After reflecting for not very long on my August 30, 2023 blog post, I have decided to opt for an attempt at authoring a book. I actually found a LaTeX template, made some modifications, made a rough outline, and started writing. One thing that became immediately evident is my lack of formal writing skills. I learned a lot going through the correction process when I prepared technical articles and my dissertation during my Ph.D., but that is a very different kind of writing from what I hope to produce.
The idea for the book is to tell our homeschool story. Whether anyone would be interested in reading the story was the first question that came to mind, but it also dawned on me that writing down what would be interesting to me and worth doing whether anyone else was interested or not. The story could serve as family history if nothing else. There are also some things I do not want the book to be. The worst outcome possible would be to turn it into a self-indulgent hagiography or a homeschool apologetic. The idea would be to tell the story, identifying where we thought we failed and succeeded, describing the questions we asked ourselves that would be common to anyone making decisions about their children’s educations, but also what we chose to do based on our own unique circumstances.
I have completed first drafts of the preface, introduction (chapter one), and the educational setting in our household before any kind of school was on our radar (chapter two). From what I have written so far, I think it is going to take me a year or so to just get a first rough draft complete and, even then, I will have to work at it pretty hard. Part of the reason I am writing about this now is to embarrass myself if I do not keep going and finish the thing. To that end, I plan to post about the book’s progress as I write it. Maybe in the next post, I will put up the (very early) first draft of the Table of Contents. If this does not work out, maybe I will return to the idea of getting a law degree.
Month 0 WEIGHT: 235.1 lbs. BMI: 36.6