How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Being married to a teacher, and having, until recently, taught college, I’ve never quite lost that image of summer that you have while you’re a child in school. You know, that elated feeling when school is out for summer, that you have two months totally free of homework and boring classes. I still get that feeling. Every single summer.

As a child, I spent my summer vacations taking trips to the library with my mom and my sister and then reading books and playing in the pool. We also, every year, would go on a family vacation, which usually meant hours and hours in the car and my sister and I bickering as we had to share a bed in a hotel room. On one of my most memorable family vacations, we went to Montana, stayed at a real ranch for a week and learned to ride horses in the mountains. This was, in fact, so memorable that this vacation was the inspiration for some horse-riding scenes in my upcoming novel, THE LIFE OF GLASS.

But I digress. My summer vacations, as of the past few years, have been designated as writing time. And that is why I now get that elated feeling – two months of freedom to write! Since I have two small children, I like to take advantage of every second that my husband is home/off from work. Last summer, I wrote THE LIFE OF GLASS. This summer I wrote a new YA novel and edited my adult novel, THE TRANSFORMATION OF THINGS. In other words, I worked. A lot. I got up early, and spent the majority of the day by the computer. But I loved it.

Some day when my kids are older and in school, I might think of summer as a time to kick back and relax and take vacations. Because then, I’ll have all year to work and write all day. But for now, I have to admit, that my summer days writing did actually feel like a vacation from my normal day-to-day routine of chasing after the kids.