Summer productivity

My school year officially ended at noon yesterday, after I finalized my grades and finished my office hours. Now I’m officially in summer mode.

That means I have some uninterrupted blocks for writing. This doesn’t mean I’ll only be writing this summer. I have a class I’m taking in administration of disaster mental health programs, I have at least twenty interns to supervise, I have research I should do, I have classes to put together for the summer, I have my gardening …

Professors don’t really have the summer off, we just have more freedom to schedule things as we need them.

So, writing. I’m celebrating the end of the semester with a writing retreat in a cabin at Mozingo Lake next week for two nights. I’m hoping the change of scenery will help me get ahead on the rewrite for Apocalypse.

I’m talking this all out loud because the concept of planning out this summer productivity is new to me. Before my bipolar diagnosis, I pushed myself hard at the end of the semester, usually swinging between hypomanic and depressed, then collapsed on the finish line and slept for two weeks. Or longer. A lot of summers went by when I could barely function to do my summer work.

Being able to enjoy productivity on my own terms is a very new concept for me. And I plan to enjoy it.

The Semester Winds Down

Tomorrow is the last regular day of the semester; then we will go into finals week here at the college. The semester is winding down; the rhythm of my life will change with summer session. I’ll still be busy with an online class and 25 interns and putting fall classes together, but I will have much more flexible time.

I’ll have more time for writing — well, maybe not, but I will be able to devote longer blocks to it, which is a good thing. The summer projects writing-wise are: 1) rewrite Apocalypse; 2) Send Whose Hearts are Mountains to dev edit (if #1 gets to a good place). No new books. Also keep pushing Prodigies and start pushing Voyageurs.

I don’t sound like someone who’s ready to quit, do I ?

Heatwave

The high temperature today will be 100 degrees, with a 105 heat index. This means I’m likely not going anywhere today — no coffee shop stop, no morning walk, no visiting with people. I’m sentenced to involuntary indolence for the day

Here’s an (old) poem for your viewing pleasure:

Heat Wave in Rural Missouri

The sun burns sagging porches,

bleaching petunias and salvia.

The afternoon gasps its last.

From my window, nothing stirs –

I alone live, breathe.

Swooning,

I spy you strolling through a deluge of rain,

bearing me pansies and muguet,

your bowler and grey linen suit still crisp,

the last mirage before I fade –

Knowing I exaggerate, and my demise

is not imminent in this air-cooled room

does not detract from my reverie.

A Pattern to my Days

As a professor, summer has a different pattern than the rest of the school year. The belief is that professors are “off for the summer”, and that’s generally not true for the faculty I know. The focus of our work changes, and we teach more concentrated courses and hold our office hours in Starbucks. We do research projects and revamp classes and write, and we may supervise internships and field experiences.

I’m currently splitting my days into three parts. Early in the morning, instead of writing this blog, I work on the next week in my drastic revision of People, Money, and Psychology. Instead of running it as a cognitive psychology class about money, I’m creating a class about poverty and all the ways it’s not just about lack of money. I’m two-thirds the way through the lesson plans. The rest is easier once I have a shape to the class.

After that, I write the blog. Not that I don’t love all twenty-something of you, but I have to give my freshest coffee-fueled brain cells to the classwork first. I haven’t felt too inspired lately on the blog front, and I apologize.

Finally, my day is split between getting some sort of walk in, editing Voyageurs, and planting plants in my soon-to-be amazing garden.

So what are you up to today?

Another detour

Note — this is finals week at Northwest Missouri State University, where I finish out the school year by giving final exams and hearing last-minute entreaties from students who forgot to turn in 50% of the assignments. I feel for the students — there were classes I missed 40% of when I was a student, but I didn’t ignore due dates in a class and ask for mercy on the last day of class.

Poor Prodigies — it may be the novel that never gets written at this rate. After editing Gaia’s Hands into a novella — the best decision I’ve made thus far — I’m doing what needs to be done with Mythos and Apocalypse given the time frames and moods — splitting them up into a novella and one novel. I think my instincts are right here.

I’ll get back to Prodigies. And Whose Hearts are Mountains. Sometime this summer. In-between intern visits, writing on one of two non-fiction books, working in the garden, and maybe some sleep somewhere. Oh, and exercise. I promised myself some exercise.