Thursday Three - I Can't Believe it's August Edition

Good morning everyone! How are all of you fine people this morning? Lovely? Excellent! I'm suffering a little from Time Lapse Shock Syndrome. (I totally made that up. But it sounds official, right?) I looked at the calendar and it completely blew my mind that it's August. I can't believe the summer is almost over! Now, if we could just get the heat wave to go away and the heavens burst open with days and days of rain to end the drought, life would be pretty good. Anyway, let's get into this week's three things, shall we?

1. It's ridiculously hard to get back into a decent schedule when it's still technically summer. Dude is naturally an early riser, so I don't really have to worry about him, but Diva and I are night owls who also need lots of sleep, so if we can, we sleep in late. This is not going to work when the school year starts, so all week I've been trying to train myself to wake up at "school time". To say it's not going well is an understatement. Also, no one is dressed until almost noon and there's no structure to our days at all. It's going to be a huge shock when school starts unless I can get us all in a proper groove in the next few weeks.

2. I have rediscovered my appreciation for my local library. I've always enjoyed going and getting books and seeing what they have to offer, but as an adult who has the option of buying my books, the library kind of became my backup. But this summer Dude finally got his own library card and his enthusiasm and awe at being able to go to the library, pick a bunch of books just for himself and take them home is a reminder of how magical the library can be. It's giving me flashbacks to my own first encounters with the library, and the incredible stories just waiting to be found there. It's been so fun seeing what books jump out at him and see his own literary tastes develop.

3. I'm hitting that point in Shiny Idea where it's kind of taking on a life of it's own. I'm definitely a "write without a solid plan" kind of person, so while I start with a decent idea of where it's going, I usually end up having a "well, I didn't see that one coming" moment that changes how my story goes. And it's almost always for the better. I had this moment a few days ago while writing. My MC took the story in a VERY different direction than I had originally planned, but it's actually pretty great. It's adds more layers to the story and the characters, which is always exciting, even though it's going to make the story more challenging to write, which is a little scary. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that as I continue, I'll have the chops to pull it off. :)

Well, that's it for me this week. How have all of you been? Anyone else shocked to see the summer is almost over? Do you remember your first time going to the library? Have you ever had your story veer off in an unexpected direction? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Feel free to share in the comments, and I'll see you all again next week!