Right now, I'm feverishly trying to meet a writing deadline for today. I've known about it all week, but the diversions of life (like a trip to the only pharmacy in the county that will fill my dog's prescription, a successful search for a new computer bag, and an irritated piriformis) have a way of sapping my inspiration. This magazine article is about a fascinating real estate company in Tuscany. In fact, if I had the money, I would buy one of their properties tomorrow just so I could go out for myself and wander the ancient cobblestone streets of Italian villages. And that's just what I'm trying to convey in this article. So far, I have 162 of 1000 words finished. Thinking that some wine might push along the creative process, I opened the closest thing I had to an Italian wine. It's a German auslese: very, very sweet, and it's from a region far closer to Italy than the Argentine wines on my shelf. So here I am molding the words in my head like modeling cl...

I had a simple plan for the summer. Basically, I want to get up each morning and walk 3 miles, write for a few hours, and do some stupid little project around the house like fold the clothes in the third drawer. Um, it hasn't happened. While I was at the library Monday working on the writing project I just finished at 5 this morning, I found out my niece was going to come down for her visit that day. After a frantic house cleaning session which more resembled making sure I picked all the bras out from between the couch cushions and at least lined up my shoes by the front door, I only had 9 of my 25 articles outlined. Despite my best efforts to write in the morning before she woke, I found myself writing for six hours last night, stopping three times to set my cell phone alarm clock for 10 minute naps in my desk chair. They're done. Right now I wouldn't trade the dark circles under my eyes or that sickly feeling in my stomach. My niece had never seen the Gulf of Mexico. She ...

When I go to bed tonight, I'm still setting my alarm clock for 5:15 a.m. For one thing, June 2 means no more to the dogs in this house than October 15. For another, just because I'm not driving 24 miles to my classroom, doesn't mean I don't have work to do. No one tells you when you go into teaching that you have no real life from August to June. None. Being gone from 6:20-6:00 each day doesn't leave much time for scrubbing the kitchen sink (sorry Flylady ) or putting away clothes. And let's just stay away from the topic of closet space. Rest assured that I'm not a clean freak or anything (far from it). It's just that I won't be able to cook a full meal or critique Einstein's theory of relativity until I've moved the assorted boxes and crates filled with young adult novels and paper trays to somewhere other than the middle of my guest room. So even though I'm on "vacation", I already have a schedule for the week that includes ti...