It’s still cold in Florida. Brr. January catch-up.

It’s officially the end of the first month of the new year! (Phew!)

Now’s as good a time as any to check in and see what’s been going on.

New habits! I have those. I think everyone does–or tries to–when the new year starts. This year, I decided I’d try to be more creative more often by starting to draw again. I already have a standing goal of making sure I write every day, but I haven’t done any drawing in a while. A few years ago, I was drawing constantly, almost as much as I was writing, and if starting up again has shown me anything it’s how important it is to stay in practice.

I haven’t exactly gone back to square one with things, but I can see a lot of rough edges where things were smoother just a few years ago. It’s just like writing, really, in that a large part of it is really about dedication and putting in the time. Even if some days it’s more work than others.

I’ve been posting a few of my daily sketches to twitter as a way of encouraging myself to keep it up and keep track of my progress. So far, so good! And it’s fun, too.

Sword & Laser Anthology – I got a pleasant surprise in my email the other day: a galley copy of the completed anthology! Sans cover and final edits. I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing, yet, but I’m loving the stories that I’ve read so far and I’m so, so pleased to be included among such great company. And there’s a fantastic foreword to lead everything in, too–I can’t wait for everyone to read it when it comes out!

The Kingdom of Little Wounds is the book I’m reading (and tweeting about) right now. It’s Susann Cokal’s debut book in the YA genre and it has completely taken me by surprise. By and large the biggest noise about the book is the fact that it’s described as “a fairy tale about syphilis,” which… is definitely a unique concept. Finding something that’s REALLY unique these days is hard enough, but something unique and this well written? I’m glad I picked it up. Really glad. Every night I’m sad when I have to put down the book to get some sleep.

More on that book later, once I’ve finished.

Lastly I was thinking about talking about some of the shows I’ve been watching (Sherlock is back!) — but I realized that I’m going to need to write a whole separate post about that, because I have a lot of thoughts about Sherlock. Particularly in relation to the US show Elementary. There’s so many interesting things to talk about with regards to the way the characters and plots are handled, the difference of depth between the shows and… Well, I’m going to try to write something up this weekend.

That’s all for now!

Filed under: Book Talk, Life, TV Talk