I have a very weird relationship with resolutions and goals. Typically, I set a lot of goals, and I very rarely accomplish them in the timeframe I give myself. I was reviewing my 2018 goals and making plans for the future and had a pretty big realization. I lack a basic skill. So, I’m going to be working on this skill during the beginning of 2019.

2017 was a crazy year in my personal life. Griffin and I bought a house, got a dog, and in general adulted to the max. 2018 has been a crazy year in my writing world. Here are the highlights:

January: Started reading and re-writing The Dragon Book.

April: Worked my last day at my office job.

May: Started writing full-time. Met my writing hero: Tamora Pierce.

August: Finished the re-write of The Dragon Book. Attended WorldCon and the Hugo Awards. Hired a writing coach.

November: Finished my 7^th NaNoWriMo.

December: Exchanged favorite books with my beloved writing group.

2018 What I learned

It is difficult to quantify what I learned in 2018 because in some ways I’m still in the middle of learning it. Here are a few of the things I did come away with at the end of the year:

• I’m a pretty good writer, and I have a lot to improve before I’m an excellent writer.
• Quitting to work for myself was the best decision of the year. I can’t say it was the best decision of my life, but it ranks up there in the top ten decisions next to going on that first date with Griffin, buying a house, and getting O’Neill.
• Quality over quantity matters to me, I don’t want to produce stories, I want to produce excellent stories, so I’m taking the time to learn how to tell stories well.
• There are so many good books and so little time.
• I have a lot to learn about myself.

How I’m goal setting for 2019

I’m looking at goals a little differently for 2019. I don’t actually have any concrete writing goals. This is mostly because every year my goals has been to have a book ready to be published, and that hasn’t happened yet.  Since working with a writing coach for the last quarter of 2018, I realized how much I still need to learn in order to actually write an excellent book. I want to give myself time to learn and so I actually created some five year goals, which I’m not ready to share publicly. Instead I backed off and looked at what I need to work on in the next couple of months to make the next five years successful.

What are my actual goals for the next couple of months (Jan – Mar/Apr)

2. Learn how much time it actually takes me to complete things. I actually have a very skewed sense of how long it takes me to complete a project. So, I’m timing myself and for the next couple of weeks I am writing down how long it takes me to say, write a blog post, or a short story. How long it takes to transition from being on a break to getting back into writing. I say my break is fifteen minutes, but am I actually going back into writing after fifteen minutes or am I taking thirty? When I am writing the first draft of a story I can write ~1000 words in an hour if I have a plan. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. But, I don’t know how long it takes me to create said plan, or how long it takes me to edit the first draft. All of this information should help me create a better, more realistic expectations on my own writing and productivity.
3. Once I know how long it takes me to actually complete things, I will start making deadlines and schedules and I want to hit those deadlines/schedules at least 80% of the time.
4. Write a weekly blog post. I enjoy the long form of dumping my brain out onto digital paper. I haven’t written a blog post in a while, mostly because I was learning so many new things, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I’m planning on writing a lot more consistently this year.

And that is it. I think those things should keep me busy for the next couple of weeks and months. I want to accomplish so much more, but I feel that slowing down and mastering really this very basic thing will allow me to be a lot more successful in the future.

What are you working on in the new year? Are there some basic skills that you have been ignoring that you could be working on right now?

Okay, it has been a hot second since I posted one of these goal posts. Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog period (this was the last post, and this was the last goals post I did…). In fact, not since the end of summer reading. So, in this post I’ll let you into what I’ve been learning, what I’m hoping to do this month, and what I’m excited about.

Where the heck have I been?

I have been learning all the things and writing all the things. I finished the second draft of The Dragon Book and realized that there were some serious problems in the middle of the book that I didn’t know how to solve. Specific issues surrounding plot, structure, pacing, character arc, agency, you know all those elements that make up a story. So, I did what any sane person would do, I hired a writing coach.

I’ve been working with this coach since September and here are a few of the things we have covered:

Prose:

We worked on removing abstraction in my writing and doing those things that I should have already been doing — like show, don’t tell. The feedback piece is what I was missing to make my writing better. The difference in my writing from the start of the month to the end is insane.

