The month of January was nothing but difficult. The entire family traipsed entirely through 2 separate colds. Doing the math that means that each person got sick once and there are four people in our household. That means that we were dealing with two sick people every week. Not Fun.

So, with the funk of sickness and the general funk that January cold weather brings, I settled myself into a fair amount of reading. I ventured through two Rick Riorden novels, some sort of mystery novel based on a computer game that my husband suggested, and lastly, I had my husband load Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (m_stiefvater) on the kindle.

I don't usually ask him to get me a book. It takes me awhile to get up the urge to ever buy a book. Because I have so little time to read, I don't find it worthwhile to buy lots of books (or even get them at the library). They just don't get read and I've either wasted money or the book gets returned to the library without being read. As it is, I could always walk through our piles of books as my husband has collected enough for both of us.

So when I learned that Scorpio Races was a standalone book with no commitment beyond this single book, I decided to give it a try.

I loved it!

At first, the writing threw me as I wasn't sure what to expect and it was very different. But as I turned pages, I was completely absorbed by the story and the characters. The writing style turned into background music meant to enhance the reading experience. For me, this was a book so different from anything that I have ever read. It was refreshing. I kept watching the percentage complete at the bottom of the kindle knowing that I would reach the end and fearing that this wonderful story would take me to the end only to disappoint me. I am still thinking about how it ended. It was not what I expected. I think the ending was appropriate but I'm not sure how I feel about it.

So, I am going to let the book sit for a bit and then I think the next time I have some reading time available, I will do what I've never purposefully done. I will read it again.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that this year turns out to be what you are hoping. I have been most silent these past few months as I was spending many of my writerly evenings actually at work instead. I can't say that things have died down a bit more as I have found a balance where I don't need to work insanely long hours. So that left me to finish the new/revamped outline for my old 2YN 2004 novel. I found that my other novels that I have been attempting just weren't working. So I went back to this other novel to see if it could get me out of my funk. I am happy to say that I not only finished the outline but also managed to finish the redo of the first scene.

Not bad at all.

I've been doing lots of family stuff and lots of work. This past month alone has had me working days and evenings for work. Suffice to say, most of these past few months has had me without sign of writing. I haven't even done any tatting or genealogy either. I seem to have finally picked up a bit of writing tasks these past two weeks. I'm taking my older (and only finished) novel from 2YN 2004 and am working through the plot. I'm trying to revise the plot and make it better and then see if I can't come up with something better than before.

How is everyone else doing?

I have not done any writing or outlining or anything related. I really don't have any excuses.

There are three big things going on that are really taking up the majority of my time:

I've been rather focused on some new interests. Today is exactly 1 year since we bought our new house. In that time my husband and I have become greatly interested in gardening and the upkeep of our outdoors. Since we've got a bit more land than before, we have space to do more outdoor stuff. We recently planted two apple trees and cut down some others in preparation for next year's growing season. We're also thinking of raising chickens (though that's a more distant thought that keeps popping up). We've been reading alot about sustainable living and doing things to lower our bills and our "carbon" footprint. Since I like playing out in the dirt and stuff, I can also claim that it's fun as well. :)

Our family obligations have increased exponentially. It's amazing how being closer to family really impacts these things. It's nice to see family and to be a part of their lives.

I think I am at a point in my career that my time to it has become a bit more involved. My work days are very full and they leave me exhausted. It's not a bad thing necessarily as I am definitely moving into a larger leadership role.


A question for the LJ community and anyone who is reading this: I am finding that the warm weather is affecting my hands/fingers. At the end of the day, the heat on my hands seems to make them ache and keeps me from doing much typing. I'm actually starting to feel the aches as I am typing this. Does anyone have any thoughts about ways to keep the heat off my fingers and still be able to type on a laptop?

Anyway, I hope everyone is well.

Here is the latest necklace that I did.
( Tigereye necklace with heart medallionCollapse )

Next I'll be working on another tatting project but I am currently looking for some specific glass beads and possibly I may need some new thread to match.

Here are two more pictures of necklaces. One of them I finished awhile ago but finally got around to taking the picture. The other one I just finished.

( Garnet NecklaceCollapse )


( Jasper/Quartz NecklaceCollapse )

Unfortunately no writing or outlining since last time. It seems life woes make me want to tat, not write. Anyway, I'm working on finishing up another tatted necklace that I think is coming out fabulous. When I finish I will take pictures and post.

I've actually gotten a fair amount done. The outline is really fleshing out and I'm getting closer to behind happy enough that I can start writing this again. I've made many changes and am still tweaking things here and there.

Life is starting to get in the way though I'm hoping that this small bump will be just that...a small bump. Only time will tell.

I outlined everything I've written so far. Then I've pulled out Freemind and mapped out the characters that showed up the most. Then I realized some of my characters don't seem to have much of a purpose for doing what they are doing. They needed organization and something to push against. Hence, I added something to give them that. I talked a bit with after_the_light about the different options I have and I think I'm getting closer to a point where I can actually start taking my outline, pulling it apart and adding in all these extra things I created.

We'll see how far I get this week.


On another note, I finally installed Family Tree Maker 2011 on my computer after buying it in August of 2010. That was nearly a year ago. I guess becoming an Aunt for the first time can motivate me some. I've got to enter my first Niece into the family tree and since the new computer had never had the program installed, it was the perfect time to do it.

I hope everyone else is doing well in LJ Land.

I've not done any writing but am currently going over all of my scenes and outlining them out. I'm almost done with that and then I can start working out what I need to do to this story. It seems that 30K for this book is the waning point. I have lost alot of interest in the book and really don't want to finish writing it.

I have decided not to do that. Instead I am going to hit the basics and figure out how I can make this an exciting project again.

I hope everyone is doing well in LJ Land.

I am currently on a mini vacation visiting my in-laws. What that means is though I am told I should go do whatever I want and not worry about the kids, I end up not doing writing. Instead, today I went with hubby to have some much needed alone time with good food and a movie. We got to see Thor. Thor was a nice movie. I enjoyed it but didn't love it. What it did do is really get me wanting to write a superhero story. I look at these great comics and their stories and I see so many things I really like about them and then I see things that I would love to change. What's funny is that as a kid, I wanted nothing to do with superhero stories (comics, movies etc) but that as an adult and with a husband that loves many of them, I have learned to really like a small segment of the superhero world. It also doesn't hurt that my son is just head over heels a superhero fan.

My big problem is that I am at a loss to really figure out where to start. I think that what I need to do is boil down what I like about them and see if I can't get those elements into my stories.

Additionally, I've been very slow this month. I think hitting this point in the story is stalling my productivity and so I think I will need to go back, re-read what I have, re-figure what I wanted to happen and then move forward with my new plan. I might even see if I can make some connections to the things I like about those superhero stories and put those elements into this story.

So, without further ado. Here are my counts.

By Month:
January 2011: 302
February 2011: 583
March 2011: 12,615
April 2011: 13,765
May 2011: 6,316

By Scene/Chapter:
Chapter 1: 9554
Chapter 2: 8910
Chapter 3: 6690
Chapter 4: 7120

Chapter 5
Scene 1: 1076
Scene 2: 1205
Scene 3: 2369
Scene 4: 396