I sent off the final revisions for my novel-in-verse to my New York publisher, so that’s a weight off my shoulders (and what a surreal feeling it was!). It took a husband and seven hours to read through the novel (for the tenth and hopefully final time) and make the requested changes. I was only interrupted twelve times, which is actually pretty good. One of those times, my 2-year-old brought me his daily flower offering. I save them all in a bouquet of dried-up wildflowers, because, well, he’s super cute.
Another of the interruptions was one of the 5-year-olds, who wanted to show me what happened when he left the cup with a block of ice (in which a car was suspended) out in the 100-degree heat. That’s right. The water melted.
And the best interruption was, again, my 2-year-old, who wanted to join me writing. He used my grandmother’s old Remington typewriter.
In other news, I have a brand new poetry book coming out in October (called Life: a definition of terms), written entirely in haiku poetry, which means it will be easy to read and slightly short, indicative of my attention span this summer with all the kids home driving me up one wall and down the other. Despite the short nature of the poems, this book took me a year to write and compile, so rest assured: it will contain my customary humor, spirit, and declarations to be who you are—and be it proud.
And, lastly, summer is wrapping up—which means in another few weeks I’ll be able to get back to my customary schedule. While I LOVE summer vacation, because it means I get to spend more time with my boys, I’m ready to be back in the writers’ chair (I don’t actually use a chair, but whatever). I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer and will wrap it up like we do: with a celebratory dinner, dessert, and a dance-off party.
If you want a more in-depth inside look at the writer life, along with excerpts from Rachel’s brand new books and unpublished poems and essays, visit her Reader Library page, where you can sign up for her monthly newsletter. You’ll also get some stories and volumes of poetry for free.
