Summer starts for me mid-June, when my child’s school year ends and the promise of long days beckons. We spend more time on adventures and work on projects instead of rushing to school and completing homework.1 There are trips to the pool and beach, with an occasional pajama day celebrated. For us, summertime always seems to be a bit more. More social invites, ranging from weddings (the bride was lovely, of course) to vacations. Several family and friend birthdays are also sprinkled through the summer, providing yet another reason to get together at a barbecue and at poolside.
But all this more does tend to mean we seem to spend much of our time on the go (particularly weekends), punctuated with the rare, lazy pj day that has a way disappearing with little accomplished. As for those pool and beach days, they also tend to consume an entire day, leaving one exhausted and, perhaps, a bit sunburned). Throw in the odd head cold/seasonal allergies, and it seems that summer evaporates with very little writing done. Whatever happened to summer’s more-ishness?
Summer did. Distractions abound through the year, but beautiful days coupled with the prospect of visiting friends, summer activities such as sports and music lessons,2 as well as road trips makes it easier to slip away from a keyboard. There is also the slipperiness of time itself. Freedom from a fixed schedule, while it promises more opportunity to play as well as to write, curiously unmoors my sense of passing time. Thinking I have hours stretching before me, I’ll occupy myself otherwise only to discover how little time I left myself for writing. Rather unfairly, having more unscheduled time seems to leave more pages blank than when I barely have a moment between activities.
I suppose there’s nothing like the pressure of deadlines and multiple tasks looming to motivate one’s writing. There’s something unpalatable, however, about the notion that one could only really write under some (but not too much) pressure. Surely, one can relax a bit and still write? After, some many say that writers should be in the habit of writing. Perhaps, it’s habit that helps us overcome distraction, lacking motivation, and the notion of “I’ll do it in a bit”. What this summer might need (however close its end may be) is a writing schedule.
Once I get back from my weekend at the shore.
NOTES:
- Homework becomes a group effort, when you’re obliged to check it. ↩
- I’m pleased to announce that my child now plays the trumpet instead of the recorder. My ears are endlessly relieved—and our canine guests are marginally less dismayed. (Recorder music strikes terror in the heart of arthritic terriers, causing them to—unprecedentedly—leap, run, and hide.) ↩
Rita E. Gould: An Artful Sequence of Words 
I sympathise, finding that in summer the “juggling” between family and work makes itself more acutely felt, so I tend to set aside some time to write when everyone else is asleep.
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Being a night person, I actually prefer writing late. I found that trickier once I had a child who prefers the morning, so I’m working on writing in the day and late–but not too late!
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The slipperiness of time – you’re right there. Longer hours of daylight make it feel like there’s
mmoreof it but spending time is like spending money in that you can’t do it twice. What you are doing is living! Enjoy the holidays.
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Enjoy the holidays and I hope you can write a little too. If not your main project then maybe flash fiction or a diary. As this blog post proves – you’re still writing.
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I’m trying a few things. If nothing else, we’ve gotten to the beach!
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With lots of travel this year (four months of the year away) and plus a busy summer at home I absolutely agree that summer is for living, not writing. I have been looking forward to a productive writing winter, with a routine outlined by the hours my children are at school.
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