Endless Summer Of Writing by Bob Jones

School’s out for the summer! Endless days of ice cream, popsicles, pools, playing in the park and… O wait, that was my post intro from 50 years ago.

For most of us, summer may not mean two empty calendar months like it does for students, but it does signify the start of a new season for learners.

You can look at this summer as a blank slate of possibility when it comes to writing.

This summer can be your time of experimentation. These next two months can be a creative playground to find new inspiration, dedicate time for your work in progress or start a new project.

Here's a suggested summer writing to-do list (courtesy of Jessica Lawlor at “The Write Life”):

1. Write in a new space. There’s nothing like removing yourself from your normal writing space to give you fresh perspective and new inspiration.

2. Plan an at-home writing retreat. Set aside a full afternoon with no distractions to write at home.

3. Participate in a summer reading challenge. The best way to become a better writer is to be a 

voracious reader.

4. Join a writing group or find a writing partner.

5. Clean up old files to find new inspiration. Sometimes, taking space from an old idea is just what we need to come back to it refreshed and inspired to start anew.

6. Start a blog. Blogging helps you build a personal brand, and can lead to valuable connections and new opportunities. It also helps you improve your own writing skills.

7. Find new blogs to read. Browse the list of 100 Best Websites for Writers

8. Refine your personal brand. Dedicate a little bit of time to further developing your unique personal brand as a writer through social media.

9. Pitch a guest post. Make a list of blogs where you’d love to see your work, research their submission guidelines and craft a pitch to send their way.

10. Plan ahead. Use summer as a time to plan for the future.

Summer may not hold the same meaning as it did when you were a kid, but you can still use these next few months to take your writing to the next level.

Let your summer of creativity begin!

Robert (Bob) W. Jones is a recovering perfectionist, who collects Coca-Cola memorabilia and drinks Iced Tea. His office walls are adorned with his sons’ framed football jerseys, and his library shelves, with soul food. He writes to inspire people to be real, grow an authentic faith in Jesus, enjoy healthy relationships and discover their life purpose.

Twitter: @bobjones49ers
Blog: http://blog.northpointechurch.ca

Summer Goals, Summer Guilt, or Summer? by Joylene M. Bailey

I’m really good at making goals.

But I’m not that great at keeping them.

I can't seem to figure that out. I’m not a lazy person; my life is full and busy. Maybe that’s part of the problem – I’m too busy.

I’m also a bit of a perfectionist, and that comes with its own procrastination issues… Add to that the fact that I don’t like people telling me what to do.

Not even myself.

I find I can get a LOT of work done when I don’t have any set goals.

But I sometimes get NO work done when I don’t have any set goals.

I could come up with any number of excuses why my summer writing goals don’t seem to pan out.

Last summer the list I set to accomplish was so long that I decided to follow the example of a friend in my writers group, and see if I could get 3 – any 3 – items on that list completed.

I did, but I recall it being a scramble towards the end of the summer.

At the beginning of this summer I made only one goal: to write a little bit on my novel every day. 

No time limit, no word count goal. Just write on it every day.

I’m failing miserably.

What?! You mean I can’t set aside 17 minutes a day to write something – anything - on my novel? What is up with that?

And then the guilt sets in.

Frankly, goals stress me out.

Deadlines are a good thing. And one of the things I LOVE about my writing group is the accountability aspect of it. But the goals themselves … they scare me.

I've come up with some new summer writing goals that are not quite so scary and maybe they will help in finding that balance between goals and guilt that I seem to need.

Here they are:

1 - Remember that what I can do is what I can do, and what I can do is enough.

2 - Remember that I will feel God’s pleasure even when I don’t write. (Thank you Marnie)

3 - Take time to enjoy the summer!

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21606330@N08/10519774073">Checklist Chalkboard</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">(license)</a>

Joylene is enjoying summer from her home in Edmonton where she lives with the Cowboy, Babe, and a cat named Calvin. You can find her joy-infused perspective on her blog at joyousmi.blogspot.ca and maybe someday in that novel she is trying to work on every day.

Ants, Jesus, Little Kids, and Summer by Bobbi Junior

We have a number of ant hills in our yard, so I often find myself watching these little critters on their daily journey. Sometimes I'll see one toting a load much bigger than itself. How in the world does it know where it's going?

