Ahhh, sweet summertime! School for me ended last week, and with homework, final exams, and term papers blissfully out of my life for the next two months and seventeen days, I arrived back home and prepared to write up a storm! However, between visiting friends, sleeping in, and whittling away hours on the Internet and running errands, I soon found that I was putting a lot less time into my writing than I had originally planned to. This became all-too-clear yesterday afternoon, when I logged online to send my friends from college my "Weekly Update" about my life (it's our way of staying in touch over the summer.)

Hmmm ... what have I done this week? I thought. Watched a couple movies, cleaned my room, voted for American Idol ... But not much on the writing front. I realized that sometimes having "all the time in the world" to do something that really matters to you (which, for me, is writing) causes you to procrastinate or push your passion aside because you can always "get to it later." The past week, in fact, I got less writing done than I had accomplished the week before, when I was busy studying for final exams -- because last week, working on my short story for half an hour had been a blessed release. Now, even though I have all day free to write, I still need to schedule a specific block of time, to make sure I actually get around to writing!

Click here for a few tips I learned the hard way about beating summer procrastination.

Fairies and Dragons

- Story by Emily Christian, Grade 8

The wind howled outside of the house like a wounded animal, longing for comfort. Oak branches were tossed to and fro. Tomorrow morning, the snow would be two feet deep, blanketing the broken tree limbs.

Inside the warm house, I burrowed further under my warm covers. A wide smile crept across my face because I knew that tomorrow the old kitchen radio would announce that school would be canceled. I would spend the day talking to friends on the phone, reading in front of the fire, and sipping chicken noodle soup. 

My sister's loud snoring interrupted my warm fantasies. Last year, things would have been different.  Kate, my sister, would not be able to sleep at all on a night like this. She would be telling me about her made-up magical world.  Laying right next to me, she'd enthusiastically be explaining that what we were hearing outside was not a late fall storm, but a battle between the fairy Queen and the evil goblins of the north. Her stories would have flown out of her like water out of a fountain. Last year, she would be jumping all over the room because her make-believe friend, "Dewy-Dragon", would have foretold this battle and that is why she had to put up the Fairy Fort.

Dewy Dragon no longer existed, and fairies, in her opinion, belonged only in Fairy Tales. Invisible people no longer hid in the shadows behind doors. And staying up late at night retelling her adventures to her older sister was no longer a priority.

Click the dress-up dragon to finish the story.

I'm going to see The Da Vinci Code today. My anticipation for this film does not match the rest of the world's. In fact, it's not even close. But I can't not see it so I might as well get it over with.



Tom Hanks looks very unenthusiastic in all the previews. I get the feeling he understands that the story is bigger than anything he could bring to the table. It's actually quite a good story. Have you read the book? If not, you're the only one. All right. I didn't really want to get into it but it looks like I'm here now and I have no choice. So here we go...

There's some wild percentage that says that 75% of people do not read books. I just pulled that number out of my "made-up drawer" so don't quote me on it. But I have heard something along those lines before. I could look it up but I'm feeling lazy. At any rate, only a small portion of the population reads regularly. (Don't ask me how Barnes & Noble is so big.) Out of all the non-readers out there, I guarantee you that many many MANY of them HAVE read The Da Vinci Code. Why? Because when someone asks you if you've read The Da Vinci Code and you say "No", you feel like an idiot.

"Really? Wow. How could you have not read it? It's sooooo good! Oh my God, you absolutely have to read it! I can't believe you haven't read it! What's wrong with you? Why haven't you read it?"

"I don't know. I just haven't."

"I'll tell you what. I'll lend you MY copy. It's a little bent and worn because I've leant it out to soooo many people... but I'll let you read it if you want to. No, even if you don't want to, I'll lend it to you anyway. You just have to read it. OK?"

"OK."

That's how it is. That's how people are about this book. Calling it a phenomenon would not do this phenomenon justice. It's like some kind of literary plague.