaining because it’s really stirred his creativity and that’s been helping me with teaching him the other stuff.  Being able to put a creative twist to math and science keeps him going.  So what if I have to use anime to help him understand metamorphosis.  It sticks.

As you can tell, this has primarily been a schoolwork week.  That isn’t to say I didn’t get any personal stuff done.  I’m currently 3 chapters away from finishing War of Nytefall: Savagery.  I’ll definitely be done next weekend.  I’ll use the rest of that time to fine tune the outline for Anarchy even though I’ll be editing Ravenous first.  I came up with a final title for The Ether Thief and changed stuff to revive an idea that I cannibalized.  I made a few more chapter titles for Do I Need to Use Dragons? (Tips to Writing Fantasy) and mucked around with a few other concepts.  My nights have been mostly puzzles, TV, and brainstorming.

Unfortunately, the brainstorming has come with a touch of melancholy.  It’s tough imagining all of these ideas and then wondering if I’ll ever get to them.  Not to mention I keep struggling to think of a way to get attention to my books.  Yes, I know this keeps coming up.  Paying for advertising doesn’t get my money book.  Blogs don’t work and you can’t swap reviews.  Everyone is begging online and only a few people seem to have maintained a strong team of supporters that announce their things.  Those don’t usually return the favor too.  So, it’s great that I’m getting my creation mojo back, but I never had the business mojo to go along with it.  Can’t figure out where to go from here and I really want to go somewhere.

This coming week is going to be more of the same.  Only thing that changes is what I watch on TV.  Finished ‘Ghost in the Shell 2045’ and ‘The Magicians’ Season 3.  I jumped to ‘Blackadder’ for some comedy.  I think I’ll try ‘The Great’ next.  Takes me a while to get through episodes since I’m outlining while watching.  So, I keep pausing when my brain can’t maintain the balance.  I tried working without the TV on, but the silence doesn’t work for me.  Anyway, that’s really the only major changes.  Life is fairly routine and I can’t be outside for long before the pollen gets to me.  That damn oak tree is just waiting for me to open the window again.

Goals of the week:

1. Schoolwork
2. Fun with the son
3. Finish writing War of Nytefall: Savagery
4. Start outlining The Ether Thief: Punctured Soul (Like it?)
5. Make a list of stories that will be short story collections
6. Make book list for Phi Beta Brigade
7. More chapter titles for Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Tips to Writing Fantasy)
8. Decide on what the next big project will be.  (War of Nytefall: Anarchy or the fantasy tip book)
9. Get pizza for lunch today.