Monthly Archives: August 2014

The first few weeks of every semester are always over-stuffed with data production and meetings (often about data production) and classes, of course.  Dozens of little ships have to be launched–and launched, somehow, without crashing into each other.

But Fall semester at least has a blessing Spring semester can’t boast:  Labor Day weekend!

I’m working extra long days all this week so I can sequester the holiday weekend for writing, because, after nine days away (and five more to come), I miss my characters.

Writing this feels a little like sending them a post card that says, “Home soon.”

When I was a very little girl, I was frustrated by the confusion of the many things I wanted to be–a ship’s captain, Jane Goodall, an actress, a singer, a veterinarian, a jockey, a horse-trainer, a farmer–and then, one day, sitting on the floor of the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library, surrounded by books I’d pulled from the shelf, agonizing over which I would choose to borrow, since my stacks included far more than my permitted quota, I had a revelation similar to what C.S. Lewis said about being a reader.   Suddenly I understood that, if I became a writer, I could be all the things I’d ever dreamed of being–as often or as occasionally as I liked, singly or several mixed together, for the rest of my life.