The very month I decide that I’ll post them weekly.

I have been writing though, but just feeling antisocial and a little bit invisible.

I added a works-in-progress page (linked in the about box, currently, on the sidebar). I need to get around to redesigning this thing properly some time soon, so I can have proper page navigation ‘n stuff

My hubby wanted to help me reach 20,000 words on the novel. I’m not sure this one will make the final cut, but it was a nice effort. Thanks honey

An alternate reality Danny and Lexi story, by Jim Amos

Danny raised the chainsaw until it was at head-height – each pneumatic tooth purring like some crazed panther on a hunting high – then swung with all his upper body strength in a downward arc that sprayed Lexi’s arterial plasma like rain from a garden sprinkler. He was sorry that it would come to this, so sorry. He had loved Lexi since that day when they were 9 years old and playing tic-tac-toe inside the tunnel under the old quarry, but a zombie was a zombie and so there could be no other end to their relationship than one of severed flesh and disintegrated bone. Of course he wished he had taken the opportunity to get inside her panties first – but he was beginning to understand that life nearly always held you back from what you really wanted. At least he had escaped having his dick ripped off by this fiend of the undead. There was always that.

So here is where I back up all that nonsense I committed to for this new year. Two of these goals are going to need some pretty hardcore planning, I think.

the ass kicking:

I’m starting Jillian Michaels 30-day Shred, which I’m doing 5 days/week rather than daily, but I’ll do it for 6 weeks rather than 30 days. Anyway, it’s hard, but I guess it doesn’t really feel like enough. Maybe I need to start out on level 2? But the fact of it is, I’m used to exercising for 60-70 minutes per session. The Shred feels like it’ll do an awesome job at sculpting, which is what it’s intended to do, I guess, but I’ll be combining it with a 45-minute yoga/fitness blend on cold days, and on warmer days I’ll do my regular 4 miles outside.

Speaking of the regular 4 miles on ass-kicking hills, I had no idea my calves had been so neglected, because Shred makes them want to cry, lol! I guess hills really don’t do much for calves. My ass though, chubby as I might be otherwise, is pretty damn tight

Honestly, it’s not the working out that I’ve ever had trouble with, but my terrible eating habits. It sounds like it should be so easy, you know, just don’t eat so damn much? I’m going to try to fall back on South Beach Diet again. It’s worked for me in the past, and I am obviously not to be trusted with carbs. I’ve tried to live in harmony with carbs, and it just keeps not working, again and again. I do much, much better when I just cut most of them out.

the novel:

The hardest goal for this year (we will not say the word “impossible”) is going to be the novel. I think an ambition of this magnitude requires a schedule. (Because I’m a Virgo, and super-dorky!) Let’s make a schedule, shall we?

February: finish part 2
March: finish part 3
April: finish part 4, the end
May: pull everything together, polish a bit, and done

June and July: novel sleeps? How long should a finished first draft sleep for? Maybe just one month, since we’re working with the near impossible here

(July?)/August: commence hacking it to pieces.
September/October: out to beta readers.

October/November: get feedback back (lol).

November/December: with feedback, instead of NaNoWriMo, we’ll do a NaNoRevMo, lol! Carry on into December, before Christmas eats us all alive again. 2nd draft done, by the end of the year, and ready to be thrown out into the world first thing 2011 (you know, since we might as well wait until after Christmas is done eating us all alive).

Of course, anyone who’s actually done this process before is welcome to shed some light on how my timeline is destined to fail because of my glorious noob-ness.

And has anyone ever tried a staggered beta-reading process before? I read a novelist blogger (Allison Winn Scotch maybe?) who said she liked to have her first 100 pages read and get feedback, and then she knows if the rest of the novel will work or not. I think I might try something like that. I feel like I need somebody else’s eyes on this mess so that I know it’s headed in the right direction.

So, in that light, I’ll probably be soliciting some beta readers around the end of the month, for my first seven chapters (estimated 70 pages). Ack! I said it out loud, people! We’ll also let this take the place of the promise of my first chapter after the new year. Seven chapters is better than one, right?

progress report for the three weeks I haven’t been blogging:

These past three weeks have probably been just about as productive as everyone’s past three weeks, which would be a big lazy mess of Christmas/New Year. I did actually add maybe 4000 words that I managed to steal from some old notes and drafts (it’s not cheating if you steal from yourself), and the first part is done. Did I say that out loud? Done, ugly, sketchy, but done!

Part two is officially in the works. Part 2 is roughly chapters 8 through 15, I think. Parts of them were very eager to be born last month, but I welcome the rest of them into existence, if they would be so kind to join us

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions (they’re always just begging to be broken), but I do have some goals for 2010. Maybe resolutions and goals are the same thing? For some reason, a goal feels less likely to be broken than a resolution. Who knows… Anyway, I shall put these goals out into the world so that I might be held accountable

health:
- cook more, eat out less, less prepared convenience foods
- exercise 5 days a week (currently doing about 2 or 3)
- more strength training (trying out Jillian Michaels Shred to start!)
- lose 25 lbs before I get knocked up
- 1 glass of wine a day is healthy, 2 or 3 glasses not so much…

hardcore writing goals:
- novel finished, revised, and out to agents by the end of the year! (Whoa, that’s ambitious! Can I get some cheerleaders on this one?)
- get Dylan in preschool/part-time care for daily writing time, so I can accomplish my ambitious goal of finishing my novel by the end of the year
- publish a short story
- keep up with my weekly progress reports
- pre-draft novel #2 during NaNoWriMo 2010

family life:
- get a babysitter and go on regular dates with my hubby again
- as a possible side-product of all those dates, get knocked up… (but no sooner than March/April, so that I can finish my novel by the end of the year)
- save a downpayment to buy a house next year

Good luck on everyone’s goals for 2010! Let’s make it a good one!