Having a Homeschool Business

Awhile back I read this blog post over at The History of the World Blog. In it Susan Wise Bauer says,
"Cooking, I think, must be like writing. You do the same thing day, after day, after day, after day. You’d better enjoy it for itself, not for the rewards."
This is really true. There are days when you don't want to write, but you have to keep going because people are counting on you finishing what you said you would finish. It's not about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, because frankly it's not there. There's not alot of money in writing homeschool curriculum, some, but not alot. Her post got me thinking alot about why I continue to move forward with Elemental Science. Lately I've seen too many companies start up only to have to change their plans before they even have one product out. This is discouraging to me because these ladies have worthy, marketable ideas, but the nitty gritty of getting it done has become to much. I have to admit that there are days when I'm overwhelmed by the process of writing a new program, but I also enjoy the process as well. I love tapping into that part of my brain that doesn't get used as much as it did when I was a part of the academic/working world. It's a thrill to see it all come together after I've worked through the "slog".

So what is the reality of having a homeschool business? Well, the last few weeks have been very hectic for me in the Elemental Science department. Not only am I working on finishing writing Physics for the Grammar Stage, but we are also working on getting all of our books published so that we can offer them directly from us. And although my hubby helps out on the administrative side by dealing with the printer, getting the ISBN's and so many more things, I'm the one who has to have the files ready to go. This should have been an easy process since all I needed to do was finish the quizzes for each program and the files would be ready to go. Not so, I've found out! The files were ready for me, but the printer had other ideas about how the files needed to look. So after spending countless hours reformating pages numbers, changing copyright pages, redoing the covers and resizing my files; they are finally ready to go! The proof copies are on their way and I couldn't be more excited! The process really is like given birth. It's a whole lot of pain to get it done, but when you finally see your baby for the first time, it's so worth it.