Or: What I'm Not Doing This Summer
(Also, it is storming right now so if this post is late, it's only because the power went out. Yeah. That's it.)
Some of you might know that I work at my library doing Storytime. During the summer, we have a student who comes and does it instead (it's a grant thing) so I get the summer off. For my other job, my boss has decided to take the summer off so for the most part, I'm off from that, too.
So you might think I'd do something like, oh, say, write a new book.
Nope. Now, mind you, I'm not saying this would work for anyone but me, and by next year, I could have completely changed my mind about the whole thing, but right now, I don't write books in the summer.
Where I live, summer is not usually long. It often snows from late October to April here. That's seven months of snow, if you're keeping track, and it's not unusual for here. We had a mild winter this year (only a couple weeks of -40) and an early spring (and then more snow, but then it melted again), but THAT is unusual for here. In any case, there are SEVERAL months out of the year where I will GLADLY stay inside as much as possible.
(Hey, I'm not the only one. The kid I baby-sit isn't much of a winter person, either. Which is good. As long as I come up with something for us to do after school during the winter, we're both happy to stay inside. It works out well.)
But in the summer, that is another story.
I want to sit outside with my feet in my kiddie pool under an umbrella slathered with sunblock and read for hours (picture here for the general idea, although we had to get a new pool 'cause the old one got scuzzy and the chairs had to be replaced because they got damaged in the hair storm that year - also, I was baby-sitting when this was taken hence the Disney Princess beach balls).
I want to read books that are more than 500 words long because as much as I love picture books and love my job, I get burned out by the routine and also, most of the year, I don't have any hold slots left on my library card (we only get fifty and I use them all), and I like being able to order books on my own library card because that is awesome.
I want ice cream because ice cream.
So right now, until probably when I go back to work, I'm doing the other stuff besides drafting. Reading (it's important for writing!), research, trying to figure out the plot of one of my books that's already written because that's gonna take something, absolutely nothing at all. And that's probably going to be all I'm going to do this summer.
What are your summer plans?
Peace and cookies,
Laina