Here is a piece from the short story I wrote that month:

The cold mud made general Xu Guiyang’s knees hurt. The wind blowing off the peaks above her smelled of fresh spruce and tasted like snow. The tips of her ears numbed. The soldier laid out beside her, heavy linen jacket untied and thrown open to reveal a reddening purplish mark above her left breast, tried to speak. General Xu leaned in to hear what the woman had to say. A pink tinged bubble rose from the soldier’s lips as she whispered her last words. The bubble burst splattering on the general’s cheek, the soldier’s words went unheard. The pulse in the woman’s throat stuttered and stopped. And as skin slowly turned cool under her fingers General Xu talked to her ghost.

 

This story isn’t done. I have a lot I need to fix, especially as I learn more about plotting, specifically plotting for short stories, and seriously, this will probably end up as a novella.

Pacing:

In October we worked on pacing, specifically ramping up tension and the ways to do that. One of the things that I loved from this month was the reminder that readers are smart and that I the writer don’t need to spell every single thing out. I don’t have a piece of writing to illustrate pacing well.

Creating the story’s dream:

In November we started working through John Gardner’s book “The Art of Fiction”. One of his big things is that it is the responsibility of the writer to place the reader into a vivid dream and to not distract them out of it. Additionally, as a writer of fantasy I need to ground my reader into the fantastic bits of the world as quickly as possible, so it then becomes common place and thus no longer a distraction.

This first example is from the first draft of this short story. It has the physical grounding, but none of the locational information that grounds readers into the reality of the world:

Naomi couldn’t breathe. She sat on the edge of her bed, her sinuses stuffed and slimy mucus oozing from her nose no matter how many times she blew it. Her head ached too, dully. She glared across the room at her tool belt with its pruners, hand ax, and belt knife. All she needed to do was stand up, put her tool belt on, and walk to the grove. A great wracking cough bubbled up from her chest and she pushed a cloth to her mouth and coughed until she had no air left.

 

This is the current draft of that same story. Very different opening. It still needs work, like a killer first line, and the story might need an end…but that is a problem for another day.

 

A bird landed on the crest of the drooping branch and pecked at the yarn tying one of the swaying votives to the branch. Two branches away, Runa moved slowly as she cut, not wanting to disturb the bird. She removed the wooden votives and strings, one by one, placing them in her twig basket with a prayer. Released at last, the branch perked up and startled, the bird fluttered away. Runa moved to a new branch, she whispered another prayer to the spirit tree. Her words mixed with the sound of the votive boxes – tied by shrine supplicants to the spirit tree – a song to the gods. Runa paused in her cutting, a finger traced a bolt of black, stark against the white of the spirit tree’s bark. White bark and purple leaved, the spirit tree shouldn’t have any black on it….

NaNoWriMo:

I participated in my 7th NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org). It was a busy month, I wrote a novella, two short stories, and a few flash fiction pieces. I always learn something new during NaNoWriMo. This year I realized how terrible my first drafts are. This is something I knew but hadn’t fully realized until this year. I’m totally okay with this, it just means that I shouldn’t show people the first drafts of things because it isn’t a good indicator of my writing level.

Plotting:

This is what we are working on this month and I’m pretty excited. This is one of my weakest skills and so I’m pretty excited to be diving in to this subject this month.

What I’m excited about:

Besides learning more about plotting, I’m pretty excited for the books I get to read this month and I’m in the middle of planning out next year which is always terrifying and super fun. I’ll do a more in-depth post about this as we close in on the new year.
I’m also excited about posting more on my blog cause I’ve kind of missed it.

What kinds of things have you been learning recently?

Bye for now!

School is officially back in session for Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz Public Library Summer Reading Program wrapped up last week. I’m sure you are all curious how it went, me too! I had a hectic week last week, I had to finish out the summer reading program then I disappeared to WorldCon 76 for FIVE days. So, I had four big things to complete last week and I got them all done. But it did mean taking a day and finishing everything, it was worth it.

 

As a reminder the Adult Summer Reading Program consisted of a bingo card with the theme: “Reading Takes You Everywhere”. On the bingo card were 25 things to do in the area. It was my intention to complete all of them, and I did.

Favorites Activities

My absolute favorite activity was looking at the stars. Griffin and I went to Henry Cowell State Park on a night that the Santa Cruz Astronomy club was going to be there with their telescopes. We talked conspiracy theories, and got to see Venus and Jupiter, and three of Jupiter’s moons.

