I like summer. I don’t love it, because the heat is unforgiving in Greece and – unfortunately- I don’t leave next to the sea. The opportunity to swim and stay in the water until my skin peels off and the salt cooks me under the burning sun is what makes summer tolerable. What I love, though, are specific parts of those months which I have connected with memories of my childhood and endless summers that meant only leisure and fun, like the cicadas being as loud as they can all day long, the silence at noon after lunch that stretches until early afternoon that is different from any silence in winter, and the long long days.
The bad thing is that it’s not a productive period for me precisely because of the heat. I get sluggish and too hot to do anything, and I sweat awfully lot and I shower even more and if you count in this the fact that my friends leave for the better part of August and I’m alone, then yes, you’re absolutely right that I’m doing close to nothing all summer. I just exist waiting for it to go away. For me, it’s not summer unless I get vacation to an island, or someone finally gift me a house by the sea, preferably with a great view, thank you very much.
Thus, this is the right period to make plans and revisit my goals during the three months of summer. If not for achieving every single one of them then to keep me focused and keep my mind on the right path, and in the end to have the opportunity to see what I managed.
I’m going to try and keep this short mostly because I don’t want to overwhelm myself with the things that I have or want to do; when I do that, I tend to sit and look at it and do nothing ‘cause it looks pretty fucking scary.
Writing Goals
Goal 1: Finish the first draft of my second book. I write this draft long-handed and I’m currently close to finishing 1/3 of it.
Goal 2: In August, to print and edit the first book that I’ve written. I intend to query it in October, so I hope that those three months will be enough to fix it, shape it, cut it, pamper it, and give it its final shape, as well as prepare a summary and a query.
Reading Goals
Goal 3: Read twelve books. I want to read more of course, but I’m going to go with four books per month for now. I’m waiting from day to day for the post office to bring me N.K. Jemisin’s FIFTH SEASON, Ann Leckie’s ANCILLARY JUSTICE, Pierce Brown’s RED RISING and Kameron Hurley’s THE MIRROR EMPIRE. ( I might have gone a bit overboard with the books this month.)
I’m so excited for them to arrive! Hopefully, I’ll finish the finished trilogies during summer and then delve into some other books that I’ve been waiting for ever to read.
Purely Fun Goals
Goal 4: Go for a swim at least 20 times – which, let me tell you, if you leave in Athens it’s not an easy task for many reasons but here are but a few. a) Traffic and transportation. b) Not all beaches are clean. c) All beaches need at least one hour of commute to reach them.
Goal 5: Finish one book in Spanish, and the Portuguese tree in Duolingo (DL has been surprisingly fun and I can’t wait to move on to other languages, too.)
I’d also say “exercise” somewhere in there but if I manage to swim as much as I’m planning to, exercise will come.
These are my goals as well as have some fun, take some great photographs for the blog and for me, and make the best of it.