My not so crafty week

The first week of the non-teaching break has been filled with working on a text book for next year's new Year 12 ITA course. We are a bit late in the year to be finishing drafts, but that is the way it is.

We have first page proofs through of the text book and changes need to be made because the actual writing was finished BEFORE the finished Study Design was released to teachers. So lots of refining, redefining and reshuffling is occuring to make sure that things line up, sound good and are accurate.

The good news is that once this is one, the second page proofs shouldn't need much editing at all.

In between doing edits I dipped my toes into the crafty world and I have ordered some yummy Moda Origin's charm packs which should arrive next week some time, a timely reminder to get on with my sewing projects. I just love the colour combination of this charm pack.

Once I get the charm packs through I will have to remember to order a few yards of matching fabric for the back and sashing ... hmm can't wait to work with these colours!

How do you write your blog posts?

I wear a lot of hats ...mother to Tori, wife to Andreas, teacher to many, crafter, business woman and writer ... yes writer!

At the moment I am working on manuscripts for the new version of Year 12 Information Technology Applications and Year 11 Information Technology textbooks. Three chapters in total, some of it re-working of old stuff into new stuff, some of it from scratch (such as the chapter on data visualisation and cloud computing).

When I tell people this they generally look twice as they tend not to consider that I would have a conducive personality to writing. Yes I am impulsive, a bit distant at times, I tend to get tounge tied, and yes it takes a great deal of self discipline to sit down and write (especially when you are ten steps away from a sewing machine), but I can do it ... I know I can!

Why do I write?

When you are in the writing zone, it is addictive ... my brain starts ticking, my fingers start typing and it gets me thinking, creating and linking to what is happening out there in the world.

At the moment, Inforation Technology is the only thing I write about apart from my blog and I would love the opportunity to change this and do more writing.

I enjoy doing secondary text books, as I can take what I have done and then bring it into the classroom where I can see the impact it has on the students learning. I tend to be quite creative in coming up with case study scenario's and you can generally pick out which chapters are mine by the types of images I choose.

Blog writing

As for my blog, when I am on a roll I am on a roll. For example; this blog post was conceived about 6 weeks ago when the moment grabbed me. I wrote down a few thoughts, saved it as a draft and I have been back a few times since then to add a picture or a few additional thoughts. Once finished it is either scheduled (such as this week when I *know* I am going to have a busy week) or it just sits there for the right moment.

I currently have 20 draft posts in my blog sitting there, fermenting, waiting on the right time, image and thoughts. So what do you want me to write about in this blog?