So it's August. Back at the beginning of June, it seemed like it would never really come. Just like when I was a kid, and summer vacation stretched out in front of me forever. Or so it seemed.
But all good things must come to an end, right? And in just over a week, it's time for school to start again. The kids aren't much looking forward to it, but I am. I mean, I love them and all... but they're wreaking havoc with my writing schedule. I have to deliver DIY-5, FLIPPING OUT! to my editor by September 1st, and with two kids underfoot all summer, it hasn't been easy finishing the manuscript.
As a child, I always looked forward to the beginning of school. I looked forward to summer vacation, too, but by August, I was ready to see my friends and get back to a regular schedule and have normal life start up again.
To some people, New Years Eve is the beginning of the year. That's the time to make resolutions and changes.
To me, autumn has always been about new beginnings. New friends, new crushes, new teachers, new school every few years...
If we haven't picked a suggested and optional topic for the month of August yet, I'd like to propose that one. New beginnings. And if nobody minds, I'll start.
Two very exciting new things coming up for me a little later this fall: we're trying to buy a condo in Florida - just about five miles from the wonderful Nancy Haddock, whom I adore - and if things work out, we're thinking of possibly making a move down there in the next six months or so. With kids and school and DH's work and other considerations, it's all still very much up in the air, but we're thinking and talking and praying hard. We've moved ten or twelve times in the past fifteen years, but all within Nashville; this would be the first city-to-city move since we left New York back in the early 1990s. It's scary, but exciting too.
To kickstart my new direction, I'm taking an online class right now in writing romantic suspense, and the first weekend of October, I'll be driving up to Columbus, Ohio, for the Central Ohio Fiction Writers Conference, Write from the Heart, to listen to people like Suzanne Brockmann and our buddy CJ Lyons talk about writing romantic thrillers.
(CJ just won a Daphne award this past weekend, by the way. In case some of you hadn't heard. Be sure to congratulate her.)
So that's my big news, and my new beginning. Feel free to take the rest of the month to talk about yours.
Till next time!
xoxo
