September Morn

Yes.  I did.

Now you'll have that Neil Diamond song in your head all day.

Or how about this:  Ba de ya, say do you remember, Ba de ya, dancing in September?

It's September.  The ninth month of the year.  Summer passed by in the blink of an eye, and before we know it,  we'll be buried under a layer of heavy, wet snow.

The kids are back to school and we're putting together new routines for them.  My son is in 4th grade and based on the amount of homework we had last night (new math!? what the?!), he'll need to improve his study habits.  My daughter has new Sleep Rules.  Bedtime has never been one of her strengths.  I'm going to closely follow The Happiest Mom's Back to You: "a month-long series that will bring you easy, quick and totally doable activities to help you take care of yourself this back-to-school season." That can only be good.

It's a great time to re-assess my goals for the year, writing and otherwise.  Here goes:

• Employment.  It's been almost a year since I made the switch from HR to Communications.  There are a lot of things I enjoy about my communications and marketing role, but I've realized that I miss having employees, guiding others, solving problems.  And that's all I can say at this point.

• Change Write Now. I participated in Change Write Now in the spring, made some lifestyle changes, and saw instant results.  But when the challenge ended, unfortunately I slipped back into some of my bad habits.  It's time to reassess my choices and get back on track.  My UMD besties want to run a 5k at the end of October.  Even if I don't actually participate, I plan to start walking again and have a 5k route mapped out.

• Reading. I'm on track to complete my goal of 52 books this year.  My TBR pile keeps growing. But I'm also hoping to participate in a Gone With The Wind read-along, since I missed my annual summer read of it.

• Reading with the Kids.  Birdy and I are working on the first four Betsy-Tacy books.  She is also interested in the Shoes books, and we still read a lot of picture books together.  Toad and I just started the Nicholas Flamel books by Michael Scott.  My goal is to read aloud to both of them each night, even if it's just for five minutes.

• Writing. I'm happy with the progress I've made this year.  CLOUD 9 has had some ups and downs.  A couple of days after last week's bummer news, I got word that a pitch to an agent via Savvy Authors had been selected for a full request.  She also requested a synopsis, so I was basically forced into doing something I'd been avoided since, uh, 2010.  I also took some of the suggestions I'd received from the Entangled rejection and revised once again.  I added a couple of scenes that had been floating around in my head for a few months. And I love it.  I mean, I really love CLOUD 9.  And if this doesn't work out, I'm ready to start pounding the query pavement with it again.

I've made a fair amount of progress on WAITING FOR THE SUN and even though my work on C9 delayed my goal to complete a first draft by the first day of school, I'm confident that I'll be able to finish soon.   

I'm super stoked about my critique group, the MNYA Writers.  What an awesome group of writers - and cheerleaders.  AND there's more to come on that, so stay tuned!

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How about you?  What are your goals for the fall?