This week was meant to be / scheduled to be the commencement of my first editing job on my first novel. It’s been earmarked in my diary as such for two months. July was chosen, because June was too early after the first write of the novel, and August would be too late - school holidays and all also.

However, I’m now four days into my big Editing / Redrafting month, and still can’t move my attention onto the business of writing. Rather than feel some guilt over this (which I have done, quite easily I find) I have become aware of just how much other business there is scheduled within our summers. In fact, on a completely unrelated project - but one which is ticking over very nicely indeed, I focus specifically on all that summertime business. My Summer Scraps album is coming along quite well, as is the writing I am doing in the background behind it.  Summer Scraps is both a creative and writing project for me, but more than that, has now become a learning lesson for my own writing life.

Like many I know locally, my week has been - and will be further - an intense pressure cooker of events. Yesterday was our school sports day, and picnic day, then the final ballet class for the school year. Tomorrow is a big family BBQ, and the summer school fete also. All have required copious planning, and attendance, and very much tired my whole family out. Around this, has been my own part-time work, and my husband’s needs for work and other committments also, as the school year winds itself up. We’ve struggled against intense heat and been rained out by sudden heavy thunder showers. We’ve planned menus and special shopping expeditions, who goes where and when. In between, the dog needs walking, and the house (a pig-sty) needs cleaning before the relies arrive. Whole days have been occupied simply in the state of summertime living.

Finding myself with six hours of blissful time alone today only, the calm between all these joyous summer storms, I guiltily dealt with some of the creative stuff in designing with my latest sports day photos (you should be doing the novel, my brain kept prodding at me every few minutes). Then I spent a couple of hours outside making the most of the sun (still not doing what I should be, my mind reminded me, as I felt the sun finally on my skin), reading the latest Writing Magazine which arrived in my mailbox this week. At least it is a writing magazine, I told myself. Surely that’s allowable as an excuse for not getting out that novel?

August’s edition has a Beginners article by Adrian Magson entitled, “Give Yourself a Break”. 

In it, he advices that writing aims be realistic during our summers. We should not expect much productivity whilst sitting out on a beach, he suggests. Oh, to be so lucky to even have a beach to sit out on, but hey - I have plans to visit the shore also soon. 

Adrian’s points are - 

• Don’t set unrealistic writing aims when you know circumstances are not in your favour.
• Random jottings can be just as productive as a full page. 
• Prepare a framework, then fill in the detail when time allows. 
• A relaxed mind is far more creative than a stressed one. 
• Don’t forget, have some fun, too. 

As for the last point, unbelievably I’m finding all this summer craziness more than a little fun. I’m loving it, as the McDonald’s adverts would suggest. 

In fact, all of the points in this simple and commonsense article hit home with me, right when I needed it, and in the perfect setting - sitting out in the summer heat in my backyard, surrounded by buzzy bees and a contently sleeping dog. After reading it, I acknowledged to myself that the plans to completely redraft my novel in the middle of a hectic summertime were just incorrect for me. Writing comes easier in the colder less social months. Perhaps that’s why NaNoWriMo is done in November, where nothing much else is happening? And before the obligations of the holiday season.

Well, I mused. My Summer Scraps project had already highlighted the fact that summertime is as full of obligations on our time as any Christmas and New Year’s rush. Add to that, the evokation that you’re meant to be providing a relaxing and well-earned rest break from the rest of the year, and making the most of the weather. And people and society keep making demands more and more on your time. A recipe for disaster if combining with dedicated plans to rewrite a full novel - at least for me, I now know.

Once I gave myself permission to move away from this plan already-going-wrong, and reschedule the Redraft until at least September (once school commences again), then I immediately found my new relaxed state and surroundings working magic for my creativity. In sitting there for a couple of hours just now, I’ve already come up with a brand new idea for a new novel, a partial outline on it, and the main character. And for the other novel I started working on outlining last month, I’ve also added some powerful thoughts and links to it from the first. Now I do have the motivation to fire up th laptop tonight, and actually document those thoughts suddenly coming to me now. From avoiding that laptop like the plague (yes, I even let the batteries run out last week) I now look forward to looking into it’s screen.

So, the crazy hazy days of summer (cliche intended, and utterly correct for my life) mean, for me, a ramp down of full-on writing plans, and the allowance of two or three months of idea-spinning, creative ponderings, outlining, actual living and relaxing, and other creativity around my family and my own hectic life. And of course, the holidays.  And I feel immediately much more productive and creative in accepting the truth of this.  I feel empowered finally, to write as I know I can, and produce what I know I can in this timeframe. Summer writing just got fun.

