So life has been…pretty busy!
Obviously, I haven’t been doing a great job of keeping up with the posts like I used to. However, that is something I want to do better about, if anything just so I can have a good reason to keep paying for this website. So let’s start by going over some of the things that have been keeping me so busy.
Teaching
I started teaching in a new district this year, and boy howdy has it been a whirlwind of activity. As anyone who has switched teaching districts (or even campuses) will tell you, just because you have experience in one place does not necessarily mean that you can come in to a new district 100% prepared. Even within the same region, different school districts can have different policies, different expectations, different levels of wealth and technology, and going into a new district means having to adapt to all of those new things.
For me, the biggest change was switching to a more paperwork-centric role. I am still in the classroom – and in fact that is still what I spend most of my worktime doing, is teaching high school students – but now I am responsible for a lot more paperwork regarding compliance for EB (that’s “emerging bilingual”, or more commonly referred to as ESL) students.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like handling so much more paperwork when I started. It was a little overwhelming, if I’m being honest. But now that I’ve gotten my feet wet and have had some time to properly orient myself into the new role, I can say this: it’s actually kind of fun!
Don’t get me wrong, dealing with paperwork certainly comes with its own batch of frustrations. But I am a naturally-organized person, and the act of organizing and sorting out documents is fun to me (I know, I’m weird).
So in the end, part of my absence posting-wise has simply been due to a new job that has commanded a lot of my attention. But now that things are settling there, hopefully I can get back to it!
Marketing
Did I mention that I’ve published a book yet? Because I did!
One of the big things I’ve had to learn as I’ve begun this self-publishing process is how to market myself, which has proven to be a bit of a challenge. Sure, I’ve made YouTube videos before, I’ve had social media for years now, and I’ve been running this website for nearly a decade, but I’m still a pretty reserved person overall. The prospect of having to market something I made always felt…icky.
I’ve gotten better at it, I think, but it’s still a learning process. I’ve done a few author signing events, I created a TikTok account and started making videos of my book reviews there, and have even experimented with Facebook ads! At the same time, I’m just not one of those people who enjoys posting about themselves all the time, so marketing has proven challenging. My hope is to write a couple of blog posts talking about my process and journey in a way that will hopefully help some other people out.
NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is November, aka this month! I’m participating again after not really doing it last year, and while my progress hasn’t been great (I’m nearly 2000 words behind where I should be), it has been a helpful motivator in simply getting me to write again.
Does that mean that technically I am procrastinating in my book-writing to write this blog post?
…
Yeah. Yeah I am.
But that’s okay!
In short, life has been a little crazy these past few months. I’m hoping to pick up the blog-post-writing again (at least until the inevitable crash), and especially talk about balancing writing and teaching and all that!
Until next time!
Jacob Ryckman 