 

Another favorite was reading a book by a local author. I read La Costa Nostraby Ivano Franco Comelli. It is a memoir of growing up the child of Italian immigrants on the coast road north of Santa Cruz. It was full of local history and a little different perspective of the area.

 

Honorable Mention:

Going to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.

Visiting a community garden and reading there.

Hardest Challenge

Going e-device or screen free for a day. This one actually took some planning on my part, and I wrote a blog post about it (click here).

Cool Things You Might Not Know About

Did you know that you can check out passes to museums from your library? How about digital magazines? Or, put a telescope on hold? Learn a new language for free? These are all things that I did this summer, it has been pretty cool. I sometimes forget that the library offers so many more services than just as a receptacle for books. So, while I’m waiting patiently for my telescope, you should go ask your librarian what are some of their underutilized services?

 

What Now?

Life continues on. I really enjoyed participating in the summer reading program. I feel more grounded in my community. I’m a little sad that there isn’t something like the summer reading program for all the other seasons of the year.

So, one of the hardest challenges for the summer reading program was actually to go screen free for a day. I picked Sunday, August 11. The specific wording for the challenge was “go e-device (or screen) free for A DAY!”. I chose to interpret the challenge quite literally, and as broadly as possible. Basically, if it had a screen, I didn’t use or look at it. This included my computer, ipad, kindle, and hardest of all, my phone. The only caveat I put on this challenge was that I could make and answer phone calls. I specifically put this caveat in place because Griffin was travelling and needed to be able to reach me. I also decided to wear my apple watch, because I only use it to tell the time.

 

My screen free plan

So, in preparation I made a list of chores that I wanted to complete. I also had a book that I wanted to finish reading on my screen free day. My backup plan was toplan in more detail the upcoming scenes I needed to write, if I got really desperate. I thought I was pretty prepared for spending the day without my main source of entertainment.

 

What actually happened…

The first thing on my screen free day that I noticed was how quiet the house was. Like I said, Griffin was traveling so it was just O’Neill and I in the house. O’Neill is a terrible conversationalist. Fortunately, a couple years ago I purchased a record player and a couple of records. So, I found it and listened to my five records for most of the day. That was actually quite fun. There is something about listening to records that is different from listening to music on my phone. Perhaps because I only had five albums instead of the entire internet’s worth of music at my fingertips.

Time goes weird

The second thing I noticed was that I got bored. I forget that boredom isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I when I am bored I go to my phone or online, if I’m on my computer, and scroll endlessly. So, with that outlet out of reach when I got bored I just changed what I was doing. Whether it was washing the dishes or folding laundry, or just sitting back down on the couch to continue reading.

 

The third thing I noticed was that I seemed to have a lot more time. The day went by a lot slower. Granted, I only left the house for a short period of time, but still, I felt I time for what I needed to get accomplished.

 

An Adventure?

Fourth, I, partway through the morning, thought that perhaps I should try to accomplish a couple of the reading program challenges, but then I realized that I didn’t know 1) where any Santa Cruz County Parks were, and 2) I didn’t know when any library programs where happening. And that information was conveniently located online. But, I had a plan. I was going to stop by the local library branch and solicit the help of a bemused librarian to figure these things out. Unfortunately, the local branch was closed. And, instead of driving around trying to find an open library, I chose to put off the adventures. Also, I realized that I would need to write down directions to any county park, because, I couldn’t use GPS. I felt like I probably would have gotten lost. But that is part of the fun.

 

I did talk to Griffin on the phone, and I did call my mom later that day because I was lonely. One of the things I think happens when I can’t just turn my phone on and distract myself with social media is that I remember to connect with people more, and I like that.

 

Did I miss anything?

So, what did I miss? I missed my audio books. They typically keep me company when the house is quiet and when I’m doing chores. I missed being able to text funny pictures of O’Neill to my friends. I also thought up a bunch of things I ABSOLUTELY needed to do on my computer, none of which I have done yet. Other than that, I didn’t really miss the endless social media scrolling or playing games. I also missed instantaneous information at my fingertips, but at the same time, not having instant information to distract me allowed me to focus a lot better.

 

The takeaway

If you haven’t tried to do one of these screen free days I highly encourage you to try it. It was actually kind of a fun challenge, and I’m trying to figure out what elements I want to continue to incorporate into my life. I think having a regular day where I try to not use my phone would be good. Disconnecting from the internet was refreshing. I also think that putting a moratorium on social media or phone use in general in the mornings would be incredibly helpful for my productivity. Perhaps I will actually turn on the ringer and then just leave it in the kitchen where I know where it is and can get to it if someone calls. All in all, I’m really glad that I did this challenge, and I think you all should try a screen free day and let me know how you did!

