It’s homecoming night at Western Heights. I left the game at the start of the fourth quarter. We were whipping the Northwest Classen Knights 27-9 at that point. Homecoming has been interesting. High schoolers acting like third graders in bigger bodies …

Oh, did I write that out loud?

Benchmark testing — or nine-weeks tests — have begun. My juniors and sophomores wrote their essays this past week, and I wrote the test for the juniors. I have a pre-made district test for the sophomores. Plus, the juniors turned in their persuasive essays. So, I have about 110 essays to read and grade this weekend, along with about 40 spelling tests and vocabulary tests. And there are about 40 journals waiting for me during my planning period on Monday. Who said teachers have easy hours?

I’m also teaching my Writing Character Driven Horror Fiction class at Moore-Norman Technology Center again. That was a surprise to me, as I didn’t even realize I was signed up to teach it. They called a couple of Sundays ago to tell me the class had students enrolled and would start on that Tuesday. Two of my four students have taken the class before, so I’m improvising as I go to try to offer them something different. It’s actually more fun this way, but man, it sure adds to the workload.

I’ve done no writing for a while. That sucks. What’s even worse is that Inheritance cooled on me. Stupid me went and described the story to some friends and that seems to have jinxed it. I just haven’t had the burning desire to work on it since then. Never go into detail about what you’re working on! Never reveal the ending until the first draft is finished. I know better than that. I’ll get back to it, but it’ll be at least a week before I get there.

Werewolf Magazine No. 7 arrived a while back with the excerpt of Ulrik in it.

TrickConTreat was fun last weekend. Not much of a turnout … most of Oklahoma seemed to have drained into Texas to watch the Sooners and OSU Cowboys (mostly the Sooners, of course).

I’ll be reading again at Galileo’s Bar and Grill in OKC’s Paseo District on Halloween. It looks like Craig Wolf and Bev Hale will be joining me. I gotta read something short and snappy this time. And funny is always better. I’ll post more details about this later.