In general, I am really not addicted to Facebook. I got an account there out of curiosity, and then just as I first started to think about giving it up, I started playing Scrabulous and Scramble games with friends, and that seemed worth keeping the account. When I've heard about people spending hours on Facebook, I didn't understand. But now...

Uh-oh. See, it all started very innocently. Patrick discovered this application, "Flair", which lets you create little buttons to put on a virtual corkboard. He made an adorable button of Maya, and sent it to me. I added "Flair" to my account so I could have that one little button. Then I saw some of the cool buttons other people had already sent me, so I thought I should find some good ones in the flair directory and send some back...and even then, I still hadn't lost control. But then it happened: just out of curiosity, I entered "Austen" in the search box.

And I completely lost my mind.

It is ONLY because I only have a limited number of "Flair" credits that I only got myself three Jane Austen buttons so far. (One picture of JA saying "What would Jane do?", one picture of Lizzy reading, from the BBC Pride & Prejudice, and one button that says "My other car is a barouche", which gave me enormous geeky glee.) Not only do I want to put ALL of the available Jane Austen buttons on my board, but I want real ones, too. I would SO wear them! It never even occurred to me that such things could exist.

I had to force myself off Facebook before I could lose control completely.

It's not fair to come up with so many temptations for hopeless Jane Austen addicts like me...we can't be expected to control ourselves!

At least I had a productive day until I came across my Unbeatable Temptation. This morning, Patrick and I drove into town and went to the little café on the main street where we do our best writing (i.e., without any bookstore distractions!). I'd decided last week, with much angst and agony, that I need to rewrite the first two chapters of Kat by Starlight from scratch. (OK, this may not sound like angst and agony material, but trust me, it was.) It took me days to figure out a better way to start it...but I have! I wrote the new first few pages of the novel yesterday, Patrick loved them and swore up & down that they now work (woooot!), and this morning I wrote the rest of that opening scene, while sipping a banana-chocolate smoothie. (It had a whole banana in it! And fibre powder! So it was practically health food....right????) So I'm now feeling happy and positive about the new opening...

...and already fighting the temptation to go back to Facebook and add another Jane Austen button or two. Clearly, I am not a person with the necessary levels of maturity and sophistication to safely add the "Flair" application.

But maybe just one or two more buttons wouldn't hurt...