This Year’s Totally Radical Summer Challenge: 2nd Annual

Today was the first official day of summer break. 

Here are the good things: oldest boy almost finished Holes, we did a fun art project and we got to go to the Bean Museum. 

Here are the bad things: Someone dumped out a gallon of milk, I stepped in a puddle of pee, and I got hit in the head with a baseball bat all before 8 a.m.

So overall, a great start to summer! 

For our challenge this year, like usual, you pick your goals. You should make one reading goal (read a book a week! Read more genres! Start posting reviews! Stop watching I Want to Marry Harry!) and one writing goal (write 1000 words a day! Write for 15 minutes a day! Revise an old book! Don’t cry when you think about writing).

The challenge will go through August. In order to enter, you should post your goals in the comment section. Each week you can write an update–we can keep each other honest and push each other. For fun, I suggest you make a chart that you can color in for every day you make your goal. Or put a dollar in a jar. Or come clean my house if you don’t make your goal each week. Whatever is motivating. Share those tactics too! 

The whole goal is to move forward this summer. Why should all the school kids have the fun? At the end of the year we’ll have a celebration pool party in the pool I’m going to buy from Target this week. There will be strawberry lemonades, maybe a fire for marshmallows (if we can find a fire worthy garbage can) and probably a slip n’ slide. And readings! Of course readings! If you aren’t local, of course you should throw your own celebratory party with your writer friends or your family or neighbors. Just tell them you deserve it. 

My goals are this: 

Read nine fun books–I just finished Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath and I loved it! Where has it been all my life?

Write SOMETHING every day–I hope to polish a draft enough to send it on to my editor and finish another one by the end of summer.

And finally, (I always like to have one or two non-writing related ones but you DO NOT have to do this), ride my bike, kids in tow, once a week. And eat shaved ice once a week. And stop watching I Want to Marry Harry or any other trashy TV shows that I don’t watch anyway because I’m not like that so it should be really easy). 

What are you goals? 

And Another Monday . . .

June and July promise to be busy for me and so I won’t be posting as I should.

Here’s how it goes: Carson City Literary Conference this weekend

Girl’s Camp next week

Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers the following week

ALA the last weekend of the month.

And then July starts.

Plus, I have self-inflicted deadlines. This Wednesday for the Zondervan book.

The end of the month for my ghost book.

The end of the month for Ann Dee and me to be 1/2 way through our novel we’re writing together.

Yup. Good stuff.

So, I’ll see you off-and-on this month.

Happy writing, Everyone. And happy family time. The best of two amazing worlds to us all.