One would think that summer would be a time of awesome productivity for me. After all, it’s school vacation!
One would be wrong.
And I’ve finally decided to adjust my expectations to take into account that I get very little writing done in the summer.
For one thing, summer is not a creative season for me–at least not for writing. My stories are ice flowers–they blossom in the darkness of winter nights, the grey chill of a fall day, or in the bluster of an early spring wind. Summer is too big and gorgeous and golden; somehow the overgrowth of vines and weeds, the bloom of showy roses and peonies, sap my creativity rather than inspiring it.
It’s strange, I know, but it is what it is.
Two, the very lack of school-imposed structure, the daily and weekly march of education, works against me. With a summer full of vacations, camps, and swim lessons, every week looks different from the next. The mental adjustments of getting one kid to swim and another to camp, of coordinating pickups and dropoffs, of making sure I have the right kinds of snacks for camp lunches–all of these take up a lot of headspace.
Three, what creativity I have is taken up with planning the upcoming school year. So far, I’ve pored over catalogs, checked a gazillion samples online, scanned through pages of reviews, thought and pondered and talked at poor David, and finally, finally, ordered our books for next year.
And four–my house. Summer is the time to reorganize the pantry, straighten out the school room, go through toys and books and clothes. You know, all the stuff I’ve been avoiding all year, because, well, school.
Four, it’s nice to just relax and have lazy days. To be plain Mom instead of Teacher Mom. To play five games of Forbidden Island in one day or work on puzzle of a dragon on a rock or the Oxford Skyline.
When I start pining to go back to school (feeling that way now), when stories start sneaking into my head, when I feel the loss of creating something with my mind and hands, when summer is sliding fall-wards, then… then I know it’s time to write again.
I think every writer needs some lazy days! However, I do I think some part of us is stirring up a story even when we’re not aware of it. 🙂
Enjoy!
Yes, I agree. Summer is my least productive time of the year for writing. I think this is mostly habit, though. All those years of school, of writing three-fourths of the year and not doing much summer. I’m a night writer, and in summer, with the darkness not actually starting until close to bedtime, I tend to write much less.
However, I love still thinking of it as summer vacation, and yours sounds like a lot of fun, even with all that school planning, LOL!
Ah, yes, school training probably has a lot to do it with it, too. It’s also why I follow a Aug-May school year rather than a Sept-Jun one. It’s what I grew up with!
{blink} I thought productive vacations were primarily associated with people who don’t have children living with them. Somehow kids are amazingly good at taking over vacations. {SMILE}
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So this hiatus will pass, too. Consider yourself on vacation along with the kids, (at least for writing) and enjoy yourself. {SMILE}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
My kids are less with me in the summer than during the school year. For me, it’s really the upending of our normal routine that affects my writing more than having the children around (and mine are pretty good at occupying themselves–I like to refer to my summer parenting style as one of benign neglect 😀 *grin*).
Thanks!