New Year’s has never really meant that much to me… because, I suspect, New Year’s for me always hits in September.

This January stuff is nice for a few days off and a change of weather (btw, in Los Angeles, the temp dropped to a frigid 62 this week inspiring all of us in Southern California to declare WTF?), but my life is synced to an academic calendar more than it is to anything else. I guess that’s why when the ball drops in Times Square, I am not one of those people with poppers and funny hats ready to dance in the streets of New York.

The rest of the world may be thinking WELCOME 2010 but for me, I am usually more concerned with finishing what is already in motion. I need to get my students back into the saddle and up to speed as quickly as I can. And then I need to make hay because January is a good month for teaching.

February, of course is gonna blaze by — especially since there are holidays that will take away time from an already short month — and before I know it March, the biggest, most beefy teaching month of the year, will be here.

March, btw, is where we make our money. Have a good March and you will have made some real inroads. Have a poor March and you will look back on the year with “Oh, what coulda been.”

See, this is how I think. The year ends in June, begins in September and only muggles really dance in the streets in January — cause they do not understand the true nature of the universe’s actual schedule.

Let’s be honest… I am soft.

I mean I have a wife and a three year old daughter and the idea of setting sail to go to war where there’s a possibility that I may come home in a body bag is a choice I have never had to face. (Thankfully.)

The mere idea of it sends chills up my spine. And really, I am not sure if I have — or would have ever have had — the stomach to do it. And while I am anti-war and all that other “left-wing, Southern California” stuff, the fact is I have never had to face some of the hard decisions that people and families in the military have had to face.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I admire the heck out of them for their sacrifice, guts and convictions.

Forget the politics of it all. (Which is hard because war is politics in so many ways.) Veteran’s Day is a holiday with real meaning for many, many real people.

I mean my own grandfather left a pregnant wife (my grandmother was 7 months along with my father, their first) when he was but 21 years old to go do his duty in WWII.

He slept in foxholes. He ate crappy food. He even did latrine duty cause of his smart-ass mouth. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? LOL!!)

But he lived. (He’ll be 89 on X-Mas day.) Yet I never really understood what any of that meant until I became a dad myself.

Leave my pregnant wife to cross the world and go spend my days getting shot at not knowing if I’ll ever return to see my child or spouse? Uhm…

Veteran’s Day is the day to salute thousands and thousands of people who have made a sacrifice that is, if you think about it, almost mind-numbing in the scope of what it asks and potentially can take.

Hats off to the veterans and their families. Though a dude like me may not often seem to reflect it often enough, I admire the heck of out you.

And I hope it is not an affront for a non-military person to say that I really do salute you.

So how did I become a published author? I think the first answer I’d offer is, “mathematically”.

Here’s how I do it nowadays.

I am a full time high school teacher. This means I am up really early and am perpetually over-worked by the demands I face at school. But still, as we all know, so, so many teachers have 2nd jobs to make ends meet. I am no different. My school salary is not nearly enough to meet the financial demands of modern day life — especially in Southern California — so I, too, have a 2nd career.

That of an author. And to be an author, I have to write. Time (thus) becomes a professional tool which I must value and utilize well.

Here’s how it breaks down for me during the school year. (Note: this is a rough sketch, actual numbers

Monday through Thursday I make sure to put in at least 2.5 hours per night writing. Usually, my 3 year old daughter is in bed by 7:30 so between the school day ending for me a bout 3:45 p.m. and me allowing some time to get home, have dinner with my little “boo”, read her books, kiss my wife, exercise if I can squeeze it in and so on, I am usually “in the chair” by about 8:30. And I’ll go til 11. (Though I’ve been known to go to almost 1 on school nights which is nuts when you are up at 5:30 every morning but that’s another story.

All told, this makes for a minimum of 10 hours per week. (Friday nights are optional for seat time. Sometimes I work, sometimes I go out on “date night” sometimes I’ll rent a movie… but yeah, I’m a bit of an addict so probably twice a month I’ll do some stuff.)

Saturdays are 6 hours of writing time for me. Gotta do it. I need long stretches of uninterrupted time and the way I look at it, who doesn’t work 6 days a week. (Paper grading is the beast for me — avoiding it, that is. I bust my butt to get it done in the M-F wndow though, of course, some Sunday afternoons are spent with student compositions in hand.)

