What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk.  Head over to Jaime's page for links to find out what's up with everyone else. Here's What's Up with me.
What I'm Reading

This week, I finished reading The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater. I really like all of the characters in this story and am excited to see where the series goes. This series is based upon Welsh mythology (I think). I haven't done any actual research so it's entirely possible that Stiefvater made the entire legend up. But either way, I love that this is an urban fantasy story that is about a unique breed of magic. 
What I'm Writing
Very little. I'm supposed to be editing The Evolution of Emily. I joined a new critique group (in person not online) that meets every week. So I've been submitting a chapter a week to my new team of critters and getting lots of great feedback. I have tons of ideas now about ways to make the story better. But I'm not actually implementing any of them.

I also have a shiny new idea that I'm thinking about pulling out for NaNo this year. So I'm coming up with a new plan for my writing life. I'm going to sort of leave Emily alone for a while and not worry about my lack of revision motivation. I'll keep submitting chapters to my critique group and think about what I need to do with the story each week. But I won't actually do any rewriting right now. Instead, I'll try to start outlining my new project.

Then in November, I'll write this new book. By December, I should have a lot more feedback on The Evolution of Emily and be ready to dive in and do a major rewrite. Once I'm done with that, I'll be ready to revise my NaNo project. At least that's my current plan. Or maybe it's just an attempt to justify not doing my revision right now.
What Inspires Me Right Now
The ARCs are ordered for Counting to D and I should have copies by the end of this week. It feels like that should be super inspiring, but somehow I'm still not getting any writing done. So maybe ARCs aren't all that inspiring. Or more likely, they are seriously distracting. I don't just have a shiny new idea, I have a shiny old idea. The books completely written, yet all of my author thoughts are focused on it so I can't even think about what comes next right now. 
What Else I've Been Up To

I made wine last week. Because that is something that I do. Some of my friends own a small vineyard and we buy grapes from them every year. This passed week, I picked, crushed, and pressed enough grapes to make 25 bottles of pinot gris and 25 bottles of chardonnay. In the past we've also made pinot noir, but this year we decided to skip the reds. Instead my husband pressed a bunch of plums and is going to try and make a plum wine. Although I can't take any credit in that since he did the whole thing while I was off reading The Dream Thieves.

The funny thing is that I'm totally not a drinker. We've made 75 bottles of wine a year for almost a decade now, and I drink maybe two glasses a month. There are a lot of vineyards in this area though and making wine feels like a very fall thing to do. So we have a giant wine rack and an area of our garage dedicating to fermenting grapes.

On the plus side, my husband also loves to fish, and there is nothing better than fresh halibut that's been marinated in chardonnay. Maybe 25 bottles wont be enough. :)

In other unrelated news. I did an interview for my friend Julie's blog. If you want even more fun Kate facts, head over there and check it out.

So What's Up With You?