Last night was fantastic--much fun, much champagne, much writer-talk. And this morning I am exhausted. Midnight bedtimes = no good for early morning wakeups! Me need sleep. Brain going, going, gone...

It's been a great couple of days, though. I managed to go jogging yesterday afternoon, which was very humbling (how did I manage to fall so far out of shape during the holidays???) but which felt really good anyway. Must get back into a routine with that! And I'm now on page 18 of my current thesis chapter (Brave Crusaders and Dangerous Women: The Armidas of Salieri, Naumann, Righini and Haydn), although I have to admit that those 18 pages are pretty much a mess. But hey, at least now I have a draft of the first 3/4 of the chapter to work with and shape into something coherent and (I hope) interesting. And best of all, this morning I opened up my email to find some really lovely emails from readers who enjoyed "Inside the Tower" and "Some Girlfriends Can". It's funny, I used to feel really nervous about sending mail to authors I liked, because I was afraid they'd feel--oh, I don't know, not 'offended', but maybe 'intruded upon' or something. Turns out, at least when I'm the author in question, letters of appreciation are just a wonderful gift. I feel really grateful when I find out that someone else honestly liked a story that I wrote. What a great way to start the morning!

So I'm feeling much, much more positive now about getting my work done today, despite the exhaustion. And I've even started Chapter Fifteen of The Music of the Stars. I will get through this novel! (Not to be too Scarlett O'Hara-ish about it or anything...)