New Year

So I didn't get WFC blogging done over my Christmas vacation. You might wonder if I ever get things done when I say I'm going to. On the plus side, I copyedited three of the four chapters I have on hand. (Didn't get them sent off, though I was supposed to have them on the editor's desk Monday.) Also helped out at my mom's house for a week. (Yeah, my husband did most of the heavy work.)

Where was I going with this? Oh, yes, WFC. Planning on it still. Without getting into any New Year's resolutions that'll get broken by the end of the month, I've been thinking about how to organize my time. What else is new, right? ;-)

I have roughly ten hours a day to get things done. That's time on my own, between when the guys leave (by 7 a.m.) and when they get home (about 5 p.m., though anytime between 4 and 6 is possible). I can devote an hour a day to getting those panels typed up.

I'm so tempted to schedule out my ten hours. It's so easy:

• 1 hour filing/tax prep


• 1/2 hour organizing my office


• 1/2 hour housework


• 1 hour for lunch/dinner

Toss in an hour for editing and an hour for writing, and I still have half the day for paying work.

Except I want to be realistic. That doesn't include time on e-mail or the time I hang out at Forward Motion (or the time I'm thinking of spending at Baen's Bar), or reading blogs, or following news and comics on-line. And it's just not realistic to think I'm not going to be doing all that dithering and dallying. Some of it (like the comics) falls under keeping my sanity and good temper. Some of it is (as Covey says) "sharpening the saw" -- market research, gathering plot bunnies (which mostly took a vacation, too), seeing how others work, thinking about my own process. Some of it (to be completely honest) is probably just wasting time. I may try to figure out what's what this year. We'll see.

Meanwhile: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Welcome to another year of pointless introspection by yours truly.

Reading

I'm currently reading I, Claudius by Robert Graves. I'm doing my best to ignore plot bunnies, although I do have a few notes on things I'd like to check out in more detail later. Mostly, though, it's giving me more interest in going back to my Three Sisters series, which so far consists primarily of worldbuilding and outline notes. My series borrows a few Roman bits (such as the priests known as Bridges, although their function isn't the same as Roman pontiffs). First I need to finish something I've already started. I'm pleased to know I still have some level of enthusiasm for something I started so long ago. Maybe I don't have to do everything in a rush after all.

My other recent reading was Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Got the trade paperback the 29th (Mom works at a bookstore, and that was the first day she worked after the release date), started reading Saturday (part of me wished I'd stayed home reading instead of going to a New Year's party), and finished it Sunday. Good way to start the year. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Ghost Brigades in March. (The title of which provides a minor spoiler for an early incident in OMW, in my opinion.) I told my husband if he can make time to read these books, he'd enjoy them because they are so reminiscent of early Heinlein. (Apropos of nothing, on page 72, there's an extra "Harry said" dialogue tag, but otherwise, it's edited very well.)

Before that, on the flight out to California, I read Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. A plot bunny whispered to me, "But what if immortality worked like this instead?" and thus was born another short story. At this moment, it's only half-finished and it's going to need major editing, but it has potential.

For Christmas, I also received Winter Moon, The Speed of Dark, Staying Dead, and Bear Daughther. I just have to make time for reading now that I'm back to normal life.

Books as gifts

I like giving books as gifts. I've always liked getting them, so it stands to reason others do, too. ;)

My husband received a copy of Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace. We both really enjoyed Sparrow and Children of God, so it seemed a logical choice. Though it *was* presented as a gift from our son.

I picked up books for my parents-in-law (gifts from their grandson, of course). My father-in-law got a couple Terry Pratchetts: Feat of Clay (which I have yet to read) and Going Postal. He hasn't started either yet, but I'm sure he'll enjoy them when he does. My mother-in-law received Midnight Rain and Last Girl Dancing by Holly Lisle. She's read them both in the past week; she liked Last Girl much better than Midnight Rain, which she felt had more gratuitous sex and gore. I definitely got the feeling that she'd like to read more by Holly Lisle.

My brother-in-law got Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Silly me. He's a reader, and he lived and worked in Silicon Valley. Of course he read it when it first came out. Maybe I should've gotten him Cryptonomicon after all, even though it's more up my husband's alley in some respects.

Our niece got the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday books by Garth Nix. She started reading immediately (ignoring other presents being passed out) -- a very successful gift! Not bad since the only thing I knew about her reading habits was that she'd enjoyed the Traveling Pants books. I think she spent more time playing Neverwinter Nights on my husband's computer than she did reading, but that's not an option now. So we'll see how it works out. I figure there may well be another four books in the series, and he's written other things -- this could take care of gift-giving for her for a while.

And, of course, everyone got a copy of Clash of Steel Book Two: Assassin. No one's said anything about my story yet, but everyone was properly effusive about my being published. Some year, it'll be a book instead of a chapbook that I can do this with. But first I need to write. . . .

Not the best thing to come home to

A lacuna.

In this case, our shy cat (referred to as "our invisible cat" because so few people ever see him) disappeared while we were gone. Our house sitter was concerned, and tried to find him. Right now, the possibilities are that he got outside (thankfully, it's been warm) or that he crawled inside the return duct from our bedroom which we hadn't gotten around to covering since we remodeled in there (not usually an issue because he's not allowed in there).

I hope we find him soon.