I actually got a fair bit accomplished yesterday. Yay for me.

I finished my edits, wrote Xmas thank you notes, did a few other chores that have been hanging over my head. You know, that kind of thing. I felt good about myself last night!

Of course there’s still a heck of a lot of stuff on my list that needs to be done.

I love lists.

Actually, that’s not true, I love CROSSING THINGS OFF lists. I’m the person who makes the list after the fact just so I can cross stuff off.

But there’s always stuff on a list that you can’t quite cross off. Like, as my ongoing resolution is still working, Cook Dinner is on the list. But I have to cook dinner every night so I won’t be able to cross it off until Thursday (I do Sun - Thurs, Hubster is responsible for Fri & Sat).

So it just sits there. Taunting me.

“Ha Ha, you can’t cross me off the list.”

Damn dinner. Damn list.

It’s Sunday so I’m not expected to be entirely coherent, right?

First, I went to the bookstore yesterday (2 actually) and picked me up some books. Got Emma Holly’s Strange Attractions (which I already devoured - loved it), Shelley Bradley’s Bound and Determined (which has an awesome cover until you look really close and then the girl looks like she might be 12 - a bit disturbing), and Kate Douglas’s Wolf Tales. I’m so excited to read them, but first I’ve got to put a dent in Jane Millionaire for Angie’s TBR challenge.

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So, I ended up getting those books at Borders but we also went to Barnes and Noble. Has anyone ever heard of Magic Carpet Books? They were all labled “erotic romance” and there were dozens of titles in my local (which actually if annoyingly far away) B&N. Anybody ever read anything by them? I was intrigued, but not enough to spend $10 on something I’ve never heard of.

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Since I read all day yesterday I’ve got to spend all day today on edits. Shouldn’t be too rough except for the fact that the reason I haven’t already done them is because I was battling with the whole “track changes” thing in word.

Sometimes I love that feature and sometimes it really blows. The other day it was really blowing.

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And finally, I’ll tease you by saying that I have some good news, but I can’t share it quite yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

I sat down this morning and plotted out the rest of my futuristic.

I figured out what my problem was (I hope). For some strange reason I was afraid to make decisions. I mean, I knew the story could go one of two ways but I was really reluctant to actually make the decision as to which way the story should go.

I told myself that I was leaving it up to the characters, but they were the ones telling me to take Road A while I was the one leaving Road B as an option!

I hate it when I’m stupid.

In other news, now that it’s Friday the 6th, I feel it’s safe to say that I’ve been keeping my resolution for 6 whole days now?

What is it, you ask?

That I cook more. And by more, I mean better food. I’ve cooked one whole week of food - tonight is the hubsters turn and then this weekend we’ll plan another weeks worth of meals.

I’m totally loving the Rachel Ray cookbok I got for Xmas. She’s my hero. The hubster loves her too. Everytime he picks up the cookbook or watches her on TV, he sighs and tells her how much he loves her. Nut job.

Anyway, I’m plotting and eating well this week. How about you?

Why is writing so hard sometimes?

In the past week I’ve been staring at my computer pretty much all day and what do I have to show for it?

10 measly pages!?!?!

I guess to some that’s considered a lot but why can I sometimes sit down and do those same ten pages in a matter of hours and sometimes it takes me three days? Andn I don’t even think they’re 10 good pages!

I don’t know what the problem is.

I’m excited about this story. Really excited. I don’t know which direction I want it to go in, but I never do so that shouldn’t be slowing me down.

I hate this. I hate the teeth pulling, what feels like the opening of a vein to get things down on paper…

Hell, I can’t even manage to get the words to come out in a blog post.

So, somebody tell me, how do I make this go away. I’ve already given myself permission to write crap (and oh boy, am I). I want to get back with the flow. Won’t someone out there wave their magic wand and make it so?

I know that’s a bit of a trick question considering it’s only the 4th, but it’s recently come to my attention that I’m a bit concerned by the number of books I read last year.

I’d guess that my reading has decreased exponentially while my writing has increased. But like Stephen King says, “If you don’t read, you can’t write.” Or something to that effect. I’m sure he said it much better than I did because he reads more than I do.

Anyway, Over on my sidebar there, towards the bottom I’m starting a list of books I read this year. I’m already cheating slightly because I read half of The Night Before Christmas last year and just finished it this year. Hope that’s not a sign of things to come.

Oh, and I’m breaking it down into “Books” (which is easier to say that mass-market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, hardbacks, etc), “eBooks” and “ReRead.” My guess is that a lot of the books I read each year I’ve actually read before.

My husband and I have even discussed reading one anothers books (we have total opposite taste) and then trying to discuss them. Then I won’t look like all I read is romance.

So, does anyone else want to join me in making 2006 the year of reading? We can all support each other!! If you don’t want to keep track of the books you read for the world to see you can just do it on paper.

Come on, Read A Lot in 2006!

*Update* Angie has issued a TBR Challenge. Go check it out.

Look!!!

I’m up on the Venus Press coming soon page!!

The last I heard was the book with be out in February, though I’m still waiting on edits. I love this cover. I have a super cool banner, too, but I’m still working on a place for it.

You’ve no doubt noticed the new blueness of my blog.

Yesterday I decided I needed to upgrade wordpress. Surprisingly it’s even easier than the installation - if you’re not a dumbass and have to do it twice. Then it’s just about as easy as the installation, which is still painfully simple.

But then I decided I was going to move my whole website over to wordpress. I figured it couldn’t be too hard, right?

Yeah, I was wrong.

Actually it wasn’t all that difficult, except for the fact that once I managed about half of it, I realized that I didn’t really like it. So, I’m all blue on the blog now (I figured it’d be soothing after wrestling with the damn thing all day yesterday) while I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do.

I actually ended up installing wordpress for a THIRD time so that I have somewhere to play with things.

But the migraine didn’t come until I started playing with photoshop. I have an image that I’m happy with, all I wanted was rounded edges. It sounds like something that should be fairly easy, right?

Well, if anyone else knows how to do it let me know because technologically 2006 started on a crappy ass note for me.

So, how was your first day of 2006?

Making changes to the blog today so service may be intermittent.

UPDATE: Managed to update to Wordpress 2.0 but theme changing turned out to be much more complicated than I’d anticipated. I think we’ll all be enjoying the nice soothing blue for awhile while I work on creating my new theme.

Buy it here

Hope no one is too hung over to read it…