 

The month of July felt like… a training montage. I also learned how to spell montage, which was not one of my goals, but hey. But basically all I’ve been doing is editing my little brain out, which was one of my goals. Its good, the story is getting stronger and I’m getting closer to being done with the second draft. Back to the training montage, I sometimes with I could put on the cool music and skip this part of the work, because it is repetitive and boring, but if I did that then I wouldn’t learn and become a better writer so, instead I created the below montage for your amusement.

Music: Together We Stand by Scott Holmes is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.

July Goals:

Writing:

1. Edit 300 pages. This is actually my Camp NaNoWriMo Goal. I’m hoping this will actually put me close to finishing the second draft. Complete! And no, I’m not really close to finishing the second draft… why does this take so long? Also, this means I completed Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time!!
2. My stretch goals it to finish the 2^nd Seriously, how many months is this going to be my goal? I did not complete my stretch goal, but I am pretty happy with the progress I made this month.

Business:

1. Post consistently on social media. I’m going to give myself a half complete on this. I did pretty good until the last week of the month. Its kind of becoming a theme at this point.
2. Start using IGTV. I did. There isn’t a big audience using IGTV yet, so I feel like I can dip my toes into creating videos. Its kind of fun.

August Goals:

Writing:

1. Edit ~600 pages and finish my second draft. I know, this has literally been my goal for four months now, but I really don’t want to be editing during the month of September. I want to start something new and fun for my birthday month.
2. See above.

Business:

1. Find/confirm content editor
2. Post consistently on social media
3. Read 1 book on either publishing or writing

Reading:

First Test – Tamora Pierce

Page – Tamora Pierce

Terrier – Tamora Pierce

Bloodhound – Tamora Pierce

Mastiff: – Tamora Pierce

The Calculating Stars – Mary Robinette Kowal

I started a bunch of books… but I didn’t finish very many. I’ll have to work on that.

Misc:

On the summer reading program front, I have completed 14 of 25 challenges. I have a couple of weeks to complete the rest, or at least complete enough to get five raffle entries. If you go to Instagram, I have posted some of the completed challenges, search the hashtag #rosannadoessummerreading. I have been having so much fun!

 

When I posted my Creating Discipline Pt. 1 blog post I realized that I think about motivation in two different ways and that I needed to take a step back and talk about motivation. For me, there is motivation that comes just from starting a thing. And the second form of motivation for me is how I create expectations so I can meet them. The first form I find is ephemeral and dissipates after about a week, the second form is what sustains my discipline habits.

The Beginning

I am an overenthusiastic person. If you need something started, get me onboard, because I love to start things. I love the beginning, the excitement, the anticipation. I’m terrible though at follow through and finishing things. I know this, because I have two books that are only partially written, not including the one I’m currently working on. We also won’t talk about the numerous craft projects that are only partially completed. This has also been a struggle in my professional life. It was less of a problem there, which I’ll talk about why in a minute, I would get things done, but sometimes it would take me a bit to do the finishing action items.

Enter last year. During 2017 I was trying to figure out how to do the daily work. My wheels were spinning and I felt very defeated. I didn’t understand why I could write 50,000 during November for NaNoWriMo. But the rest of the year I struggled to write 1,000 words a month. In September or early October I read a book by Gretchen Rubin – The Four Tendencies – The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too). From her website:

During my multibook investigation into human nature, I realized that by asking the suspiciously simple question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge.

I discovered that people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so understanding this framework lets us make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress and burnout, and engage more effectively. The Four Tendencies explain why we act and why we don’t act.

The framework holds practical answers if you’ve ever wondered . . .

People can rely on me, so why can’t I rely on myself?

Why do people tell me that I ask too many questions?

How do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask—or one who keeps telling me what to do?

How do I stop my teenager from dropping out of school?

Why can’t I convince my patients to take their prescriptions?

How can my team become more effective, with less wasted time and conflict?

One of the big daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people—including myself—to do what I want?” Knowing the Four Tendencies make this task much, much easier.

