This post is by Joe Stephens
I checked out at 11:05 today and, from that moment until August 9, I am a free man. Well, except for the week I go to the AP reading in Louisville.
And I’m excited to be visiting family in New Orleans for a week. Other than that, I’m a writer. It feels good. I’m really looking forward to some time to read what I want and write for hours at a time. During school, I spend a lot of time reading stuff I need to and I have to scratch to find time to write each week. Not so for the next almost two-and-a-half months.
So what will I do with my time? First of all, I’ll put the finishing touches on Dawn of Grace: A Shalan Adventure, number four in the series. Second, I’ll publish it, hopefully before I go to Louisville. If not, I’ll work on it while I’m there. After publication, my first planned activity is a signing at J&Ms Used Bookstore’s new location in the Kroger/K-Mart plaza. I’m hoping to have a launch party sometime in late June or early July as well, though I haven’t planned it yet.
And while that’s going on, I’m going to be writing. What will I write? Frankly, I don’t 
know. I have a vague idea for a spin-off series in which the main character is Jenn, Harry and Dee’s newly adopted daughter. She’s gone away to college and solves a crime in her dormitory. But I think I may choose to write a series of short stories instead. I’ve written a few and I think I’ll see if I can write a book’s worth. We’ll see how it turns out.
So what about all of you? What are your upcoming plans for the summer? What’s in your writing future?
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Writing Wranglers and Warriors 
Joe,
Happy writing. I should be having a short story in an anthology this summer and of course the presentation and paper on the women doctors. (You know that thing that has kind of taken over my life…smile)
I really wish you well and keep us in the loop of what is coming next. Doris
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Congratulations on your publication and on the presentation and paper. That really is such a fascinating subject and you make it even more interesting with how you discuss it.
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Thank you Joe.
Doris
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I’d love to have a two months to just read and write! I’ve thought about trying to get a four to six week writing retreat at a natural area; sometimes the Nature Conservancy hosts such things. But, since I can’t afford to step away from my day job just yet, I guess that will have to be on my bucket list for the future! 🙂 I do plan to do some writing; I’m considering a children’s dog devotion book as a companion for my other dog devotionals as well as finishing up a devotion book I started nearly 9 years ago (“holy I can’t finish what I started, Batman!”) and I have a few signings coming up later in June. I have you have a productive and enjoyable and successful summer, Joe!
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One of the perks of teaching, especially now that I have an advanced degree and don’t have to fill my summers with classes, is that it affords me time to have a second job. Unfortunately, with the way teachers, especially young teachers with children, get paid in WV, a summer job is less a luxury than a necessity. Good luck finishing that book and with your signings.
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My memoir will be published sometime this summer. Right now,I’m working on a collection of short stories, and I signed up for a correspondence course in the elements of poetry from the Hadley Institute for the Blind & Visually Impaired. I’m going to the Wyoming Writers annual conference in Riverton this weekend.
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Sounds like you have quite a full summer! Have fun and good luck with the memoir.
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I plan to finish up a short story I’m writing set in the 1980s and then I have a middle grade mystery short story I want to write for a submission call. Also, my launch party for my debut book is in a couple weeks so I’m looking forward to that. Then I plan to travel and THEN, get back to the YA novel I’ve put on the back burner for a while. Good luck with all the writing projects this summer, Joe!
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Sounds like you have quite a summer planned! I hope you enjoy your launch party. Those are always fun.
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First I have to get through June which includes teaching another nurse aide training course to 10 students for three solid weeks, which means lectures, tests and setting up speakers and experience opportunities for direct patient care. But I’m sure you know all about a teacher’s job! Then July is the family camping trip, grandkid’s fair, a wedding in October and a 50th nursing reunion in September, both in another state . But am hoping to write, am in act of publishing two children’s books, and found out I will have three articles in a book coming out that is a fundraiser for an historical house in Casper. So plan to celebrate when that comes out! Your summer sounds wonderful and congratulations on that and your writing successes!
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That’s quite a summer! And yes, I do understand the life of a teacher. I often teach summer school, but I chose not to this year. Frankly, I don’t need the money nearly as much as I need the down time.
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Best wishes with your plan, Joe! That FREE from school feeling is so amazing! My 6 week summer holidays, as a teacher, tended to get bogged down with gardening and household maintenance and anything left was free choice till I had to knuckle down and plan my coming year- generally around the beginning of week 5 of the hols. I wasn’t writing novels back then but I was reading a lot of fiction! Nowadays I still do the summer gardening, and the general maintenance, and grand kid mind. Will I keep on writing? Yes, but only in the snatches I can find free.
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I’m sure the grandchildren keep you busy, but in a happy way. Have fun!
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Isn’t summer lovely? Just having time to sit back and work at your own pace without interruption is the best! Right now I’m spending my days on the deck reading and bird-watching at our place on the lake. I’m looking for inspiration for my third novel and the books I’m reading are research. Have a great summer, Joe!
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Yes, the best part of summer is the relaxed pace. Even though I still get up about the same time as I do during school, it’s because I wake up, not because my alarm makes me, and I can linger over an extra cup of tea while reading or writing or doing whatever I want. I just love it.
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I’m retired, and although finances are tough, I’ve no plans to take on a part-time job. So for me it’s summertime all year with the ability to write as much as I like — or for as little, for that matter. But I do like writing, and I’m having a fun time writing my Civil War novel. By the way, a friend in Beverly saw that I was writing the Civil War novel, and asked me to do some research for him. What I found is going to be my next Writing Wranglers post. It seems my friend Charlie’s great-great-grandmother was the sister of Stonewall Jackson’s mother. Julia Jackson Neale’s father, or my friend’s great-great-great-grandfather, was a prosperous businessman in Parkersburg.
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I’m not sure. I don’t have summer of. Except this year I’ll be of most of Jule because of surgery, but I’m usually in too much pain to think of writing. I will check out the bookstore. Cher’ley
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Off most of July. I’m tired, so I keep having writing slips (as Linda Leander pointed.out). Lol Cher’ley
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Ah yes, that family is quite well known in Parkersburg history. There’s a street named after them as well as a creek. And I feel the way you do. I’d rather scrape by and be able to do what I want than work at a job I don’t enjoy just to have extra money.
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Sorry, WordPress is doing weird things. I clicked reply under Mike and it put it under Cher’ley. I hope you feel better and can get some of that writing done soon, Cher’ley.
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Ah yes, that family is quite well known in Parkersburg history. There’s a street named after them as well as a creek. And I feel the way you do. I’d rather scrape by and be able to do what I want than work at a job I don’t enjoy just to have extra money.
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Rehabbing my leg and finishing moving in (does it ever end?) still take up a lot of my time, but I am actually getting back to writing. finally. Mostly editing and re-writing my existing chapters at the moment, but I expect to launch into the ending next week. My new critique group is providing some needed motivation. (I hope to pub this summer too.)
Have fun with your free time. Hope you get lots done.
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I finished my manuscript last night about 6pm! It was a grueling day, but I just couldn’t quit until I finished. This week I’ll do everything I can toward publishing except for the cover art and as soon as my photographer friend sends me her pictures, I’ll add that and I’ll be ready to go.
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I will be spending my summer hunting. I am hunting for an agent for my latest book and I am always hunting for critters to photograph.
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