Spring 2012 Comes to a Close

Well well well....

We're rounding out the semester; I've posted my grades, turned in my final paper for the postcolonial lit class I'm auditing, and now I'm finding myself strangely... unbusy! Even my advising duties are slowing down, and it feels... peculiar.

Summer's so close I can smell it! Though, it smells more like rain, westerly winds, and hail stones these days. We've been having some awfully odd weather in El Valle the past month or so. Blazing heat and clear skies (which is totally normal) intermixed with these really violent storms. Those palm trees? That picture was taken by me a few days ago, just outside my office at UTPA. Today, they look about the same...

Anyway, I feel like life's begun to calm, the calm before the big storm. Hah... ok, I'm being cliched and melodramatic, yes... but I'm twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the publication of my next two books, waiting for the hailstones to fall.

So with the summer coming up, my life's going to change again. I'm planning a book tour! I'll be making stops throughout most big cities in Texas, which will be fun and scary at the same time. I feel like El Valle's my cozy place; whenever I have a reading, there's enough familiar faces in the crowd so that I don't freak out. But say, in Houston? San Antonio? Dallas? I'll be talking to strangers... I left El Paso out intentionally. Yes, I plan on stopping in El Paso but I think it'll be a little less scary than the others :-)

Anyway, you know I work best when I have goals, right? So here are my "summer goals" -- things I hope to have accomplished by the close of August (and the start of the semester's craziness):

1. Finish What Plagues the Goddess chapbook

I'm about... oh, halfway done? And now I'm already thinking of a NEW project. But I need to finish my old one! I can't abandon her when she's come this far! Such is life. Anyway, by August, I'll have this manuscript done and ready to submit

2. Finish The Memories of Benjamin Brutus, my first novel

Hah, how many times has this been on my "to do" list? Forever. I know. I'm dragging my feet. I keep wanting to change the story, and I'm afraid to finish. NO MORE! Even if it's crap, I'll feel much better when I at least get to "the end" and can go back and work on rewriting it (maybe).

3. Study for and retake the GRE (ughhhhhh)

No need for commentary here.

4. Rework my two essays on Jovita Gonzalez and Isabel Allende.

Get them to a happy place! So I, too, can be in a happy place.

5. Successfully complete book tour without having nervous breakdown.

This goes without saying.


And of course, enjoy all that summer in South Texas has to offer, which includes tracking hurricanes (a favorite hobby of mine), swimming, remodeling the house (ok, supervising workers remodeling the house), and roadtrips. Roadtrips. For work and pleasure. Pleasure.