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

The vast majority of my reading lately has been aloud to my kids. Recently, they've decided they love Shel Silverstein. We finished A Light in the Attic last week and are now reading Falling Up. I do like all of Silverstein's poems, but definitely feel the strongest attachment to Where the Sidewalk Ends mainly because it's the Shel Silverstene book I read as a kid. It's also the one we don't actually own yet. So Santa, if you're reading this, do you maybe want to get my daughter Where the Sidewalk Ends for Christmas?

What I'm Writing

I'm trying to work on Fragments of Life. I like the concept a lot and think it has the potential to be my best book yet. But it's a very hard story to write. My POV character spends the entire book lying in a hospital bed. So yeah. It's a challenge.

I've got about four decent chapters right now and parts of others that I like. I think I need to do some more research first though. Like maybe go to med school or something.

I did officially quit my day job this week. For the last four months I've been on family leave ('cause I just adopted two kids) but I told my old boss I wasn't coming back this week. Now that writing (and being a mom) is my only job, I really do need to find time to write.

What Works for Me

I now have an office, sort of. I had an office before I became a mom. But that room is now my son's bedroom. We moved our desktop, and the desk it sits on into a little alcove off the side of our living room. I have always preferred writing on my laptop though. For the last few months I've been doing most of my writing while sitting on my bed, which may be one of the reasons why I've gotten so little done in the last few months.

I recently got a new chair that fits nicely into the corner of my bedroom, so I can still go to my room and close the door to get away from my kids when I want to write. But I can sit somewhere a bit more comfortable than a bed when writing.

What Else I've Been Up To

Both of my kids have birthdays this coming week, and Christmas is right around the corner. Last Sunday we had a joint birthday party for both kiddos and Jesus. Because I'm a fairly social person, and quite possibly insane, I invited a ton of people. We had 20 kids and 30 adults at our house on Sunday.

Now that that's over, I'm busy planning smaller family only (meaning grandparents, cousins, etc) birthday dinners for both kids on their actual birthdays. My life is way beyond hectic, but the kids are loving it.

My son (who is about to turn six) keeps talking about how fun his party was. Today he said, "Do you remember my party? It was so much fun, it feels like a dream. That was exactly the party I've always wanted to have."

So I may not be getting tons of writing done, but I am doing a great job of trashing my house in the name of six year old joy.

So what's up with you?