Wordy Girls

Every fall, when school starts, my life starts fresh.  The girls and I are all excited about the new year and their new schools (one is starting junior high, the other, high school).

I always feel bursting with energy in the fall, and I've gathered a few images to reflect that:

             



        




I'm jumping into writing projects (I have 4 books due at the end of September, plus one huge poetry revision due to my agent), and I always feel like the creativity is just overflowing and flying in fall. I feel like after a long, hot summer, it's time for me to grow again. 

For me, summer is just about getting through. I basically work all day between writing, work-for-hire, and web editing, and yet I'm chauffering the girls around and being interrupted a hundred times a day. Those are just the norm for work-at-home parents, of course. We also have family health issues that make summer a harder time, plus I hate hot weather. 

So I'm doing my happy dance that fall is here. I consider the first day of school to be fall, even though the calendar doesn't agree with me. And neither does the sun, since I think the high today is going to be--ugh--89 degrees!

How are the rest of you writers/illustrators with school-aged kids feeling, now that school is starting (or started a few weeks back)?