I’m not normally a summer writer.

Historically, June, July, and August are slow months for that, likely a carryover from the days when I was in school as a child and those months were summer break; the time was sacred and meant for playing basketball, hitting the amusement park, and navel-gazing in the city. It was meant for video games, spades tournaments, and dominoes. I would switch my brain off. Doing anything remotely involving work was a major faux pas.

This summer, in particular, has been a doozy. Between life upheavals and visits home, I’ve been terrible this summer as a productive writer.

• I’m late with my edits for Open. Very late. Several months late. It has been slow going, and I apologize. Fall’s impending arrival means that I’ll be much better at denying activities that involve going outside. Less sunlight = less distraction.

• I have, however, been busy on the short story front. Father Figures, the short sequel/follow up to my first novel, The Fab 5 has been up all month. Check it out!

• My latest short story project is a rewrite of a story I wrote in my late teens that never saw the light of day. The first draft is coming along nicely, and I should be able to get it finished and edited by the end of September.

• I’ve scrapped a couple of thousand words from Urban Legend. I decided to start over, go back and shore up the plot in my notes, and work on the overarching story. It’s a couple of months to direct the story so that I can use it as my NaNoWriMo project. Yep. I’m committing to that month-long anxiety fest known as National Novel Writing Month. I’ve only attempted it one other time, and it took me five years to finish it. Hopefully, I can do better this time. Fifty thousand words, 30 days, lots and lots of caffeine. I can do this.

• The Yankees’ season is in its home stretch; with a little more than a month left in the season, we’re only three and a half games out of first place in the AL East! Not bad for a rebuilding squad. If some of our young players can get out of their own way (Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, I’m looking at you), we might have a deep playoff run to look forward to! Fingers crossed!

Summer is coming to a close now, and while the warm weather and the sunshine will be missed, it’s time to hunker down and get to work. Winter is coming.

Cheers!

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