Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Tag: relaxing

How a Writer Rests (or Not)

After a writing whirlwind of a November with a couple of virtual events, my Highlights Foundation writing retreat, and successfully completing NaNoWriMo (you can read about that in my post “The Magic of Highlights Foundation Writing Retreat”), I had planned to take a bit of a breather in December. November left me feeling a bit burnt out, so my plan was to watch some lighthearted movies, catch up on pleasure reading, and maybe bake a little with the kiddos. I also wanted to play around creatively with painting my playing guitar, things that had been put aside last month.

Overall, I’m doing pretty well on those goals. I have just one article due this month, so things are quiet on the freelance side. I haven’t done any fiction writing except for tooling around with one picture book and jotting down a few notes for when I gear up to revise the young adult novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo.

I’ve watched a bunch of movies, done some reading but I’d like to do more, and a little bit of baking with more planned for once the kiddos are on their school break. The painting and guitar playing I’ve been less successful on, but I’m trying to keep those things low-key, so I’m okay with that.

So I seem to be doing well on my goal, except…I got an idea on how to develop one of my writing projects and I kind of ran with it. (I know I’m being annoyingly vague here, but more details will be coming on this.) It’s stretching me in new ways on the business side of things and it’s hit a few bumps along the way, adding some stress to my life. Which wasn’t in the plan for December, and maybe all of this could have waited until after the New Year.

But I also didn’t want to wait on it, so I’m just decided to go for it. It hasn’t really been time-consuming so much as uncomfortable as I do things that are new to me. It’s made me feel unbalanced when I was striving for more balance this month. In the end, I think it’s going to be really good. So while it has put a wrench in my relaxing plans for this month, it always feels good to move feel like I’m making progress.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m very good at taking a full break. We’ll call it a break-ish. What are you all doing/celebrating as we close out this year and look forward to a new one?

Gearing Up for a Noncommittal Summer

This time last year I was preparing for the arrival of The Prince with plans to spend the summer enjoying my two boys and adjusting to life as a mom of two. Now looking forward to this summer, I have that strange feeling of not believing how quickly time has gone but also feeling like it’s been a long year.

In a couple of weeks, we’ll be kicking off summer a little early with The Prince’s first birthday party at my parents’ house. My birthday (a special milestone one if I were a hobbit) falls in the middle of summer, but no big parties scheduled for me. Fast forward to the end of August and we’ll be unofficially ending the summer with The Boy’s fourth birthday party, probably also at my parents’ house.

So what do I plan on sandwiching in between those two big events (besides celebrating/crying over getting another year older)? Hopefully lots of summer fun: beach days, playing in the yard with the boys, grounding myself every day, day trips with the family…that kind of stuff.

The first half of the year has been full of author events (all told I’ve probably done more author events in the last six months than in all my previous years combined) and I’ve got three more planned for June (check out my homepage for details), so I’d like to slow down a bit for the summer. Iced tea in the afternoon, wine in the evening, feet in the sand, and read a book for pleasure kind of slowing down.

I’m so very close to completing a good draft of my WIP, so I’ll be devoting some time to revising once I get my beta feedback and a little break from said WIP post-drafting. Maybe I’ll start drafting a new book…or maybe not. I think I’ll see where the winds take me on that one. I may need a break in order to refill the creative well.

I’d also like to pay attention to one aspect of my life I’ve been woefully neglectful of: namely, getting in shape. I’ve been slowly acclimating my mind to the idea of maybe getting back into running, and I might try working with a personal trainer and seeing if I like it. Not sure about going back to playing soccer. I’ll see how I feel after I’m in better shape.

Overall, I’m in the mood to be very noncommittal about things. Before long those boys of mine will be off running all over the place without me, so I’m trying to be more in the moment and enjoy them while they’re little (even through the hard times of them being little).

I’m thinking of running old posts here for most of the summer, and probably not too many guest posts. Keep things simple…yeah, that sounds real nice. What are your plans for the summer?

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