-Gretch Rubin – From her website

 

Okay, so I read the book, I figured out that I’m an Obliger, which means I respond to external expectations. I create motivation by having something outside of myself hold the expectation that it will get done. This blew my mind. I stopped analyzing myself to figure out if there was some hidden fear keeping me from writing. I stopped trying to convince myself or use willpower to muscle through the process and just switched my perspective on how to create expectations for myself.

The first thing I did was create a word spring twitter account for myself. I would post what time I would be writing the day before, and I would show up, run word sprints, and write. It was like magic. I went from struggling to write 1,000 for the month, to writing 20,000 that month. The next month I wrote 50,000 (NaNoWriMo) and finished the first draft of my novel.

The Aftermath

Of course, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but I have found that most frequently when I am unable make headway, or do the thing it is because I don’t have or haven’t created external expectation for myself.

So, when looking at motivation, we want the kind that comes from creating expectations that work with our own personalities. Not the kind of motivation that disappears after a week.

 

If you are curious about your tendency go take the quiz here.

If you are interested in a writing accountability group, I will be running one for the month of August, either leave a comment, or email me: Rosanna.griffin@icloud.com

This is not a sponsored post. This book is a good tool, so I’m sharing.

 

c But I feel like I say that every month. The only thing that was really funky was that I did some consulting work for a week and didn’t write or edit the whole week. It was super fun to do something outside of writing, but I’m glad to be back. Then of course, we took the first week of July off so I’m really glad to be back for the rest of this month.

So How Did June Actually Go?

I wrote ~20,000 words of new content for the middle. This is a lot of new content considering this is the 2nd draft. Actually, this is probably not a lot of new content, but it feels like it is. But coming out of the beginning I knew that these new scenes were necessary for the story to actually make sense. So, I’m back to editing. To be honest, I hoped to be further along. At the same time it took me two years to finish the first draft. I think I can give myself a little bit of grace since I’ve only been working on the second draft for six months.

June Goals:

Writing:

1. Finish the 2^ndDraft…for realz. Actually, if I can get through middle I’ll be really happy.

I did not get through the middle, but I did add 20,000 words. Now I need to delete a bunch of stuffs because my manuscript is over 150,000 words. For perspective that is about a 500 page book…ooof.

2. Finish confirming content editor. Again this is predicated on the Dragon Book being a little more finished than it is right now.

I did not finish this because I need to get further along in the book before I confirm a content editor.

Business

1. Post consistently on social media.

Completed! Yay!

2. Do more research on Indie Publishing.

Did not really complete, but I have time.

July Goals:

Writing:

1. Edit 300 pages. This is actually my Camp NaNoWriMo Goal. I’m hoping this will actually put me close to finishing the second draft. So
2. My stretch goals it to finish the 2^nd Seriously, how many months is this going to be my goal(see these blog posts: 1 | 2 )?

Business:

1. Post consistently on social media.
2. Start using IGTV.

Reading:

Here is what I read in June:

Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist– Dorothy Gilman

Daughter of the Blood– Anne Bishop

Heir to the Shadows– Anne Bishop

Queen of the Darkness– Anne Bishop

Vision in Silver– Anne Bishop

Marked in Flesh– Anne Bishop

Etched in Bone– Anne Bishop

Lake Silence– Anne Bishop

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms– N.K. Jemisin

Red Winter– Annette Marie

Misc:

I didn’t do a whole lot of interesting things during the month of June. Basically I wrote, did some consulting and for the first time we hosted a couple of BBQs at the house. Then I took the first week of July off and it was awesome.

July is Camp NaNoWriMo. I’m determined to actually finish a camp NaNoWriMo, which I have never done, so I am off to go edit!

So I don’t have my stuff together. I would not describe myself as a disciplined person (whether or not this is true). But I’ve been grinding on this idea of discipline over motivation for about a week so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts. And hopefully further down my journey I will be able to look at this post and laugh about how silly I was.

The beginning

I have always been a somewhat flighty person. Can one be flighty and responsible at the same time? The answer, in my case, is yes, absolutely. I have always found it difficult to concentrate and focus my energies on one thing. Starting at a young age, I skipped from interest to interest. I mean, I crocheted, knit, tatted, sewed, cross stitched, scrap booked, stamped, and those are just the “craft” hobbies. I cycled through these things whenever I was bored. Moving onto the next things after a few days or weeks. Which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. Knitting one sock is not useful, socks come in pairs, unless you are me.