Carrying out this 'I'm a writer' journey feels a bit like that. When I start on a project, I'm all gung-ho, but as I try to move forward, I become overwhelmed. Like that little ant, my project is so big, I can't see my path for the size of it. There I am, shuffling here, there, and everywhere, trying to find my way by feel alone.

When I get lost, though, if I'm smart, I put aside my grown-up, independent, I-can-do-this attitude, and take myself directly to the Master. There I'm reminded I don't need to know the path. I just need to keep going. 

It's almost too simplistic to be true. Still, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 8:13

What were summers like when I was little? School was out and days seemed endless. I had no goals, no plans, no deadlines. I just played, or day-dreamed, wandered wherever my feet chose to take me. I watched, and listened, and my imagination soared. You can't do anything wrong when you're living your days like that.

Can writing be that simple? Maybe we don't have to see where our feet are going. Maybe, we just have to Go!

And that, I think, will be my experiment this summer -- to write with the same abandon I had as a summer-freed child.

Summer Musings by Connie Inglis

Summer writing. Do I do anything different than other seasons of the year? Yes, I would say I do. I would probably admit that I do less writing. But that doesn't mean I do less brainstorming. In fact, I have found that it is in the summer that I get more fodder for writing than any other season. Why is that you ask? Well, it is my favourite season but more importantly, it's because I have more time to enjoy my favourite muse, my summer muse I call her, my granddaughter.

Nothing inspires me more than this precious little girl--to view the world through her eyes, to hear her play-by-play perspective on people, places, things, to soak in her love for life. She fills my little notebook with ideas for future writing and hilarious quotes like the following: "Grandma, you're not an adult, you're an old teen."

Which brings me to my next point. Time with her allows me to be a kid again. If my neighbours saw me running through the sprinkler or filling water balloons or drawing with chalk in my driveway by myself, they might question my sanity. But I can get away with it when I'm doing it with my granddaughter. And in all honesty, I enjoy all those activities--they take me back to the joy of my childhood. And as I bask in the summer heat, they draw me into God's time, into kairos time, where again I feel His pleasure in the simple things of life, surrounded by His creation.

I think I can best say it in a poem--though even a short poem can't express my love, my attachment to this muse. She sings Jesus to me.

My Summer Muse

(to my granddaughter Sydrah)

Sweet summer

muse, you

"sing in me," as 

Calliope to Homer,

ideations of

inspiration.

Like July

fireworks, you

explode with 

carefree creativity,

then beckon me to

join you in your joy.

Touching your world,

hearing your voice,

viewing your perceptions,

breathing in your spice,

savoring your zest--

it is sacred ground.

I take off my shoes;

for the miracle of

you 

moves me to 

worship the Creator,

the Giver of

     my Summer Muse. 

Photo by Katherine Dumas

Time-lapse summer - Violet Nesdoly

Hubby's farm home

Ah summertime — the season of reunions.  I've been to two this year, complete with jaunts back to Saskatchewan. I usually anticipate them with just a touch of dread. But so far every reunion I have been to has turned out better than I ever expected.

This summer's were no exception. It was wonderful to reconnect with old high school friends in Dalmeny on the July long weekend. The July/August long weekend just past saw us reuniting with hubby's family.

About a hundred of us Nesdolys found our way to the Rosthern arena at some point between July 29th and 31st. We did the usual reunion things—eat, visit, play games, look at pictures, eat, visit the homesteads and the cemeteries, eat some more, then line up in families for mass photo shoots.

One of the 30-somethings had put together a family photo slide show that looped throughout the three days. What fun to see the aunties and uncles—most no longer with us—in their somber 40's wedding poses, then the babies that were us, and the next generation that looked a lot like us, and on and on ...

The barn looks like some of us feel

One thing that hit me harder this reunion than any so far is how our kids are becoming the middle-aged ones and we the oldies. As parents, uncles and aunts slip away, suddenly we're the senior generation. Mind you, it's pretty obvious if you look at us, with our salt-and-pepper hair, lined and wrinkled faces, wattled necks and sagging middles. 

The summer kitchen - a deserted hazard

A visit to Grandpa Tim's farm site impressed on me even more the fact that nothing stays the same. The poor barn there looks like some of us feel.  The house is still liveable but hubby said immaculate housekeeper Auntie P. would have a conniption if she saw the current state of it. The summer kitchen is a deserted hazard.

