Yawn, stretch, snort…

Wow, I cannot believe that it is already two weeks into January already.

How many of you have already thrown your “Resolutions” to the wind? Or are you still sticking vigilantly with your goals? Me, I did not make any resolutions for this year. It was too much pressure. I felt myself cracking with the need to break the rules before I had the chance to think of what my goals should have been. I am more of a daily To Do list’er. There is no way that I can promise a 12 month goal, it stresses me out.

What I have been doing is reading. A lot. I have finished 11 books in the past six weeks, 8 of those started and finished in the past four. Some of them were for the pure fun of reading, some were “research” which turned into a pleasurable read, some were just down right hard to get through – but we won’t discuss those. I am hoping over the next few weeks to get the book reviews up of my favorites read.

Currently I am reading Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson, a book thrust upon me by my very cheerfully pushy friend Jess.  So far, it is an intriguing book and the movie trailer looks fantastic. I love reading a book and then getting to see it made into a movie. Comparing characters that you have visualized in your head and then seeing if the characters cast can do the book version any justice. Or seeing which scenes from the book made the cut to the movie, or which scenes were changed because certain things do not play out well in a movie quite as well as they do in a book. So I am excited to read this one.

On the writing front, I am less writing at the moment and more figuring out my missteps in my manuscript. I’ve struggled with certain WHY aspects in the story and thankfully, I think I have finally figured that part out and just need to go back and make the changes necessary. My first rough draft is still just that, rough, but it will come together in due time.

I also submitted the first 10k words, of the story that I wrote over the summer, to my writing group and received much greater praise than I had been expecting. When I first brought the idea to Amanda, the leader of the group, that I had written a novella with six different point of views, her face contorted into this painful but trying hard not to discourage me grimace. (I am laughing just remembering it.) Anyways, so after she overcame the painful idea of six POV’s, she suggested I let others take a look at it before I completely give up on the whole premise of what I had done, I waited several months – it took me a bit to pull up my Grown Up Panties – and uploaded to the group. And it has given me hope that I might actually having something worth salvageable.

I guess I better get back to it, happy Thursday!

~AJP