The same thing happened when I started writing. I’d do it for a month, NaNoWriMo (see my writing timeline) and then I’d do a few things, but basically nothing until the next November. So for a couple of years it felt a little like I was spinning my wheels, getting nothing accomplished. Which, while not strictly true, was a little true. So last year was the year of learning to do the daily work. And sometime near the end of the year I read a book that changed everything, Gretchen Rubin’s “The Four Tendencies“. It shifted pretty how I thought about motivating myself and by changing a couple of things I was able to finish my novel’s first draft.

Fast-forward

I wish I could say that my life changed that day and that everything was peachy, but I can’t. I believe pretty strongly that doing hard things builds character and grit and those are essential ingredients in getting anything significant done. That being said, I’m not going to complain about how hard it can be to stay focused and motivated, but I also don’t want you all to think it is all sunshine and rainbows.

That brings me back to discipline. I motivate myself to write in a number of unique and interesting ways. They work, for me, I like motivating myself. But everything I know about sustaining something long term always comes down to discipline and not motivation. I know how to do the daily work, now I’m trying to figure out how to create the discipline and habits so it doesn’t feel so hard to actually do the work.

 

In part 2 I’ll discuss how I changed my mindset and started doing the daily work.

The tourists are arriving in droves. Traffic is backed up on Ocean Avenue, and the noobs congregate on the mild swells to try their hand at surfing. It is officially summer in Santa Cruz. Vacationers seek the ubiquitous “beach reads” like the holy grail.

Beach read?

I actually had to look up what a beach read is because I wasn’t sure. A lot of websites publish lists of “beach reads for summer 2018”. See examples:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4.

Here is what I’ve decided. Beach reads are books that people read for pleasure. This actually seems counterintuitive to me. Don’t people read for pleasure all the time? Then I realized that maybe this is one of the reasons that I have met a lot of people who wished they read more books. Is it because they think they should be reading more personal development books or classics? Or do they think they should only be reading great literary works?

Year-round beach reading for the win!

Most of the books I read could probably be categorized as “beach reads”. I love genre fiction. My favorites are a good mystery, or a well written fantasy novel, and I have even been dabbling in sci-fi and thrillers. I also occasionally read a personal development book, a classic, or a great literary work, but I read in those genres much less often than I read other types of fiction. Really, I feel that reading should be a pleasurable activity, and most of the time I don’t want to read something heavy. Typically, the question is how to spend my spare time? Do I pick up a book or watch a TV show? I “binge read” a series over the last couple of weeks. I don’t actually remember the last time I binged a tv series.

During my first term at college I stopped reading all fiction. It was terrible. Most of the way through the term I was stressed and unhappy and I picked up a Clive Cussler novel and read the whole thing in about 24 hours. I learned an important lesson that term. Reading for pleasure is super important for me. Diving into a good story keeps me sane. And, reading books because they are “good for me” is absolutely the path to misery. I enjoy my beach reads, and I rarely am reading them on vacation.

Summer is officially here! Actually, as an adult I’m never actually sure when summer is officially here. But this last week I decided it is summer. And why did I decide this? Because I signed up for my local library’s summer reading program.

Aren’t summer reading programs for kids?

I love summer reading programs. Until I moved out of the town where I grew up, I participated in summer reading programs at my local library every summer. On a side note, my record for books read for a summer reading program is 120 books. However, I don’t remember how old I was, though I was in the adult summer program. I also don’t remember how many hours I was working per week. As I’m sure you can imagine I read a lot anyway and so have the community around me also reading just brings more delight to the activity. What I’m pretty excited about for this summer is that the Santa Cruz Public Library is doing their adult summer reading program a little differently than I am used to. Basically, I get to play library bingo.

But libraries have books, shouldn’t you just be reading?

I think the library bingo illustrates how libraries are changing and how much more they do than just store books. I also think that this is something that can be delightful to do as an adult and holds a little more challenge than just sitting down with a book. Basically I feel like it is an adventure/scavenger hunt/quest.

I would tell you which activities I’m excited about, but I really excited about all of the things. Here are the ones I’m especially excited about:

–Reading books by local authors
–visiting the free little libraries

Does your library have a summer reading program? Are you participating? How much fun is this summer going to be?

Be assured, I will update you all on my progress, and there will be pictures.