finish writing my course

Anyone who has written a course before knows that “finished” should be in quotes, really. It’s never finished, after all; I’m still revising my last course I wrote over two years ago.

Nevertheless, the material is all together now to the level that I need it for a successful class. I’ve finished all the examples and quizzes, and even got it to a couple of people for copy editing, and did the format clean up (like consistent font sizes and capitalizations, placement of boxes, etc.) to the point that it actually looks polished.

Now the handouts have been sent to the powers that be for calculation of royalties and copyright, and to publisher for printing, with a dozen hours to spare. Of course I’ll continue to work on the flow, and even add some more material to the presentation, but at this point it’s all gravy; if I did nothing more, the course would be fine.

Yay, me!

This is all I’m doing now, every moment I have when I’m not watching the kids. I even skipped morning pages yesterday (gasp!) to work on my class.

I have already submitted the first version to the editors, the power-that-be, and the copyright people, but I’m still working the last few sections, the examples, the quizzes, and the final proof-work.

I expect to be done by 23:59 12/31/07, but not by much.

I finished another section, so the course is truly well over half way done now. I’ve past the point where it feels insurmountable, and now it’s just a matter of time (literally, since I need to be done by 1/1) I’m very pleased with this work, and not just that; I like the fact that when I’m working on it, I can feel myself slip into creative mode, and the words just fly.

Sure there’s a slog of editing to come, but that’s true with “creative” writing, too.

This has been my focus of creative work lately. The total course is one full day, and it covers 14 sections of a drawing notation standard; not exactly riveting material to work with.

But I’ve been plowing through the pile of standards, organizing, adding comments and tidbits and quizzes to make it more interesting and informative, and it’s actually starting to take shape.

Like with a short story, a course can never really be completed; you just get it to the point where you decide to stop fiddling with it. So sticking with that analogy, I’m in the free-writing stage, not worrying about flow or editing for now, without all the little vignettes and word-play that will make it a good course, but getting all the base material down on paper. Or in this case, powerpoint slides.

OF the fourteen sections covered by the course, I’ve finished 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10. About half-way done!

_{then comes the editing, cleanup and hard work. but for now, it’s fun!}