End of Summer Update

Tomorrow I go back to my day job, teaching.  The last couple of weeks I have been alternately working really hard to get ready for my new group of students on one hand and not thinking about teaching at all and trying to enjoy the last of my time off on the other.

I have also been thinking about what a good time I had writing poems earlier this summer, and realizing how much I missed it, so I'm going to try to come back to this blog and honor it, the work/play I was doing, and all the wonderful people who came here to read my poems.

I did write other things this summer.  My mother watched my two boys for a couple of days and I stayed in a nearby hotel and wrote.  I worked on my memoirs/autobiography.  My father wrote to my brother and I before he passed and I value (that's just not a strong enough word) what he shared with me about his childhood and growing up years.  I plan on being around for a long, long time, but I am writing for my sons, as my father did for my brother and me.

I also got back on track with my novel that I started last November as part of NaNoWriMo 2009.  I read a really good book on writing: Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell and got to work on revising my novel.  I'm happy to say that I did finish what I was calling version 1.5 of my novel and did send it off to CreateSpace for my free proof copy.  I didn't make the end of June deadline for my free proof copy, but it was worth every penny to get that copy and see my novel as a real book.  My wife is reading it now.

I have since gone back and rethought my first attempt at writing a novel for NaNoWriMo 2008.  I started that novel over again, which is why I haven't been sharing any poems here.  I just haven't been writing any lately, but I'm ready to come back now.

And somewhere in there, I got an email from the people over at Poets for Living Waters.  They accepted my poem "Immature" and put in on their Open Mic page.