Summer Writing

As you read this, I am beginning day #1 of my summer writing schedule. What this means is that I’m fitting writing in around swim practice, swim meets, high school summer swim camp, Boy Scout Camp and whatever else some well-meaning soul pitches my way.

As a full time writer, this is remarkably different from my normal Monday through Friday, 8:00 am until 2:30 pm writing schedule. I have one more book due this Friday, and then I’m going to kick back and enjoy some time off. I’m a writer so I can’t not write but I’m going to slow down for a while. This means that I’m going to focus on writing short:

Blogging. Not only do I write here on the Muffin, but I have my own blog and a book review blog. When things are super busy, I may not get much else accomplished, but I can generally write a blog post in a sitting.

Picture Books. Picture books aren’t easy but they are short. That means that when I don’t have much writing time, I can focus on one spread which, in my work in progress, is 20 to 30 words. Yep. I can do that in a sitting.

Devotionals or inspirational pieces. Last year, I sold a devotional to Alive Now. Since then, I’ve only submitted one other. This will be the perfect time to work on these shorter pieces that generally max out at 400 words.

Short nonfiction. Schoolwide, one of my publishers, is in need of short nonfiction. I have one piece almost ready to go. After I smooth that out, I can develop some new pieces for this market. These can be up to 500 words but also require research. That said, I can probably work one up every two weeks or so.

If you’re a teacher, this might be the opposite of your writing schedule. Now that you aren’t in the classroom five days a week, you have the time and energy to write so instead of working on short pieces you might be looking at something longer.

But what works for you doesn’t have to work for me. The key, as always, is this – find what works for you and own it.

--SueBE

The next session of Sue's class, Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults begins on July 6, 2015.