Yay! Today is the first day of school!!!! Completely silent and kid free home means more editing and writing will get done. No one is bothering me about being ‘bored’ or needing lunch. No sibling fights to referee.

Ah. Blissful, I tell you.

Funny how at the beginning of the summer, it’s fun to have the kids home every day. I miss them during the school because there is so much going on. Plus, it’s nice not to have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get them on the bus.

But something happens in August…even late July. The rumblings of dissatisfaction. The declarations about ‘having nothing to do’ become more frequent. My mind is full of mom thoughts rather than writer thoughts.

So, now I have NO excuse not to finish my edit in a week’s time. Yes, that is the plan. Finish editing the rest of my book for the typing session next weekend. Labor Day is the goal for having something ready to send to the old beta readers.

I hit about page 155 last night. That means 175 to go. And with no distractions…well, very few…the second half should go faster.

Now all I have to do is stop reading blog posts and articles about writing and published writers. They always intimidate me….talking about character arcs and the importance of each and every sentence. Yikes! I try to think these are writers who are detail-oriented. Who work with outlines and notecards and sticky notes. Who use different colored pens to mark certain parts of their story.

Um, ’cause I don’t do that. I look at the book as a whole to make sure it makes sense and is believable. That’s about the extent of it. Does that sound really amateur? Sometimes I think it does. I’m more about the sum of the parts than each individual piece. I’m also more about story than technique. I can’t think too much about how I write each sentence. Gah! I don’t know how a writer *could* do that!?!

Those that fiddle for weeks over an opening line? Um, I so don’t get that. I go more for the opening paragraph or page grabbing you. For that first chapter to thrust you into something.

I’m not a writer who would give valuable information at a seminar with handouts and special Power Point slides. I’d be more likely to give you a five minute pep talk about how you just have to finish a book first before you worry about anything else. How structure in a novel is important, but you shouldn’t be paying attention to it every second of the day.

Yeah, doesn’t sound like I’d be a candidate for an RWA class anytime soon.

Anyway, to sum up…school’s in, writing output should go up. Yay!