I wouldn't want to touch the bed bug contaminated stuff either, yuck!

Yes it must be good to see the problem kids change and become better behaved, even seeing them grow up and settle down etc.  My son was a bit of a handful in school when he was really young, but once he got to year 6 (age 10/11) he finally had a teacher who understood how to treat kids with aspergers/autism and he became a different child in school.

I know that not all kids have that as an excuse and are just generally awful.  I think a lot of the time these days is because parents are lazy and can't be bothered.  They just sit them in front of the TV or ipad while they themselves are on their phones.  My daughter has kids in her class who don't even know basic stuff, and all they want to do is play on ipads!

I forgot about your bedbug debacle! Crazy!!

Oh, no worries. I figured you just missed it. lol

Your directions made sense, I'll let you know if it works when I try it. I'm not going to start posting until October. I want to really give myself a good head start, and I need a title. Succession hits vary on the kind of story it is. Most of them tend to be in the 2 - 3,000 range but some Roman and Gerri's are all the way up past 8,000. Number of chapters have to do with it as well. My story was 22 chapters so 5,000 would be pretty good. However, the sex filled RomGerri fics would hit 5,000 in 5 chapters. People are horndogs!

Thanks, Steph! I can't believe I've already written three novel size Succession fics and about to post number four. I really only saw myself writing maybe two tops.

It really does suck having those kids every single year. Sometimes they start out little sweethearts and then something clicks in them once puberty hits and they become terrors. That happened to one of my little boys. He was a doll until 7th grade and then I don't know what happened to him, but he became intolerable. The best is when it happens the other direction. When they are awful in K-3 and then suddenly you start to see them mature and calm down.  Unfortunately, it tends to happen the other way more often. Ironically, it's the behavior problems that always seek me out on FB. It's weird having a good number of former students as my FB friends and seeing them getting married and having babies. It's nice to see so many thriving. A handful going on into music ed or other artistic fields. One of them is running for town council.

Well done on starting a new story Mare.

Those school kids who disrupt the rest of the class must be hard work.  My daughter is a teaching assistant and often comes home with stories of some of the awful kids.

I just realized I missed your whole post at the top of this page LOL.  Sorry for asking questions you already answered!  I was still catching up on the posts on the previous page of this thread when posted Friday night.

That is so true about the difficult kids rarely/never missing school.  Their parents don't want to deal with them at home either!  As a specials teacher, I'm sure it was difficult to have to deal with all the kids in the school year after year.  I may be stuck with them most of the day, every day for a year, but at least I can send them on to 5th grade when the year's over LOL.  Pros and cons of different teaching positions.

I'm glad you've been getting a lot of writing done!  Congrats on starting a new story!  I usually struggle to come up with titles, too.  Like you, I either come up with it really quickly or agonize over it forever.  Unlike you, I can't make much progress on the story without having a title I feel good about.

When you go to post the sequel, there's an option to check "This work is part of a series."  Then it gives you the option to create and use a new series.  You type a name for the series in the box.  Then, once you post the sequel, the series will appear in the Series section on your dashboard.  You'll also need to edit the first story to check this same option and add it to the series.  Then you can go to the Series section to edit and reorder the series so the stories show up in the right order.  I hope that makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't!

LOL I keep an eye on my stats the same way.  If Invisible Child is already at 4,981, you should hit 5,000 soon.  My hits are still going up on My Brother's Keeper, which is the predecessor to the story I'm writing now, just not as quickly as they did when I was actually updating it.  I was thrilled just to get to 3,000 hits with those two, so you're doing great to be at almost 5,000!  I know the stats are all relative based on fandom, though.

I'm glad you enjoyed it as a quick and easy pool read!  I still haven't read the third one because my tablet I use as an e-reader is still quarantined in my garage because of the bedbug debacle from my vacation, and I refuse to buy a physical copy when I have the first two digitally.  The second one was about the same as the first - not exactly high-brow literature but a fun and fast read.

I forgot to tell you, that I read The Housemaid on the cruise. You were right it was a really fast and easy read. Not the best thing in the world and I highly doubt I'll be reading the rest in the series because I didn't much care about the main character, but it made for an excellent thing to read by the pool. I should have brought three books because I ended up having to go buy one because I had finished both only halfway through the cruise. LOL

Like I told Steph, my sister won't let me leave a bad review because this girl is a friend of a friend and came highly recommended from that friend. It's annoying.

Classroom discipline was always my least favorite thing. I hated it! I would always dread seeing those classes that had a few really hard kids in it and would just be elated if one of them were absent. Regretfully, those were also the kids that never missed school. Their parents would send them even when they were sick, which was probably part of the problem. I felt bad for the regular classroom teachers who had to deal with some of them all day long, but then again, the plus to that would also be a constant when it came to discipline. When those kids come to the specials, a lot of them feel like it's a break from behaving. When they go to a special, unless they're in their own classrooms for it, they get to sit somewhere different and usually are engaging in a fun activity which also sets them off. I always did fine with the younger ones but when it came to 7th and 8th, they are like an entirely different ballgame. I don't miss that part of it, that's for sure!

I've actually been doing a good amount of writing. I was able to update my other story this week and I think I'll have another chapter done in time to update again next week. I'm two chapters into my new story and will probably start on chapter 3 right after I click off here. With that one, it helps knowing people are actually looking forward to reading it. I still have no clue what I'm going to name it though. That is seriously always the hardest thing for me. Either I get the name even before I start writing, or it takes me forever to come up with one. Speaking of sequels, do you know how to link the two stories together as a series? I know it can be done but I can't figure out how. I tried to do that with my short stories but had no luck.

Have fun seeing Nick. I think he was just up here in Niagara Falls, but the Canadian side.

Random, but I had really wanted to get to 5,000 on the Invisible Child and was bummed It had stopped at around 4,780. But I've noticed it's been steadily going up. Maybe people are reading to get ready for the sequel? Not sure but it's up to 4,981. I'm hoping it'll hit 5,000 before I start posting the new one. I'm a dork! LOL

Ugh... like Steph said, I hope you'll leave her a negative review if you haven't already!

Yes, that's exactly how these two are.  The atmosphere is totally different when they're absent, out of the room, or actually following directions without disruption... but when it's the latter, there's still the tension of not knowing what could trigger them to start spiraling again.

Ooh, random kudos are always fun!  I got a guest kudo on three different fics in one day recently, which is rare, so I assume it was all the same person.

How's your writing been going since finishing your fic and getting back from your cruise?  Are you starting to get your inspiration back for your other story?  Mine has been slow lately.  I had plans the past two weekends, so I didn't have as much time to write as I wanted to, and I'm trying to get stuff done around the house this weekend because I'm going to see Nick next weekend.  No complaints there, though!