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Monday, June 22, 2015

Kicking Off the 2015 Stay-at-Home Summer Writing Residency

84º (feels like 93º), dewpoint 76º ~ and so the season of breath-catching heat & humidity begins, all is richly greened after our wet, cool spring ~ the robins act & don't act as if they are in the midst of getting a second clutch to hatch, perhaps the sitting is unnecessary as the air temp is plenty warm, perhaps


The past three weeks have been slam-packed with busy-ness. The first week of June I ended up being seated as an alternate juror on a difficult trial involving domestic battery. The victim was in her 60s and the perpetrator was in his 50s, a sickening reminder that domestic violence can occur at any age, really.

Directly after that, I headed out on the road for a visit up home to see friends and family, and to attend the North American Review 200, a conference celebrating that magazine's bicentennial. How lucky was I to have the conference in my family's "backyard"?  I attended poetry readings that blew my mind and several sessions on CW pedagogy that provided pages and pages of notes for fall teaching and beyond.

On both sides of the conference, I spent time with folks I see too infrequently, and most of those visits involved getting to play with gaggles of children, ages 12 and under. Intense, exhausting, and so much fun.

Once home, C. and I made a quick trip down to see his folks for the Father's Day weekend, and now my calendar is clear from here until the first weeks of August (barring any trials, as my jury duty is from May - August). So, this post serves as my notice. I shall now embark on my favorite summer ritual (and the reason I don't teach in the summer). I will get up between 7 and 7:30 and after a shower & breakfast, I will post my "WRITING" sign on my office door. C. is wonderful about giving me space, time, and quiet, so I will spend some hours each morning in contemplation, and hopefully, eventually, in drafting and revision.

This blog will serve as my sounding board on how this business of capturing words to give voice to a chaotic, often heart-breaking, world progresses.

But first: I finished off my latest journal while I was in Iowa, so today, I will collage the cover of my next set of blank pages. Until tomorrow....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A lovely ritual. I am home alone all day now that school is out, so when yard work and taking care of exercise are done, I can have a similar time to work. Summers are the best - I know you will write amazing things!

Sandy Longhorn said...

Good luck to you, too, Donna! Happy writing.