What’s a poor middle-grade writer to do when his head is still living in May but the calendar says it’s August? And what in the world happened to all those lofty creative summer goals he would stack into the “Done” pile once he had all that summer free time to work?
Here we sit, the calendar reads August 5, 2024, and the “Done” pile doesn’t look much different than it did in early June. Plus, the “To Do” pile is not only in a state of chaos but I think it’s grown by an exponential factor, defying the first law of creative physics.
The reality is becoming apparent. The Summer of Creativity 2024 has turned into the Summer of Procrastination 2024.
The responsible creator brain inside of me tells me I messed up and fritted away precious creative time. I should feel bad, right?
Guess what? I don’t.
I had a great summer. I just didn’t get a lot of the planned creative projects completed.
There was a garden that’s done pretty well so far. Cucumbers, zucchini, squash, peppers, tomatoes, and did I mention zucchini? I’m experimenting this year with sweet potatoes so we’ll see how that experiment pans out in a few weeks.
There was a return to baseball coaching with my grandson’s t-ball team. Honestly, that was so much more fun than I expected. I got to meet some really cool kids and their people.
There was preparation for a professional kitchen and bathroom remodel my wife has been waiting 20 years for. Nothing charges up the creative battery more than demolishing things with a sledgehammer.
There was my 60th birthday. My lesson learned with this milestone is 100% I don’t feel at all like I’m 60. In my head, the controlling influence is that 14-year-old smartass I was in 1978. He’s the main driver of my middle-grade writing voice so I have to give him his head space.
There is, of course, the Summer Olympics and a rare chance to see shot put featured on television.
The top distraction of Summer 2024, however, has to be my family. We’ve had a great summer of fun and sun, laughing and playing, and just hanging out. Whatever I didn’t accomplish on the creative front was made up ten-fold on the life front.
One thing I’ve noticed being in this creative business since 2012 is a full tank of life almost always leads to a full creative tank. Funny how that works. A creative brain needs the inputs in order to create the outputs.
So August, bring it on!
It’s time to reboot with the summer’s energy as the driving force.
New kitchen.
New bathrooms.
New experiences.
New stories.
Life is life. It’s our job to make the best of it.
Read. Write. Repeat.
FOTO:Fortepan — ID 3455: Adományozó/Donor: Unknown. archive copy at the Wayback Machine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
