by Donna Andrews.
Today's the summer solstice. The good news is that now the summer of 2016 has officially begun. The bad news is that from tomorrow on, the days start getting shorter.
Welcome to summer, the season of half-full yet half-empty glasses.
It's the time when those of us who have been cooped up indoors for way too much of the time all winter look forward to getting out and enjoying the sun and the fresh air. And we can enjoy it, as long as we bring along our sunscreen and bug repellant, wear long sleeves and long pants to keep away the ticks and mosquitoes, and chug enough liquids to keep ourselves from keeling over from dehydration.
And even grownups feel a surge of joy at the impending end of the school year, with its echoes of freedom and long, lazy hours ahead . . . until we remember that come the end of the school year, someone has to watch the kids, chauffeur them, entertain them, or at least stop them in mid-flight occasionally to administer sunscreen, bug repellant, and hydration.
When I was a kid—even through college—summer meant reading time. I'd start the summer off with a visit to the library, or the bookstore, and prepare to hole up in my room with a stack of novels. Lately, my writing schedule has been such that at the beginning of summer, instead of stocking up on books for long days of reading, I'm battening down the hatches for a long spell of draft writing.
In many ways planning a book's the most enjoyable part of writing it. I remember once hearing a writer—pretty sure it was Barbara Hambly, but willing to consider that I'm misquoting her—talk about another writer friend who had trouble getting started on projects. As long as the project was still in his head, it was the best, most brilliant thing he would ever write, the masterpiece that would make him known to a larger audience and let him go down in the history of the genre. But that magic sense of possibility and wonder can disappear as soon as you put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) to hammer out a draft. Drafts are messy, embarrassing, painful, by definition imperfect, and much less satisfactory than plans and pipe dreams in every way. Well, almost every way. There is one thing about drafts that makes up for all their shortcomings--they're real.
The planning phase is essential--even for those writers who don't formally outline--but it's hard to measure your progress, to quantify how much you've done and how much longer you need. So I'm always glad when I decide that yes, I'm ready . . . or the calendar tells me that ready or not, here comes my deadline, so I'd better start laying down some words.
If I seem a little distracted when you meet me, or grow a little less active on social networking, blame it on the book. Then again, sometimes you'll see me out and about more than ever, posting and Facebooking and tweeting like crazy. Let's hope, when that happens, that it's happening because I've finished my quota for the day, and not because social networking is such an excellent form of writing avoidance.
It's 111 here in So Cal today. It's definitely the first day of summer!
Good luck with your drafting. I am already looking forward to reading the results.
Posted by: Mark | June 20, 2016 at 09:31 PM