Oh Joyous Summer

There is no feeling quite like a Michigan summer day. The sun seeps down and delves through your skin into bones turned brittle, by five long months of winter. Smiles come back, road rage subsides, and the lake glints like glass, harnessing a clear blue sky. I am eternally thankful for summer. But on to topics of significance, my revisions have stalled in lieu of masters program preparation. I am currently assembling transcripts, letters of recommendation, and writing samples to ship off for consideration. I have teetered on the MFA fence for some time now and after a long discussion with my husband, have decided to take the plunge. With that and my job, time for my book has dwindled to maybe a couple of hours a week. However, there is not time even to fret, for every second that passes thinking about "not working on my book," I'm Not working on my book. So that is it for now, I would like to continue, but again the clock is ticking...  

Writing Prompts

Well I have been in novel revision hysteria lately, so I took this morning to escape the pages of red ink and grammatical errors and do writing prompts instead. I often forget how wonderfully insightful writing prompts truly are. You escape from your typical subject and genre and simply write. Whether it be in reaction to a quote or a character or a plate broken on the floor, any image can conjure a whole novel of life that exists in your mind. Sometimes as I "novel" write, I get bogged down by the obstacles of audience, and publishing, and commercial value. But just writing, writing at random feels so good that I am instantly reminded why I must be a writer. Whether I am a financial success or I simply cling to a stack of unpublished manuscripts and tattered journals, I really do not care (well I care a little), but the true reality is that few things bring me joy and fulfillment the way that writing does. And I am so happy and thankful for that. Because although many of our childhood fantasies about being whom-ever and whatever we want to be often vanish in the night, doing what you love does not go away. Perhaps the eternal optimism that it will be a career gets tarnished, but the actually doing it, never does.