How was your summer? 100 days of pools and beaches. Vacations and family visits. Outdoor fires and smores. Sparklers are my favorite thing of summer.
What’s your summer bucket list? Homegrown tomatoes? Blackberries hot from the sun, from a wild bush. (Preferably found while riding my bike.) Festivals and state fairs.
When I was little, I loved a vat of iced tea (a frosted beer stein, probably a 32 oz.) on my parents’ couch – a harvest gold wide wale corduroy couch with soft wide arms. You could open the book you were reading nice and flat, balance your iced tea, and read all day with a box fan on high blowing right at your face. I remember a summer we all aimed to read a book a day.
Don’t get me wrong, I also loved swimming, riding my bike, skateboarding and playing kickball or Capture the Flag into the night.
This year, we’ve had quite the summer. For my part:
I published Write Without the Fight – Master Your Creative Process to Write with Ease and Satisfaction, June 10th – and hit bestseller lists.
We all promptly got COVID – giving us an unexpected week of the Great British Bake Off and the Julia Child Cooking Challenge. We were pretty sick – but only for 5 or 6 days, and on July 4th we tested negative and found a great new restaurant for breakfast. (Not a small accomplishment. We’ve been back already a dozen times, I think.)
I wrote, got approved and recorded my TEDx speech – It’s Not Just Mojo, the Surprising Science of Creativity (To debut this Fall!)
I’ve concluded the first rewrite of my novel. (Needs one more rewrite, which probably means 2 more. 🙁 )
And now we’re headed to England – for a surprise achievement that I can’t talk about yet. (It involves a TV appearance.)
Plus – home grown tomatoes and pumpkins just went into the ground to be ready in time for Halloween. (FIRST TIME EVER!!)
This time last year, I moved my office out my living room and into a shed we built in the back yard. So, this week has shown us – finally – the payoff of that move. Our living room is done remodeling and we’re decorating. The big pieces are in, and it is so satisfying. This remodel dragged us through garage organization and backyard rehab, and some changes in our bedroom, mid century modern furniture finding on FB marketplace, and learning how to cane cabinet doors. It shook the whole house up. And now it’s done, and we can sit comfortably on our newish couch, see out to the backyard, and enjoy our new terrazzo tiled hearth. (and TV, of course. I didn’t mean to be a snob.)
Fall is just around the corner, and with it will be some big doings in Write Without the Fight FB group. We still have a few weeks of daily writing together – come on over! – and Microfiction Prompts 2 x a week. It’s been a chill summer – but we’ll be revving it up this Fall.
Take advantage of the last few weeks of summer! Hope you’re writing.