“I just want to write this summer,” we say. And then summer is upon us, with swim lessons, sudden emergencies, that exercise regime we also meant to implement, the family or friends who visit so seldom we can’t help but turn days over to them, or weeks. Work piles up. The days are long and glorious but the demands on them are long and weighty, too. Where did writing go in all of it?
Sometimes if you want leisure, you have to schedule leisure. If you want support, you have to ask for it and bolt it into place. If you want summer days reserved for following your pen where it will go, you have to plan your escape now.
That one-day workshop you signed up for in May, thinking it would be a sweet wave in the sea of your writing summer, becomes the beacon, the island where you crawl ashore and remember writing. Your characters. That story. Passion and creativity.
Come talk about summer strategies for fitting writing in. Summer inspirations: walks and hikes can spur prose; children can be engaged in exercises that work your story muscles; stories can be printed out and left in the bathroom for visiting guests to read! Let’s get creative and talk about what is troubling us, what works and what we mean to accomplish before the end of summer rolls around . . .
I’m seeing the benefit of the weekly writers contact. Left to my own devices, I’m feeling like a sluggard, not writing and feeling like a good friend moved away for the summer.
Those craft classes seemed like just another commitment but I know now that they got me writing, even to compose a paragraph. the classes kept me thinking about writing in a positive manner and not pushing my creative psyche off into the kitchen to think about dinner.
Am thankful for my 12,000 words due in August. At least I have a deadline and that helps. Plus I’m reading my classmates words and that’s always fun. I want to find out what’s happening with their characters.
Ahem. Yes. I have been saying that I have 3 weeks starting this Monday – to finish this draft up. But I know that the numerous temptations await me, to pull me away from my work and into the glorious warm Atlantic waters, etc. etc. Still, when else do I get to have three weeks without having to earn, do my job, teach? No work commitments is something I have to take advantage of so I here we go!
@Bree — It will be great in the fall to get back to our Book Writing World routines. Meanwhile, see if carrying a notebook or directing your daydreaming to your writing projects can make the summer months productive in unexpected ways.
@JulieRappaport — Do the writing first each day and let the temptations become rewards, as well as fuel for the next day’s work. And set a daily minimum. Finishing the whole book can be a trap as well as a goal, so make sure you know what you need to do day by day. Enjoy!