this year so far, abridged
I'm going to blatantly steal from DadHacker and open this post with "Yeah, yeah, M-X standard-blog-apology." And now on to content in the form of a random list of stuff I am bothering to report on:
* We're going to Maui in a week! (I'm not gloating, I'm excited. I hope there's a difference.) I am really looking forward to this trip. Two years ago we went to the Big Island, and ten years ago was Kauai, but this is the first time for Maui, so I'd appreciate any recommendations of places to eat or things to do from those who have been there. We're staying in Lahaina in a condo on the beach, and we'll be there for a week.
* I'm now actually almost at the end of The Extent of the Damage, with three chapters left to write which are the concluding chapters for each of the three storylines. All the recent chapters have been tough and slow-going as I tried to figure out how to wrangle all the plots toward their endings, but I think I know where I'm going now.
* My January Writecraft column (PDF, page 1) was about beginnings and February's (PDF, page 5) covered procrastination and making time to write. I also have an article in the February issue (page 7) about a great writing workshop I attended with agent Donald Maass.
* I've been reading a lot. Right now I'm reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. It's very good and definitely one of those "don't find out anything in advance" books. I'm reading it on Louise's Kindle to see what that's like. I'm finding the Kindle quite comfortable to hold because it's less bulky than a book, and the display is perfectly fine for my eyes. What I dislike is not being able to quickly page back to check on things like the title of the current chapter or the previous mentions of a character or detail. That's something I normally do constantly when I read, which is probably one reason that I'm a slow reader. I guess the Kindle does have a search function which I might enjoy using for some of my looking-back needs, but I had forgotten about that until now. I don't think I'll be getting a Kindle or other e-reader for myself anytime soon, but it's a pretty acceptable reading experience.
* I have given up the snooze button. I never used to get up when my alarm went off the first time, and I would often snooze for as long as an hour. My alarm clock was already located away from my bedside, but not far enough to prevent me from going instantly back to sleep after getting half out of bed to turn it off. A few weeks ago, we had to move all the bedroom furniture out of the way to get some new windows put in, and I decided to put the furniture back in a somewhat different arrangement. This put the alarm clock even farther from the bed, and I realized that I do in fact have some willpower and could simply not get back in bed after hitting the alarm. And I haven't snoozed since.
* Oh yeah: You wouldn't think that installing that kind of windows would lead to a computer crash, would you? But the workers plugged in big power tools and tripped two circuits, one of which controls the power to our server room, and by the time I got home, all the machines were down. And one of them wouldn't come back up until Louise did something something technical sysadmin something (actually, I think she replaced the power supply, which I suppose I should be able to comprehend).
That either is or isn't everything, but it's enough for now. Until next time, whenever that may be!
* We're going to Maui in a week! (I'm not gloating, I'm excited. I hope there's a difference.) I am really looking forward to this trip. Two years ago we went to the Big Island, and ten years ago was Kauai, but this is the first time for Maui, so I'd appreciate any recommendations of places to eat or things to do from those who have been there. We're staying in Lahaina in a condo on the beach, and we'll be there for a week.
* I'm now actually almost at the end of The Extent of the Damage, with three chapters left to write which are the concluding chapters for each of the three storylines. All the recent chapters have been tough and slow-going as I tried to figure out how to wrangle all the plots toward their endings, but I think I know where I'm going now.
* My January Writecraft column (PDF, page 1) was about beginnings and February's (PDF, page 5) covered procrastination and making time to write. I also have an article in the February issue (page 7) about a great writing workshop I attended with agent Donald Maass.
* I've been reading a lot. Right now I'm reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. It's very good and definitely one of those "don't find out anything in advance" books. I'm reading it on Louise's Kindle to see what that's like. I'm finding the Kindle quite comfortable to hold because it's less bulky than a book, and the display is perfectly fine for my eyes. What I dislike is not being able to quickly page back to check on things like the title of the current chapter or the previous mentions of a character or detail. That's something I normally do constantly when I read, which is probably one reason that I'm a slow reader. I guess the Kindle does have a search function which I might enjoy using for some of my looking-back needs, but I had forgotten about that until now. I don't think I'll be getting a Kindle or other e-reader for myself anytime soon, but it's a pretty acceptable reading experience.
* I have given up the snooze button. I never used to get up when my alarm went off the first time, and I would often snooze for as long as an hour. My alarm clock was already located away from my bedside, but not far enough to prevent me from going instantly back to sleep after getting half out of bed to turn it off. A few weeks ago, we had to move all the bedroom furniture out of the way to get some new windows put in, and I decided to put the furniture back in a somewhat different arrangement. This put the alarm clock even farther from the bed, and I realized that I do in fact have some willpower and could simply not get back in bed after hitting the alarm. And I haven't snoozed since.
* Oh yeah: You wouldn't think that installing that kind of windows would lead to a computer crash, would you? But the workers plugged in big power tools and tripped two circuits, one of which controls the power to our server room, and by the time I got home, all the machines were down. And one of them wouldn't come back up until Louise did something something technical sysadmin something (actually, I think she replaced the power supply, which I suppose I should be able to comprehend).
That either is or isn't everything, but it's enough for now. Until next time, whenever that may be!