Goals and Reading List 11/9/09

Here we are again, looking at another week full of things to do. Last week I was about half and half with accomplishing things, but the momentum wasn't too bad. I'm about 1,100 words behind on NaNo at this point, but I'll catch up eventually.

I couldn't wait to re-check the word count guidelines again - for anyone who might be interested, Harlequin Blaze and Intrigue (the two lines I'm considering for my novels) are both 55,000 to 60,000 words now. Must have gone up, but that's okay. Good, actually, since it opens up potential to submit to other houses without having to add so much should Harlequin turn me down, if I write to 60,000 words. Cool.

Anyway, I didn't do too badly last week, even with falling behind a bit. Desert Heat is cruisin' along, but needs more "heat". I didn't get a short story drafted, but did get the plot down for each of them, along with the main character and common thread. So good progress - they should go quickly with the advanced planning.

As far as personal goals went, the Thanksgiving decor is up, work-outs were a non-event, and all the halloween stuff is gathered for inventory, but that's as far as I got. Sometimes, you just have to sit and play games instead of working all weekend.

So...here we go again...

Weekly Goals

Writing
- 2000 words per day on Desert Heat
- 2 short story drafts for Holiday Lights
- Chapter 32 of Tempest
- Start writing earlier in the evenings (ie, quit playing on FB so much)

Personal
- Get cracking on the halloween decor inventory. I don't want it stretching into Christmas. We have Wednesday off (Veteran's Day is a federal holiday), so will hit it hard then.
- Start my gift calendars
- Catch up on the backlog of laundry from before the Halloween party

Weekly Reading List

It's slow going with all the writing at night, but I still manage to sneak some reading in at lunch and on the occasional break at work. The beautiful thing about ebooks is they are completely portable, and unnoticable on a device as small as my PDA.

Another Harlequin freebie, Snowbound by Janice Kay Johnson was completely delightful, fraught with angst as it was. A teacher and her high school charges are stranded in the mountains by a huge snowstorm, and taken in by a war vet in a remote mountain lodge who isn't at all happy for the company. It's a wonderful story of redemption and healing, very well written.

Starstruck by Julie Kenner (Harlequin Blaze) is a hilarious and poignant story about falling in love with your best friend - or not. The tension is high, the heat is on, and so is the struggle between following your heart, or following your head. The sort of on again/off again bumbling relationship between the two main characters, Alyssa & Chris, is very believable, and the ending is just perfect. I can't wait to get Claire's story (Alyssa's best friend) when it comes out!

Texas Blaze by Debbi Rawlins (Harlequin Blaze) is my current read. Last month I read her Texas Heat, which was three shorter stories about three of Kate's friends finding love at her ranch (two with Kate's brothers, one with a local rodeo hero). I was really looking forward to Kate's story, and so far, it hasn't disappointed. How do you get the guy you had a crush on when you were young to admit his attraction to your grown self when it seems "taboo"? This is an excellent read, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Rawlins.

That's it for this week - how's your week shaping up? Any good reads, or is everyone busy writing away?