However, Sundays are also family day. I mean no writing at all. No computer, no email, no blogging. I will read some newspapers online if the moment allows but family day is family day. For example, this Sunday we’re all going to a pumpkin patch to prep for Halloween.

Add it all up and I do an average of 16 hours per week which equals 64 hours per month… and if you multiply that by a 9 1/2 month school year that’s 608 hours of writing time per school year.

But I get holidays, Spring Break and X-Mas, and summer. Let’s call it an 7 week “working summer” for me of a 35 hour per week writing week. (I work harder but it’s summer so let’s pretend I chill out more than I do.

That’s 245 more hours of writing. Add it all up and we are at 853 hours per year.

Now let’s imagine I am only good for 1/2 a page per hour of writing time. (Trust me, I am way better than that but I also put in a lot of “think time” for my books — despite what my critics may say… LOL! — which doesn’t translate into actual page production yet counts as “writing time”. So 1/2 a page per hour seems fair.)

Do all this math and you are talking about 426.5 pages of production each year from me.

All in all, writing a book is like eating an elephant; there’s only one way to do it.

Bite by bite.

If you want to be a writer, you have got to find the time. Writers, as I have said before, write.

So the fine folks of Pensacola absolutely implored me to come visit their school district because my book Homeboyz (so they swore) is absolutely beloved. (And if I was going to be in Orlando, I just could not leave the state of Florida without speaking to their students — and their teachers who were looking for innovative, exciting, refreshing and effective ways to reach their struggling students)

It was MAGICAL! I spoke to hundreds of kids who had read my books. (They couldn’t believe I was white.) I met hundreds of teachers who had taught or who were about to teach my books. (They were SO incredibly eager, excited and generous — Pensacola was IN THE HOUSE!!!) I signed so many books my hand is freakin’ killing me, I spoke so many words my voice is absolutely wrecked, I shared gobs of lessons, strategies and insights that instead of being drained I felt energized (caffeine helps), I’ve switched into 3 different times zones in 4 days and slept in different hotel beds with different pillows and had different levels of water pressure in the shower so that physically, emotionally and mentally I am just absolutely flying and absolutely drained all at the same time.

But I also feel America’s classroom are changing. It’s happening out there. People are sick of the textbooks. People are tired of the buffoonery that runs hand in hand with one size (supposedly) fits all material. People are eager to use real books that kids love to cultivate authentic literacy and reach real kids in ways that are true to their souls.

It’s absolutely incredible to see. I have a front row seat to a grass roots movement and while it’s personally quite taxing, I feel as if I am doing public service by visiting, chatting up and inspiring our nations kids and teachers. (BTW, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez is catching fire… multicultual kids, especially girls, are falling in love with the book.)

It might take all the strength I’ve got, but today was a day that proves there are things that are really working in America’s classrooms which the mainstream media does not cover. Things like Raven, who came up and told me that Homeboyz was the first real book she’s ever read in her life (and she’s a junior in high school) and now she is excited to read something new. Things like Ms. Boles doing Book Chats with kids who have been labelled dis-fluent by the state of Florida. (Dis-fluent? What the hell is that? You can’t make this stuff up!) Things like Esther posting that she’s bummed I am gone but thrilled that a rock solid sub, Mrs. Sampson, is taking my classroom in great directions while I am gone.

And now it’s time for a 9:30 p.m. dinner by myself. After, I am going to grade some student outlines I brought with me to Florida to make sure the expository essays we are working on at Lynwood are spot on.

If it sounds bonkers, it is.

But I did buy my daughter a cool gift and when I get home there’s a heck of a lot of daddy time coming. A b-day party for cousin Talia this weekend, maybe a walk down the beach with my wife and a BBQ in the Southern California weather.

Mix in a little sleep and then I’ll be good to go to help our nation once again next week. But up next, family. If I screw that up while I am out trying to change the world I am a bigger idiot than anyone else on the internet. There’s a fine line between work and work-a-holic and if I sacrifice the people most important to me to help be of service to something that is a vacuum with and endless suck (i.e. the needs of our country’s public schools) I am a fool.

Goodness, when they say teachers don’t work hard, I am not sure who the heck they are talking about. I meet hard working educators all the time. It’s our badge of honor.

And in Florida, I just met scores of them.

Keep it up folks — you rock!!