Life on the Reading List

Well...erm...hello again. It's been a while. No excuses, so I'll just get started.

I've been settling into work. Getting to know the business side of the publishing industry has been eye-opening. My job involves (almost) everyone: editors, authors, agents, publicists, salespeople... It takes a village to raise a manuscript.

Speaking of which, mine is moving along. I've started Book 2. I've got material for the first 2-3 chapters that just needs to be typed up and arranged. In my forays back into Book 1 to keep everything consistent, I came up with some plans for Book 1. Editing is a process that I'm actually looking forward to. I've decided on some plot points that I hadn't 100% figured out when I first wrote it, and I'm looking forward to cleaning up all of the smudgy bits of the narrative. Admittedly, at least one of those points is actually a rather major decision. It's not particularly major for Book 1, but it will require the addition of minor foreshadowing.

I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes that I'm actually kind of excited about it. And I'm sure that in a few months, when I'm bogged down in the process, I'll be rolling my eyes at me too. But I'll allow myself some measure of optimism, as it's not exactly my most notable quality.

But there is cause for celebration in the family: my fellow sharer of the parental unit's DNA, Ben, has also graduated. He is now an alumnus of the University of Georgia, so last weekend was a whirlwind trip down to Athens to witness the grand occasion. It was amazing to see the well-deserved culmination of a long journey. I may have beat him to the first degree, but I'm sure his glorious future in academia isn't over yet.

Wait for me!

We got really good at getting our pictures taken. Good thing we're all ridiculously photogenic.

Other than that, life has been pretty quiet. I finished Vanity Fair, which was actually quite funny. Not sure what my next literary classic is going to be. In the meantime, I'm reading a fantasy classic--the first book in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I also just checked out V for Vendetta from the library with my brand new library card. And, of course, there's the growing queue of books I've bought lately: Evelina, Alif the Unseen, Lifespan of a Fact, and many more. As for the Bard Project, it's moving. I finished Taming of the Shrew a while ago, and I started The Merry Wives of Windsor last week.

So that's my life. Quiet, yet full of words.

And, if this post is time stamped and you're curious about the late/early hour, I'm up because I decided to do some late-night baking. Hey? Why not? I'm an adult with no homework. I can pull stunts like that now. So I made some chocolate chip cookie bars; tomorrow, I plan on baking some bread. And maybe do some of the housework I've fallen behind on. Oops. So now it's time to crash.

Later!