I remember clearly the sense of dread that filled me each year with the approach of Labor Day. (I'm dating myself, but when I was young, school didn't start until after the last official care-free day of summer.) I wasn't worried about fitting in, finding my classroom, liking my teacher, or giving myself away as fashion-challenged as I confidently walked the hallways in my First Day Of School Outfit (rivaled in hideousness only by the Picture Day Outfit). Instead, what I nervously anticipated was that ever-present - and somewhat cliche - essay question posed by the teacher: "What did you do this summer?"

(I am now a teacher, and I make a point of never assigning this task. But I digress.)

Cue all my inadequacies.

My summer wasn't exciting enough to write about.

But I did NOTHING this summer.

How do I make sleeping in sound interesting?

The studious, but strictly by-the-book and uncreative people- (specifically, teacher-) pleaser in me was too worried about getting the year started on the wrong foot to realize that this was an opportunity to find my inner Maurice Sendak and relate all the fantastical dreams that would have gone unexperienced had it not been for those lazy summer mornings that witnessed me peacefully slumbering. And why write about the bright red fire ants that fascinated me while vacationing in west Texas when my best friend went with her family on a safari in Africa? My summers always seemed to pale in comparison.

I saw myself as a hopeless do-nothinger.

Fast-forward to the present. Here I am, once again on the brink of a season filled with blank pages and unwritten stories. There are so many writing tasks I would like to take on (including a sequel to my recently published memoir), but like my ten-year-old previous self, I tend to do more dreaming than doing when summer rolls around. And too often those things that do get done seem inconsequential in comparison to the accomplishments of those around me.

But summer is a ripe time for authors. Perhaps with summer comes an extra hour of quiet time in the morning as your children bask in the pleasure of no homework and the comfort of dream lands left unvisited in the face of first period algebra. Maybe this season comes with a week of summer camp and with that, additional peace and time to get some of those nagging tasks done.

I've learned that it's easier to fill the free time with laziness than productivity. Has anyone else found this to be true?

There's an old saying that if you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it. This might be why I seem to get so little done over the summer, and why I still am prone to feeling unaccomplished when the end of August roles around and I head back to my classroom and ready myself for a new group of students.

You can't measure the worth of your summer in how many safaris you take, but maybe you should see it as an opportunity to write your dreams down on paper. There's this quirky character in a short story I am currently working on. Her life was forever changed that summer she attended a three-wheel rodeo in west Texas and stopped to tie her shoe atop a fire ant hill...