Can I Haz Normal?

Ah, summer! A time to relax. A time for family. A time for vacation.

And the summer has indeed been delightful. I got to watch many fun shows with the kids. Many games were played. We visited friends. All very, very good.

Ah, but the writing… that has suffered. You see, with the kids out of school, I wanted to spend more time with them. And that extra time with kids means less time for writing. Every time I thought, “Ah! I can get some writing done now!” that writing time would last a week, and then something would shift the schedule and I couldn’t keep up with it. Routine was not routine.

This last Thursday, though, the kids went back to school. That means during weekdays… no kids.

Now, I still have my “day job.” I work hard at that job. Thankfully, though, I can work at my own pace there. Which means that I should be able to get back to work on writing as well. We’ll be back to a mostly-normal weekly schedule.

And that’s good. One of our recent TikTok series went viral, talking about a book I found called How to Be a Dragon.

There is no book by that name. I made it up.

But I guess now I’m gonna write it.

Also, I’ve outlined a six-book series with my teen daughter. We’ll be cowriting it. I’m really excited for this series. I’ve never cowritten before, and I want to make sure the books are as much hers as they are mine.

So, I’m thrilled that from now until around Thanksgiving we should have a relatively normal schedule, allowing me to set a routine and get back to writing regularly.

How about you? Do you find routine helps in your writing? In your reading? Or is chaos your first, last, and middle name?