The grading continues. I am currently reading about four dozen feature profiles. Some have some nice potential, a few are already there. Many of the students writing these pieces have found interesting people to write about. That’s the first step.
After that, well, you have to spend time with them, spend time on them. Learn all about them. And then write it. Feature profiles aren’t hard. They take a lot of time. And then they get difficult. There’s a great craft to writing a profile about a stranger, and having your audience wants to read more. And because of all of that, it’s interesting to see how people take their first attempt at trying to write such a thing.
At my current pace I should get everything done at just about midnight, tomorrow night.
I try to give everyone some useful and specific feedback, you see. So it’s time intensive for me, too. For some, I am encouraging them to continue to work on this story. A few aren’t far away from being published. Hopefully one or two will take that advice.
For one of my breaks away from the computer today I went outside to … pick up sticks. The yard is littered with them from a storm here and wind there. Initially, I despaired at what I would do with all of these sticks and small limbs. And then I remembered: we have a fire pit.
So now we have a growing stack of kindling.
It sits near this pear tree, which still looks lovely.
Also nearby is a nice little growing stand. A good place for herbs and other things that have a shallow root system. In a week or two, perhaps, we’ll get to this in earnest. But, for now, I am enjoying seeing the things that pop up all on their own.
I’m cheering for you guys, and I’ll put a version of that picture will eventually make its way into becoming another banner here on the site.
Let’s head back to California for another peaceful little beach video.
Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.
And if you, like me, are a fan of the slow motion crashing of waves, here’s another one of those.
Not to worry. There are plenty more videos where those came from.
