Holiday Greetings To My Slowly Gained Readership...

none of whom seem to think I'll be able to refrain from bragging in the new year.

Drat. I was really hoping to unload that bridge on one of you.

I do have a Christmas present for you though. I'm giving you a week or ten days without me. While all of you will be singing carols and opening presents and rejoicing in the holiday, I plan on writing a book.

Sometime this fall, I got an idea for a historical middle group novel. I did a lot of plotting and a little bit of research, and then the idea kind of faded away.

A few weeks later, I got an idea for a young adult novel, and I played around with it, worked out a number of kinks in the plot, even mentioned it to my editor. But I never wrote anything. Last week, when I meant to begin, nothing happened. And on Monday, I finally decided it would feel like work to write it, and if it wasn't going to be fun, if I wasn't going to run to the computer each morning, and have to pull myself away from it to eat and exercise and catch up on the approximately 1,962,438 dvds I intend to watch before the baseball season begins, then there was no point. I officially declared myself retired, unless Harcourt ever asked for a follow up to Life As We Knew It and the dead & the gone, at which point I would unretire. And then reretire.


But Tuesday night, I was watching one of the 1,962,438 dvds (thus lowering the number to 1,962,437, and last night I watched another one, so I've already made quite a dent), a movie based on a Stephen King novel, and suddenly my brain said, Hey, what if I flipped the story, and the next thing I knew I had the vast majority of a silly middle group novel completely plotted.

Yesterday I named the heroine (Haley) and her older brother (Stephen, in honor of). I haven't decided on a last name though. I'm considering renaming Stephen, and giving Haley and her older brother the last name Prince (in honor of). Haley, it turns out, is one of those names it's hard to give a last name to. For reasons I have yet to figure out, I've named Haley's kitten Measles. And this morning, I solved one of the semi-major plot problems while driving to Rite Aid to buy my mother a sixpack of Slim Fast.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to answer a substantial number of e-mails that I apologize for not having answered up until now, and then get to work. The entire volunteer work crew with whom I spend every Wednesday decided they have no desire to show up the day after Christmas, so I can even work then. I'm supposed to have lunch with a friend one day this week, but maybe she'll come up here, or maybe we'll meet halfway, and then I could get a full morning's work in. And if she forgets all about it, I can work a full day.

My plan is to post a blog entry right before New Year's, so I can get some last minute bragging in before modesty prevails. I'll let you know how the book is coming along (it doesn't have a title yet). I don't think I'll finish it before New Year's (although stranger things have happened). But I should have it done early enough in January that I can promptly reretire and start reading books instead of writing them. I have 1,962,438 of them piled up, although I like reading when baseball games on are, so there's less pressure to get through all of them before April.

So Merry Christmas, and Joyeux Noel, and Feliz Navidad. I hope your Christmas is wonderful, full of family and friends and joyful celebration. Oh, and happy winter! I love a season when the days get longer.