General Read-Write-Travel Update, February 6

I was struggling to come up with a topic today, so much so that I've fallen behind in my blogging schedule. For the past week I've been one day ahead with my blog posts, finishing them the day before and posting them when I wake up. I had nothing finished last night, and unfortunately inspiration didn't strike while I slept--so here I am, at two in the afternoon, stuck and brooding and thinking I have far too much time on my hands to have NOTHING to write about. The result: general update.

Reading: I am currently reading a book called The Battle for Gullywith. I've been reading this book for a while, so you can probably guess that I'm not as thrilled with it as I thought I would be. I think I have just under 100 pages left, so I'm going to muddle through tonight and hopefully that will be my blog post for tomorrow. I purchased the book at Bookfest last month--hey, there's another topic for another day!

Writing: I'm hard at work plotting a new novel project, "The Foxglove Alliance." I'm getting extremely excited about actually writing it, but I'm not allowing myself just yet--mostly, I'm putting ideas and quotes and things into OneNote so nothing falls out of my head, and trying to get to know the setting and characters a bit better before I rush into anything. For NaNo last year, I thought I had a brilliant idea for a novel too, but it started falling apart because I hadn't planned anything at all and couldn't keep hold of all the strings. This time, I hope to avoid that. Writing plan: plot and do some sketchy-writing up until April, when I hope to feel ready enough to do a round of Camp NaNo. Or if writing is going well without a NaNo-incentive, keep doing whatever I've been doing. I'd like for it to be in a coherent state by December and enter it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition next January. (Long way off, but I think I could make this happen if I'm diligent!)

Travel: Cal and I haven't thought about additional travel plans since getting back from New Zealand (why doesn't Google Chrome recognize "Zealand" as a word?), except for a few more conversations about future Europe and beginning to think about pushing that back due to our current state of joblessness. However! I have two good friends who are making their way over here tomorrow! So excited for their arrival. I don't envy their 16-hour flight one bit, though. Good luck to them. When they get here and they're over their jetlag, we're hoping to visit a bunch of different places--Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, maybe Uluru and New Zealand again... probably Auckland, this time. You can be sure that this blog will be exploding with our adventures. Can't wait.