Summer

Summer flowers (these are Kalmia -- very showy, no? -- even the buds are interesting) and new life (those are junco eggs in our fuschia) give us so much pleasure. We're having very lazy days reading, playing games, watching the birds and squirrels in our backyard, going swimming, even napping. I had hoped to work more productively on my novel revisions, but find that I'm too tired to work at the end of a lazy day.

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What I am doing is writing in my notebook -- I usually start out with a writing prompt from this wonderful book: Prompts and Practices by Judy Reeves. After a few minutes, it invariably leads me to some random bit in my novel. I write for as long as I can, usually about 20 minutes or so, before my train of thought is interrupted. But it's enough for now. I hope I can find all the good bits in the fall ...

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I realize that I need to be able to write daily to keep my equilibrium. Writing is how I make sense of the world, how I process thoughts and ideas. I get cranky without my daily writing fix. My trusty notebook and pen go everywhere with me.

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Tell me, how do you stay disciplined during the summer? Or do you take the summer off and just recharge, be lazy? Before school days, I worked only on short stories, I mean very short stories, those you can scribble out a first draft in 10-15 minutes, but I find that for longer works I need more than 15 minutes to make progress. An hour with no interruptions is the bare minimum. And I can carve out that time at night ... but I'm sorry to say, my discipline is flagging.

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I've been reading some wonderful books instead:

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The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson is the kind of book that makes you think -- deep and hard -- about what it means to be human. As a scientist who doesn't always believe in progress (just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should do it), I found this to be a thought-provoking book. I am usually not a fan of novels written in the present tense, but it is just the right voice for this book.

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The Doctor by Patricia Duncker is historical fiction that imagines the life of James Miranda Barry, who was discovered upon his death to be a woman. I was instantly reminded of Rough, Tough Charley by Verla Kay, who was able to encapsulate the life of a certain Charley Parkhurst in just 32 pages. Mem Fox was right when she said, "Writing a picture book is like writing War and Peace in Haiku."

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling is probably my most favorite book out of the series. We are finally reading these books together with the children and they are enjoying them immensely. Both kids are also reading ahead, but reading together is something I hope we will continue for a long time to come.

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