Busy Times Ahead

We finished up VBS today. Our church always has VBS in the middle of summer, which I love. I’ve always wondered at the churches who have it the week (or even two weeks) after school lets out. Most kids aren’t super interested in VBS that close to the start of summer. But I’m pretty sure the “I’m bored”s have started by now – we certainly had a bumper crop of kids, whatever the reason.

Like most Baptist churches out there, this year our theme was Colossal Coaster World. And I, like you if that was your VBS theme, will have the songs stuck in my head for at least another two weeks. Thankfully they’re not terrible, so it’s not that big of a deal.

But, with the end of VBS, we also herald the downward slope on summer leading back to school. And that has me looking ahead at the calendar and taking deep, cleansing breaths. We’ll start home schooling for real this year as my son hits Kindergarten (though don’t tell anyone, we’re actually doing first grade.) I also felt like I was being nudged to take on a bigger role in our AWANA program…which turned out to mean I’m now the Commander. Um. Gulp? This is in addition to leading our couples small group on Sunday mornings. Plus I’m teaching creative writing to the upper elementary kids at our home school co-op on Fridays.

And somewhere in there, I want to do a good bit more writing. I have stories clamoring in my head that need to get out. I’m making progress on Matt and Laura’s story (a novella that, at this point, I’m leaning toward self-publishing in either September or October – depending on when I get it polished up. Whenever I start, I hope to be able to release a novella each month for three months – I’ve got the ideas fairly well hammered out. It’s just a matter of transferring them into electrons.)

Then I really want to get started on the next trilogy that I’ve been sketching out. It’s going to venture slightly more into women’s fiction (vs. true romance), though there’ll still be romantic threads in there. It’s just not a boy meets girl story.

And I have a YA series that’s pinging around in my head as well – and that one is on the speculative side of things. I hope, though, that folks who’ve enjoyed my books in one genre will be willing to give another a shot. Of course, when I get the first of that written, I’ll probably need to do a little website fiddling – the pink, well, it might need to go.

Even still, I’m excited and looking forward to the busy-ness. There’s something energizing about the idea of back to school, don’t you think?