Rain or Shine

On Monday it rained a little bit,

but we said "happy summer" anyway,



doled out umbrella pencils to our friends

and flower bookmarks to our teacher

 with blooming "school's out" smiles.

We shuffled out next morning in pajamas and slippers,
un-hurried,
no school bell,


content with our pancakes.

Not to fret!
In all the summer revelry, I didn't forget our
DEVINE INTERVENTION book giveaway contest!
Congratulations, Dawn Simon!
You won! I'll zip you a message soon.
Thank you, Martha Brockenbrough, for writing and gifting us with this excellent book!

 
More excitement this week: speaking to the
Port Townsend Library Teen Writers' group.
Thank you, PT Library for the opportunity!
 
Look at those smiley faces.
Thanks, guys. 

And thanks to those of you who let me take pictures of your shoes

 

and for humoring me

with all the talk about books and words 

and what to do with the voices in our heads,

about showing up to write 

every day, rain or shine.

It was a delight to hang out with you.

I'll share more of my notes on our talk later this month.
 
In the meantime, happy writing,
and happy summer, rain or shine!

Wordy gifts

I've been dissecting books lately -
I'm reading and analyzing and trying to get
at the wild animal that is successful writing.
And in the process, I found I wanted
to actually cut something up.

So we made wordy gifts for our teachers and mamas.

The girls yarn-bombed pencils,

 helped fancy up some clipboards,

 did a little sewing;

then we stitched old book pages into apple, heart and flower puffs

 and stuck them on our pencils.

Ah, clipboards. 

I've often thought I could go just about 

anywhere with a clipboard and feel official. 

So, the wordy gifts are done. 

And the figurative book dissection continues...

I'll fill you in tomorrow on my discoveries.