My Summer To-Do List (recipe for madness)

Here is the list of all the things that I intend to do this summer. (The kids' last day of school is tomorrow!)

• Get up at 5am every weekday and write for 90 minutes. (Mostly on new novel.)
  
• Finish the non-fiction book proposal that I'm working on (with a collaborator) and get it out to publishers.
• Proof Tightly Bound for Brooklyn Publishers (due Monday, so I might actually get this one done). It took some work, but they finally agreed to publish this collection of my short plays for women.
  
• Send out a bunch more screenplay queries.
• Take the kids outside to play every day.
• Take the kids on an excursion every other day (though they'll be in camp in August) (try to find places where both the dog and kids can swim)
• Read a novel every two weeks. (sounds easy, right?)
• Read Anna Karenina (might take more than two weeks. I've already had to take back the copy I had from the library. I read the first page. It was a really, really good first page. This time I'm just going to buy a paperback, so I won't rack up so many overdue fees.)
• Read the new Harry Potter. (We've already paid for our copy, but I'm third in line in our house to get it. Luckily my wife and daughter are very fast readers, so I won't have to wait too long.)
  
• Strip and paint the wood window in the bathroom. (been putting this off for months)
• Hang up the pictures in my office (we've been here a year, no more excuses).
• Build built-in shelves in my office.
  
• Blog regularly. (Do better at reading and commenting.)
• Practice playing the guitar. (Maybe finally take a lesson?)
• Do mini-soccer skill drills 3x per week with daughter (for both of us--I just started playing a weekly Sunday morning pick up game, and have discovered that my skills have not stayed at a the same place I left them when I last played 20 years ago, and that my 40-year-old body could perhaps get in better shape).
• Do a little French language brush-up (with daughter who will start class in the fall).
• Do some funky dancing with my son to my the James Brown Greatest Hits CD that I got for Father's Day (we did a little of this today already).
• Do some work on my new on-line project that will help change the way writers get information to market their work. (Top secret for now.)
• Help son keep learning how to read. Math practice, too.
  
• Send out a handful of play submissions.
• Nap (as needed)
• Contact whoever is in charge (Mr. Intelligent Designer?) and arrange to have 25th and 26th hours added to the day.

That's about it. Shouldn't be too tough. And if I don't do it all, I'll be a complete and utter failure as a human being. (or else just a human being)

tick tock, tick tock

I can feel summer vacation breathing down my neck. The kids only have three and a half more days of school, so writing time is about to get pretty scarce until August, when they have day camp. I'm actually pretty disciplined about finding the time to write, especially if I'm deep into a project (and I am now, smack in the middle of a major rewrite of my new novel). Usually that means getting up at 5am and writing for 90 minutes, not much time for screwing around. I might try also getting in one night per week, at the library or something. It's finding time for the other stuff, the marketing and networking, that gets tough during school vacation.

Even if I don't get much work done, hopefully we'll have fun (if I can keep the two of them from driving each other crazy, and me along with them. Ah, the joys of sibling rivalry. Such sympathy I have for my parents these days. )