I came across this quote today--the last day of July--and it rang true to me. Tomorrow is the first day of August, the last month of Summer, and I feel like school is about to start, the weekend is almost over, and I haven't done my homework. Well, school IS about to start, and I HAVEN'T done my homework; that is, I haven't prepared for classes, and I haven't finished my novel. No wonder June is everyone's favorite month! So many possibilities!

On the other hand, there are 31 days in August....

I'm reading Ann Patchett's book of essays right now, The Story of a Happy Marriage, and in it she writes that there are so many people who want to write a book, and so few of them write for even an hour a day. I am often guilty of not even writing for an hour a day. I often think, "I don't have a huge stretch of time to write today, so what's the point of even starting?" But this sort of thinking is misguided. If I write for just an hour a day during the month of August, that will be thirty-one hours of writing time, and while that doesn't seem like a lot (it's not even a full-time work week), it might just be enough to make real headway on finishing my third novel. And of course, there will be many days when I will write more than an hour a day.

An hour a day for the month of August doing an activity I love. Who's with me?