We slogged through shoulder high grass and thistle to get to hubby's old farm home. His workboot from when we visited last ten years ago is still there but now, like too many family members, has lost its partner. The driveway has all but disappeared. It seems everything is getting covered, or decayed, or erased by time.

Farm home - a visit to the past

The boot has lost its partner

It's a sobering reminder of the brevity of life. Oh, I'm very familiar with the verses that describe man being as ephemeral as grass or smoke. But it's quite another thing to see that transience playing out like time lapse photography all around you. It's a challenge too, to fill  the days left with as much love and caring, joy and music, laughter and worship, photographs and good food as each will hold.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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Website: www.violetnesdoly.com

• Personal blog promptings  
• Writerly blog Line upon line 
  
• Daily devotions for children Bible Drive-Thru
• Daily devotions for adults: Other Food: daily devos
• A poem portfolio

Summer Serenade - Violet Nesdoly

Summer Serenade

Summer’s orchestra plays

woodwind overture

of a bird-filled morning.

Viola hum of bees

quark of oboe ducks

blend with bowing violins

of an insect-busy refrain.

Trombone slide convertibles

show off the flashy third movement.

Clink of cutlery and crystal

are percussion

tremolo laughter

the piccolo trills

of a pitch-perfect finale.

Encore!

© 2009 by Violet Nesdoly
First published in River of Words (a publication of MSA Poets Potpourri Society).

Website: www.violetnesdoly.com

• Personal blog promptings  
• Writerly blog Line upon line 
  
• Daily devotions for children Bible Drive-Thru
• Daily devotions for adults: Other Food: daily devos
• A poem portfolio

When Life's School Will Be Out Forever - Bruce Atchison

June is a joyous time of year for school children. Summer vacation lies before them, offering a smorgasbord of fun and freedom. Walking out of school that final afternoon, children feel such joy and relief from the tedium of study.

When I was a child in the sixties, I had an additional reason to rejoice. Because educators wrongly assumed that I needed special teachers to educate me, I was sent five hundred miles from my home in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta to Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind in Vancouver. Being deprived of my family and all I loved for three or six months at a stretch made me yearn for summer in ways words can't adequately express.

Being home was like paradise to me. Instead of being woken by a dorm supervisor, I slept in my own bedroom until I felt like rising. Instead of eating institutional food, I ate meals lovingly prepared by my mom. Instead of being with strangers, I enjoyed the company of family members. Instead of going on occasional supervised outings like escorted prisoners, I roamed the town freely. Best of all, I was away from the school bully for eight wonderful weeks.

I look at our lives here in this world in much the same way that I once viewed my incarceration at Jericho. Jesus said in Matthew 24:32-33 (KJV), "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Nobody knows when Christ will return but we can tell that this world is growing worse by the day. As my dorm mates and I waited eagerly at the end of june for the school bus driver to take us to the airport, we knew we would soon be out of that impersonal institution and back home where we belonged.

You can find out more about my Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) memoir by clicking here. I also post excerpts of my writing here.

Heat Wave - Nesdoly

Yesterday’s fever
broke in the evening
This morning
cool soothing air
bathes face arms legs
the neighborhood refreshed
as if it slept
deep and exhausted
after sickness

But sun’s warm hand upon my back
warns temperature is rising
and burning heat will soon
again blister the brown grass
make bright-eyed impatiens
and roadside chicory
droop in the dazzling delirium

We will lie in darkened rooms
splayed under whirring fans
flushed, fighting off sweats
ice-tinkling drinks within arm’s reach
till evening
when the fever breaks again.

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly



The weather man says we're in for another few hot days here - days which, if the heat goes too high, feel surreal to me. (You may have guessed that we don't have AC.) How do you feel about the heat?

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Web: http://violetnesdoly.com
Blog: promptings
Daily devotions for kids: Bible Drive-Thru
Twitter: @vnesdoly

How I Spent My Summer Vacation -- Janet Sketchley

I don’t remember if I ever had to write the stereotypical back-to-school essay, but it’s September, and we actually had a cool vacation this year. Sweet Husband and I took Crazy Son, Special Girlfriend, Wise-guy Son and Imp Son to New York City for a few days.

We stayed at the Holland Motor Lodge in Jersey City – clean, affordable, close to public transit into NYC, and as it happens, very near some fine eating establishments.

