In which the writer makes some resolutions, angsts about her writing, talks about books, and then makes a few more resolutions.

I'm now officially being good, in order to prepare myself for starting classes (well, class) next week. Being good means:

• Arriving at work before 9am.
• A journal entry every weekday.
• Doing homework, even if I'd rather not.
• Keeping up with housework & bills.

Already I've failed to manage the first of these; I didn't get to sleep until nearly 2am last night, and thus I only managed to get myself out of bed at 9am. I refuse to let this discourage me, though. One thing at a time and all that.

I'm supposed to be critiqued next week. If I'd been less apathetic recently this would fill me with dread, but I can't even manage that. I did, however, sensibly send Gabby mail asking to be knocked back a few weeks in the schedule. Getting critiqued when I haven't been writing seems silly -- and hopefully knowing that the critique is on the horizon will provide further impetus to write every day.

Sometimes reading other journals inspires me. Recently I find it depressing more than anything. My writing is so *lumpy*. I over-explain things, and not even in a series of amusing little paranthetical asides. It doesn't bother me all of the time, but after reading Althea's flawless silken streams of words (G-d, what a phrase) my own prose feels all spiky in comparison.

I'm also having a hell of a time remembering that \ is a container, although I at least understand why now that I've started playing with stylesheets.

I suppose I need to quit worrying about a layout/colour redesign and concentrate on writing regularly -- and not just that, but writing things that I'm _happy_ with. If I'm not happy with my output I quit writing, and thus worrying about design seems to be a dead end. I'll get to it when I get to it.

I've been managing to read pretty steadily. I'm done with the first two books (Shards of Honor and Barrayar) in Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series -- a misnamed series at this point, since Miles wasn't even born until the end of the second book. I'm enjoying them, though, and am currently wandering through the third book, The Warrior's Apprentice, which so far seems to be about Miles getting into lots and lots and lots of trouble. This isn't high art, but it's good space opera. Rumour has it that the later books _are_ high art. We'll see.

Other reading has included Making Book, which is a collection of funny short essays by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I finished it a few days ago, and have since then loaned it to anyone who got close enough. I think Chrisber is currently in possession of it.

Hmn. I guess I haven't been doing as much reading as I thought I had.

Some hugely long time ago Ceej and I decided to have coffee together. We're still supposed to do it. The ball is, as they say, in my court. Why have I not arranged this thing?

Nerves, I suppose. Sheer and utter terror, combined with a lack of free time. I could do it this week, but Earl is coming up on Wednesday, which is nice (oh, is it nice) but does devour my spare moments. (Thursday is our one-year anniversary of doing this dating thing. I can't believe it has been an entire year. You'll hear much more about this in the next few days, I'm sure. But back to coffee.) Next week I start classes, plus I'm going to Los Angeles again.

Which leaves a week from tomorrow. How clever of me. I'll go send her email right now to suggest that evening. See, displaying my thought processes to the world _is_ useful for getting me to do things I ought to do. I should remember that.