Hello New School Year Energy!!

because i will never fail to be excited when september is approaching

a question i received quite often at the age of thirteen, for this was my daily state. my mother and my husband ask it of me to this day. some things never change.

Hello, and welcome to Under the Pine Tree! My name is Jess. I’m a Catholic wife and mother in my late twenties currently in the process of writing the second draft of my first book of a series of fantasy novels ever so dear to my heart that I hope you will be able to enjoy someday. Until that day comes, however, here on Substack, I primarily document the ups and downs of that journey, hopefully offering encouragement and in-the-trenches kinds of advice to anyone out there who may benefit from it it. Especially if they’re crazy enough to attempt writing novels with a young child in the house like me. Thanks for stopping by, subscribe if you like this post, and God bless you now and always!

I was perhaps an odd child.

For many reasons, probably. But particularly because come every August, I would find myself counting down to the end of summer wishing the school year would just start already. I wanted the book lists. I wanted to go back to school shopping, more for notebooks and pens than for clothes. And I did math problems for fun.

Again. Odd. ¹

This never let up. Through high school, through college, through grad school, the start of a new school year or new semester was always exhilarating to me. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Between the start of the school year and the approach of fall weather and the end of the year holidays, this time of year has always been marked by one thing for me.

Anticipation.²

Now… of course, I’m not in school any more.

I’m a mom. I’m a writer. I am, sometimes regrettably, sometimes fortunately, beyond the age where my adulthood is debatable.

However, the accumulated memory of two decades of looking at August as back to school prep season has rendered this feeling reflexive and inescapable. But also, quite helpful.

Because adults need the excitement of starting and learning anew too.

Just like January, September is a time to start new things, or at least to restart and reinvigorate old things. Not every year is your first year at high school, sometimes you’re just going from your sophomore to your junior year and undertaking the same work a bit more seriously.

This year is definitely the latter kind of year for me.

I’m in the middle of a novel draft. I’ve been in the process of establishing better fitness and home routines all year long. And while I’d be lying to you if I did not admit I’ve started to make a book and activity list for my son in the coming months, I’m well aware he is not at the level of formal schooling yet, mostly just in need of outdoor play and cuddly readalouds.³

Almost everything that I’m getting very excited about right now is a continuation of (and hopefully improvement upon) what I’ve been doing for a good amount of the year already. Nothing (that I can see coming right now, knock on wood) is looking like it’s going to be tremendously new.

But it’s still almost September (!!!)

And sure, maybe that’s a silly thing to cling to, but I love seasonal benchmarks.

Because routine and lack of routine alike can grow drearier and drearier the longer we live in them. Good habits fade, or at the very least satisfaction around them does. Our old friend acedia starts to rear its ugly head. Maybe burnout? Hello, you nasty thing? Or maybe we just weren’t doing so well at some aspect of our lives in the first place, beginning to really fall behind and struggle because of that.

No matter how good a thing might be, faith or relationship or work or health or creativity or anything one might pursue… no matter how hard a thing might be, a life transition, a loss, the simple weight of the ordinary things that must be done day in and day out… we get tired.

bilbo knows. though hopefully none of us are additionally under the influence of a malevolent magic ring.

And then it’s time for something new.

Sometimes that something new is a break, which I actually was fortunate enough to enjoy last week, a full week at the beach with the family.⁴

And sometimes that something new is all the excitement and (hopefully realistic) hopes that come with the start of a new season, whether it’s literally the start of a new school year or not. Human beings have lived with the flow of the seasons forever, and it simply makes sense to lean into them.

It’s almost like God made us this way :)

Anyway.

I’m excited. I’ve got plenty of hopes to sketch out for the season on my own time. I prefer to not directly share most goals online, because I like to keep a lot of my life more private and because I find goals shift for me as often as I make them. It’s just the process of planning that helps. I know to hold them very lightly. But there is one thing I will talk about today.

What it feels like to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

August is almost over, and I am still on track to finish my second draft by the end of November, maybe early December if I need a little extra time. But almost definitely 2024. Unless, again, something goes horribly wrong, knock on wood.

But I’m looking ahead at my chapter list right now, and I’m getting back into the climactic stuff I wrote during NaNoWriMo last year. The set-up is done, now it’s just week after week of payoff after payoff, and I am so excited to re-approach all these scenes again. I scrambled to write them all in a month last year, and now I get to take a nice three and a half months to read and adjust them.

It’s not as though I haven’t looked at them at all, both to cross-reference things to make sure my earlier set-up works and because I actually do like some scenes that I’ve written enough to just want to revisit them. I’ve also planned out most of what I want to change, at least structurally. Details may vary. But it’s still new and exciting to get to experience it all in full.

Though overall, aside from the actual ending that I’ll be tackling in November where I realized there were some subplots I neglected last time, this section of the story needs less revision overall than the previous parts. Laying the groundwork for a satisfying ending is often harder than writing the ending scenes themselves for me. I just really have fun with those, at least for this book.

But oh boy.

I’m just so excited (!!!)

God willing, this will be the second year in a row when I finish a draft of this book. Two years in a row. This time in a much more deliberate, thoughtful, less scrambling-to-write-100k-words-in-forty-two-days way of doing things.

I’ve spoken about it before, but there is something so satisfying and encouraging about really entrenching consistent writing into my daily life. It’s simply enjoyable for one, maybe not in every moment because some scenes are in fact a pain to hammer out, but certainly overall. It’s cathartic, it clears my mind, it gives me focus. I feel much more competent and confident as a mother doing it, because it helps me start off my day strong. It has changed the way I interact with work and leisure and stories and how those things shape my view of the world. I think it brings me closer to God.

It’s really wonderful. This past year or two has been really wonderful, not solely because of this, but certainly largely because of it.

And… I’m glad it would make that thirteen year old girl up there with a pile of books far too big for her skinny little arms pretty happy too. She wasn’t quite aware she wanted to write books yet, but she knew she loved them. And that tends to be a good start.

Because what better reason to write, really, other than love?

Anyway. That’s all for today, my friends!

Thank you all as always for reading! I hope that whether you ordinarily look at the approach of autumn with joy or with dread, this reflection might make you at least a touch more excited for it.

Please let me know down in the comments or in a reply to this email if there is anything you are particularly looking forward to in the latter half of the year, or even if you’re not looking forward to it, but need a bit of a new school year energy to get through it.

I’d love to hear about any of your projects to cheer you on!

Soooo… yeah. Thanks again. God bless you, God love you. I will be praying for you, and I really mean it. As soon as I finish this sentence, I’ll be saying a prayer.

(done.)

See you next Friday.

Peace.

Jess.

1. If you do not find this odd, but perfectly reasonable… hello, let us be friends.

2. Anticipation, and books. Because the new school year meant school books and access to the school library, and Christmas meant Barnes and Noble gift cards, which in time became the default gift I received from my very large extended family for most special occasions, leaving me with a formidable collection that I dearly miss having constant access to. It has left me with very unrealistic expectations as an adult with respect to the cost of wanting to buy a book whenever. But that’s another story entirely.

3. But still. I do better with the lists to have scaffolding to reach for and I love to make them, so… yes, the planning is in progress.

4. This was very well timed, because on the tail end of July, I was beginning to feel a bit, ya know, thin and stretched. And so I decided at the last minute to not work on my revisions or Substack at all that week. So I could REST. I mean, toddler mom duty still called, sometimes at four in the morning. I sketched and read and brainstormed here and there and tended to some other smaller to-dos… but there were no goals, no deadlines, no pressure. As much as I love what I do and as much as deadlines are close to necessary in helping me do it, this was in fact, lovely. Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back before you move forward.