Saturday: Supper at Bertucci’s Brick Oven Ristorante – wonderful food, and we drained their supply of raspberry iced tea. We trekked into NYC, strolled Times Square, and navigated through the Hershey’s store when I’m sure it was close to the Fire Marshall’s maximum load limit. (Some of us are introverts with large personal space zones.)

Sunday: Despite a preference to avoid Sunday shopping, we visited the Century 21 discount store (how can something claim to be 1) New York’s second most popular shopping destination and simultaneously 2) its best-kept secret?), had Charly’s famous chili dogs for lunch, and caught two shows: Mary Poppins on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre and a family-friendly “Eight is Never Enough” improv comedy show.

Monday: The three teens explored the Ripleys’ Believe It Or Not! Odditorium while the rest of us made a pilgrimage to the Lindt store and a Barnes and Noble. Lunch at the Hard Rock Café (wonderful french fries, and great milkshakes). We left Wise-guy Son at the hotel and the rest of us headed out to see the Mets trounce the Astros. The starting pitcher stayed in the whole game and almost bagged a shut-out. Extreme thirst made me shell out $4 for a bottle of water. Extortion, anyone? The hotdogs were just as high. Taking the train home from the game sure beat sitting in traffic.

Tuesday: Imp Son and I headed for a Borders while Crazy Son and Special Girlfriend did Macy’s. Wise-guy Son and Sweet Husband chased down some tickets to Phantom of the Opera. Some of us had “Chocolate Therapy” at Ben & Jerry’s, and the rest ingested lots of ice cream too. Late supper took us back to Bertucci’s where we discovered another wonderful meal but a distinct lack of raspberry iced tea. Crazy Son looked so sad, the waitress was rather concerned until she discovered we were the probable culprits. He’s taken up Vitamin Water as a substitute.

Wednesday: Early start for train and bus ride to Six Flags Great Adventure, in New Jersey. Aside from Sweet Husband’s headache (who knew I should bring the whole bottle of Advil LiquiGels®?) we had a blast. The tigers put on an interesting demonstration, but my most vivid memory is of El Toro, the wooden roller coaster. Crazy Son talked Special Girlfriend and Foolish Mother (yes, that’s me) into the ride. NOW I read on the website that “El Toro features the steepest drop of any wooden roller coaster in the country at a record-breaking 76 degrees.” The first words to cross my lips as it stopped were “Thank You, Jesus” – for keeping me alive, or just that it was over, I don’t know. Looking back, I’m glad I went. I had my eyes closed, but Special Girlfriend said hats were flying everywhere.

Thursday: We were kind of draggy after the long day before, but we had a nice visit to the Central Park Zoo. I’d like to spend a whole day there. Pre-zoo, we stopped at the ESPN Zone. Television monitors in the bathrooms so you don’t miss a play? Hmm. But the desserts… we ordered something called “Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundaes”. Much bigger than we expected, given the moderate price. One is enough for two people. A huge cookie (I had mine cold, the default is heated) piled with excellent ice cream and whipped cream, with chocolate sauce…. Wonderful stuff. Then for supper we found a place called the Evergreen Diner. It wasn’t glossy or high-priced – just fast and with terrific food. Bummer for me, I wasn’t hungry (guess who finished all of her sundae when some of the others wimped out?) Imp Son and I went to Toys R Us (it has a Ferris Wheel) and back to the hotel, while the others attended Phantom at the Majestic Theatre.

Friday: All day travelling, because the two-part flight was significantly less expensive than the direct one. First stop on Canadian soil was Pearson Airport’s Tim Horton’s for some genuine steeped tea. I think they make it better in Nova Scotia.

Sparkling magic sights:
· something in the Times Square sidewalks sparkles when it catches the light, day or night
· a shiny black dragonfly with glittering wings paused on Imp Son’s hat, but didn’t linger for a photo
· tiny, glossy bubbles floated to greet us from the zoo
· the polar bear put on an underwater show… the bubbles and dust motes he stirred up sparkled in the light
· the Nicobar pigeon’s feathers shimmered as he flew through the bird exhibit
· oh, and my “Fish can fly” shirt that I bought at the Hard Rock Café sparkles too.

© Janet Sketchley, 2008
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For devotionals, reviews and conversation, stop by Janet Sketchley's blog, God with Us: Finding Joy.