Unschooling Book One is Done!

I have some BIG news. I wonder if you can guess what it is. If you subscribe to my unschooling newsletter or follow me on Instagram, you’ll already know what I’m about to say:

I’ve finished writing and editing my first unschooling book!

Yesterday, I enjoyed sharing this news with my newsletter community friends:

I’ve just done something amazing. At least I think so. I’ve finished writing and editing my first unschooling book. Book one is done!

Book one? Did you hear that a few weeks ago, I checked the word count of my unschooling book? I got a shock. I’d written 213,000 words. When I told my daughter Imogen, she laughed and said, “You haven’t written one book, Mum. You’ve written two or three!” All those words. No wonder it was taking me so long to finish the book.

I decided to make two books out of what I’d written. Book one is mainly focused on educational unschooling and book two covers unschooling parenting. There’s a bit of an overlap because the two areas of unschooling are woven together in life. Anyway, I have finished book one! Book two still needs a bit of work, but it shouldn’t take me too long to get it to the publishing stage.

I set myself a deadline to finish my book: the last day of this year. And I made it with a day to spare!

Last night, I was happy dancing around the house. I kept saying, “Did I tell you I’ve finished my unschooling book?” My family kept smiling and replying, “You’ve finished your book? That’s fantastic! Congratulations!” Aren’t they wonderful? I just love how we all get so excited for each other.

I wouldn’t have an unschooling book without my family. Not many husbands and kids would be happy to have their stories published for anyone to read. I feel so grateful that they believe in what I’m doing and are willing to share their lives with everyone.

I also wouldn’t have a book without my friends. Over the past couple of years, so many people have encouraged me to write this book. Many times I was ready to give up. But my friends believed in me and so I kept writing. Thank you!

So what is my book like? It’s a collection of stories arranged by subject matter in (I hope) a logical order. I’ve tried to link everything so that it’s easy to read. Some of the stories are already on my blog, but I have updated many of them. But there’s also a lot of new stories.

I chose to write stories because stories capture the imagination. They can give concrete examples of unschooling in action. Anyway, stories are my thing. They are what I write! Some stories are about my family. Others are more factual. There are lots of ideas and thoughts and examples. I hope everything works well together to give a good overall picture of unschooling.

I added a PS to my newsletter:

I’ll let you know when my first unschooling book is available. In the meantime, I shall be working on book two. Maybe I should set myself another deadline to make sure that the book gets finished very quickly!

I’ve discovered that deadlines can be very useful!

So what do you think? Wasn’t that a great way for me to end 2018?

It’s now the first day of 2019. A whole year stretches ahead of us. How will we fill all those days? What will we achieve? Will we have another amazing unschooling year? Well, here are a few things I’m going to do this year:

• Publish unschooling book one. (It still needs a title!)
• Finish editing book two and publish it.
• Plan an unschooling book with my daughter Sophie. We’d like to write about unschooling from a teenager’s point of view. This might be a fun project!
• Continue podcasting.  Did you hear that my husband Andy gave me a Yeti mic for Christmas? Will it make my voice sound good? Will I find some good topics to talk about? Maybe you have some suggestions!
• Write more unschooling blog posts. And maybe I’ll start posting on my empty blog. I’d like to experiment. Try something new!

If you’re not already subscribed to my newsletter, why not sign up? (There’s a signup form at the bottom of this post.) I only write a new edition every few weeks. There’s no danger that your inbox will overflow with all my unschooling stuff!

And if you have an account, you could connect with me on Instagram. Most days, I post a photo and a caption that might lead to an interesting unschooling discussion!

Well, that’s all I want to share with you. I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing recently. Did you receive a Christmas gift that made you smile extra-wide? Were your gifts for other people successful? Did you have a joyful Christmas celebration? I hope so!

And did you get any sleep last night? I didn’t. The fireworks and our neighbours’ singing and our barking dogs (who didn’t like all the noise) kept me awake. But it doesn’t matter. That happened last year. We’ve moved on. Today is the start of a whole new year!

Happy New Year!