104 Days to Make Something Real
Reframing Summer as the Season for Creating Instead of Coasting
Veteran writer Dean Wesley Smith dubs the summer months the Time of the Great Forgetting. It’s that point in the year when the good intentions of New Year’s Resolutions made in the depths of winter fall by the wayside in the bright light of hot summer days when the pull to do just about anything other than write draws writers away from their keyboards. It’s only in later summer and early fall when writers remember their annual goals and either charge full-stream ahead and barrel to the end of the year, desperately hoping to achieve their milestones, or just give up and do something else.
But I’ve come to see the summer months as an almost perfect time capsule to get things done, including writing.
Bookended Time
Starting with Memorial Day and ending on Labor Day in September, summer has a definitive beginning and ending. The only span of time that rivals this is Halloween-to-New Year’s Day. Unlike the holidays—which are chock full of known events you can’t get out of—the summer months are largely unstructured. School’s out, vacation season is in, and we all get to collectively breathe deep for a few short weeks before we do it all again in the fall.
The summer vibe is looser. We wear different types of clothes. We eat different types of food and gravitate toward certain beverages. We read different kinds of books. I see you Beach Reads! And there’s always the summer blockbuster movies. I’m personally counting down the days until Supergirl, Disclosure Day, Spider-Man, and Coyote vs. Acme.
The clearly marked beginning and ending of summer also is the perfect time to do something creative, including writing. There are 104 days this summer if you don’t include Memorial and Labor Day. The maximum number of days is 105. The last time we had more than 100 days of summer was 2022. The next time we’ll have more than 100 days of summer? 2037! (For the record, we normally get 97 days.)
For Writers
Just imagine what you could do if you wrote 1,000 words per day this summer. You’d have a 104,000 word novel. If you only wrote 500 words a day, that’s still a 52,000-word novel. Let’s say you want the weekends free and you only wrote 1,000 words on the weekdays, what would you have? A 74,000-word novel.
Or, look at it another way. In the 15 weeks we get this year, you could write 15 short stories and have a collection. Or two.
Writing is merely a habit. If you get into the habit of writing, it will be difficult to stop it. I should know. I started a novel on New Year’s Day, tentatively titled Between the Notes. I finished it this week on 19 May. I intentionally told myself to break the streak and give myself a rest. But it’s been quite difficult and, frankly, a tad aimless. Which is why I start my own new project on…Memorial Day.
Your Summer Creative Resolutions
Just imagine, come the Monday of Labor Day, the tremendous sense of accomplishment you’ll feel when you look back over Summer 2026 and marvel at what you’ve done. It’s just like your New Year’s Resolutions but for a shorter period of time.
Come to think of it, why not think of them as Summer Resolutions. Or your Summer Goals List.
So spend some time this weekend thinking about what you want to write or accomplish this summer. It doesn’t have to be writing. It can be anything creative. One of my side projects this summer is to put music to the words of a song I wrote for the new novel. Pick a thick book and spend a little time each day reading. Go outside and sketch leaves or birds. Snap photos and make your own book. Heck, think months ahead and make greeting cards for this holiday season. Plant a garden. Begin a fitness and/or healthy eating regimen and see your transformation in 104 days.
Make a list—on paper—hang it on the fridge, and look at it everyday. Then, each day, when you open the fridge, ask yourself if you have moved the needle forward on those goals. When you do the incremental daily work, the end result will be greater than you could imagine.