Behind on Fun

With all the stress and sadness of the last few months, I had almost forgotten my main New Year's resolution for 2010: to fill my life with as much children's book-related joy and fun as possible, and, while I was at it, to fill my life more generally with as much joy and fun as possible, period.

I am now seriously behind on fun, and it is time to get serious about remedying the situation.

So here is some of what I have planned for the summer. I am going to write three scholarly papers, all with children's literature-related themes. I am going to revise my forthcoming chapter book, Mason Dixon's Pet Disasters, which has sort of morphed into a middle-grade novel, and also write the second book in the series, Mason Dixon's Fourth Grade Disasters. I am going to bring my five mentoring relationships to triumphant conclusions. (They are almost at that point, anyway, with each mentee author executing brilliant revisions over the past six months, but it will be fun seeing each story tied up with a big bright bow on top.)

I am going to hike daily on the mountain trails by my home with my friend Rowan. I am going to go to the farmers' market on Saturday mornings and buy healthy fresh-grown food to eat. I am going to read books just because I want to read them. My dear friend Rachel is going to visit from Virginia. I'm going to go with her and Rowan to the Colorado Book Awards in Aspen, where How Oliver Olson Changed the World is a finalist in the juvenile fiction category. I'm going to go to New York/New Jersey with the boys to visit my sister and maybe have lunch with an editor or with my agent. I'll have my summer retreat up at Lake Dillon with my writing group. I'll go to half a dozen Colorado Music Festival concerts up at Chautauqua with my friend Diane. Oh, and I hope I'll get comps for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, in exchange for letting them use my Hellems Hall office as a dressing room.

So I'd better get busy. Fun awaits!