Watching the dog - just another name for procrastination. Perhaps I should just postpone the novel rewrite for a week, and allow myself this mucking around time without as much guilt. 

In the meantime, whilst I was at work this morning, my old english sheepdog, Simon, managed to help himself to the contents of a capsule orchard feeder / fertiliser. He loves plastic, but in chewing this, has managed to swallow the internal contents. The label on the capsule says - in both Portugese and English, ‘Not to be Allowed Near Children’ and ‘Must not be Consumed’. 

So, now I’m on dog watch (although he spends all day with me anyway) to make sure he hasn’t poisoned himself. He seems alright, although in dire need of a bath again, as you can see by the photo - taken too close up (because he won’t stay very well, while a camera is in his eyeshot). And yes, he can see me (and the camera) under there. 

…That is the question.

Kathy Moore has a new blog setup, just to list her to dos and to get more organised. I know, because she twittered about it. I would give you the link (look her up under KathyMoore on www.twitter.com) but Twitter is down again. 

Still, it’s enough to make me think - top of her list is to make her computer time, productive computer time. Which is more than I can say about my own time lately - last week (eleven days of it) went past like some fuzzed out pale blur of a real life. My cold-befuddled mind still has me wanting more to lie down than put any work down.

But at least I got to school today, and got my email working properly - it wasn’t for a couple of days, blamed by my ISP towards the email client server - which I’m positive the problem wasn’t, because I set up our main account (correctly!) on three different email clients onboard here.

Today, I should be getting prepared for my mammoth effort scheduled in editing and redrafting my first novel attempt - due to commence tomorrow, for one full month. Instead, I’ve used any and every excuse to not think about that at all.

Things I Have Done (in the name of procrastination)

1. Have been blowing my nose for the entire day, especially whilst outside.
   
2. Spent two hours on the phone with an Indian helpdesk person, (and then their supervisor) allowing them to watch my PC screen while I pointed out the problem of stuck emails on their server.
3. Started reading a completely new novel, out in the sun (managed to use up two hours on and off, on simply reading)
   
4. Walked the dog
5. Actually ate something for lunch (okay, it was only three small pieces of fruit, but…)
6. Sorted out all the emails which had gone missing with my problems.
   
7. Picked up emails in gmail, then pretended they weren’t there.
8. Especially the one informing me a new Friends Reunited contact is messaging me on there. I haven’t seen the woman for over thirty years, for pete’s sake - and she dumped me as a friend when she moved away from my home-town. Still, it’s nice to have friends anywhere, and beggars can’t be choosers, right? And she was a lovely, er, school girl, and best friend for one brief moment of glorious childhood, and…and…and…
   
9. Twittered - four times
10. Facebooked - including remembering to respond to some requests
11. Tidied up the dining room table (by 50% only, before getting fedup with the spam mail and general untidiness)
12. Scrubbed the bathrooms upstairs (and a hallwall) but realise that the house is a pigsty, and all the family is arriving in a few days for the “Big BBQ” where my entire value will be judged by myself about how much of a good hostess I am (or am not).
    
13. Read the few blogs I now pick up in Google Reader - actually, there’s quite a few now.
    
14. Looked into another software application I found through a blog - linked up to it on Linkagogo.
    
15. Went searching for a different software application reviewed through a blog, only to find it doesn’t exist out there on the internet.
    
16. Thought about buying the Notezilla application I am trialing - then thought again. Maybe that PIM software I’d read about is better? Should I try that out, even though it’s really expensive and I have no money?
    
17. Realised what a geek I am… took some pride in that, kind of.
    
18. Went on the school-walk (what we without petrol do instead of the school-run, which ironically doesn’t include running does it?)
19. Took an antihistamine for the first time in my life, because surely this eleven day old lurgy must no longer be a cold, but hay fever, right? Wrong. Although I’ve now discovered I am one of the few who suffers from drowsiness from the one-a-day tablets.
    
20. Back in facebook, a new friend (ex work colleague I discovered on there) had some gadgetty Brain Game on there. Having failed dismally at Academy Brain Academy on the Nintendo Wii the other day, I thought this might give me a chance. It didn’t. I am third in all three of us who have the application - JanMary - you may cordially gloat about your brain prowess with me. After the sixth game, I started getting worse, too.
    
21. Read the four (three too many) mails sent out to parents by the school, informing us of plans for the upcoming sports day this week. Felt guilty because I have limited picnic plans for the day also.
    
22. Read the two parent mails from school discussing the school fete coming up. Our opportunity to gather all those old (like new) toys and books we want to dump - sorry, gift to somebody. Except I seriously can’t be bothered to gather.
    
23. Decided bringing down the laptop to charge it up is not a good idea, as that would force me to actually update the writing files on there also, in preparation for tomorrow.
    
24. Thought about (ie. did not do) designing another layout for the summer scraps album. Nah…
25. With no idea what time the hubbie is getting home from London today (he’s inherited my cold also, poor man) I have made the empowered decision to NOT cook dinner, and just await him. He will be impressed. Not.
    
26. Okay, so I’m going to try out that PIM software, just because nothing else in this world seems to excite me at the moment. That should waste the next two hours just nicely.
    

Things I Am Meant to Be Doing

1. Get ready for that Novel Editing mission, commencing tomorrow!
   
2. Spend several hours each day redrafting the novel.
   
3. Facebook - respond to Angie Pedersen’s kind donation of three little words on my story.
   
4. Friends Reunited - message back to that lost childhood friend.
   
5. Hoover - the entire house.
   
6. Wash floors - the entire house
7. Tidy up - the entire house
   
8. Scrub outdoor furniture (get rid of bird poo)
   
9. Prepare Picnic menu for School Sports Day
10. Prepare shopping list for Family BBQ Day, Saturday
11. Gather books and toys to donate for School Fete, Saturday
12. Find some kind of recipe for non-alcoholic cocktail fruity drinks for the BBQ
13. Attend - Work, School Sports Day, Ballet lessons, School Fete
14. Supermarket - for BBQ stuff
    
15. Walk the dog - everyday.
    
16. Host - Family BBQ
    
17. Find a cure for this dripping nose.
    
18. Tell my hubbie how special he is (and mean it!) without wanting his help in cleaning the house.
    
19. Take photographs, create layouts
20. Pay credit card bill.
    
21. Cook dinner, without resentment, every night.
    
22. Finish that novel I started reading unproductively today.
    
23. Have a wee nap.
    

True to my promise, I’ve been both busy doing up layouts for my own Summer Scraps album, and this morning I am going to select my own picks of the best Summer themed digital stash out there currently. One of these - for me - was mentioned in an earlier post. I noticed that Lisa Whitney has a version two out of her A Beautiful Mess kit - which I would like because it contains the blues and greens selected within my own summer album colour palette. The wonderful Melissa gifted me with a voucher to Scrapartist, and I do intend picking this one up - but am currently thrawted by the Scrapartist server upgrade over this weekend.

As I have a very limited (if null) budget, I can at best salivate over the latest offerings by some talented digital designers out there. Check out Melissa G’s Digi Pick of the Day website also, I’m sure she’s taking a look at all the summer themed digital kits herself. But for me, the following are worthy of contention -  

Dawn Inskip’s Summer Expressions, available from today at NDISB.  

Janosch Design’s Can’s World kit, available from The Digichick  (sorry, I can’t show you this image - The Digichick provides all it’s images as php files, meaning you can’t host these on your own site also as an image. I know that it’s helpful in stopping hotlinking - however, not when I want to show you something, lol).

The Lilypad has a new collobaration kit (Michelle Godin, Kate Hadfield, Rachel Young and Sausan Designs) up called Funky Junky. It’s also available as a couple of quick album packs.  Also check out the glossy Summer buttons there, by Jenna Desai. And the felt flipflops called Favourite Flipflops by Natalie Braxton. Finally from the Lilypad, Kate Hadfield and Jacque Larsen’s drawn Pack-A-Picnic elements are perfect.

At Live Out Loud Scraps you can find Victoria Feemster and Creative Confusion’s colloboration in the Karma Chameleon kit.

Lindsay Jane’s Seascape kit at Scrapbook Bytes is the first I noticed away from the generally bright colour schemes I am looking for myself.  

Scrap Outside the Box has a June mega kit colloboration called Botanically Yours.  

For something completely different, Designs by Moo currently have a special on their PSP scripts (I am a user of Paintshop Pro myself) and there are scripts to create a cute graphical little ladybug and a dragonfly available.  

The Social Butterfly element packs at KB & Friends are fun.  

As I’ve only had an hour spare to look around some of the shops online, I’m sure there are many other summer inspired digital kits out there which I may include at a later date. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with  a last  kit, called Love of Summer by Jackie Eckles, available at Little Dreamer Designs.