Another good morning (two in a row! woo-hoo!) of fine-tuning the novel and its outline, and I'm feeling good about the book again. I made some good headway on the ending, which had been a bit... fuzzy.

While I haven't made any formal New Year's resolution, my main goals for the year are to simply enjoy what I do more, regardless of what I'm doing, and have more fun. I tend to be too serious. Not sure how THAT happened...

I like what singer/DJ Moby had in his journal entry for the New Year, especially the part about "being able to express yourself through your work" (another one of those DUH! realizations -- he's talking about ALL work, not just some of it) and "being able to appreciate right now, without being plagued by worry over what may or may not happen in the future." Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history...

Another New Year's journal entry I'm linking to here is more for my own inspiration than anything else. It's agent Rachel Vater's Happy New Year entry, which is a wonderful tip sheet for writers who may be stuck in a bit of a rut (as I was last month). Tons of cool ideas and, best of all, enthusiasm for writing and reading in that entry. I'll be coming back to that entry in the future, if and when I get a bit stuck.

I really like this one: "Try to figure out what makes people tick, especially if this person happens to annoy you to pieces." (I do that all the time, but not to anyone who reads this journal, I'm sure!)

And finally, I wanted to add one more link, to a cool new online venue for fiction, poetry, and more experimental works: Farrago's Wainscot:



I'm looking forward to reading this season's "exhibit" of ideas and stories. Check it out! I'm gonna try and read a bit of it at work each day over lunch. What I've seen so far is really cool, especially what's in the "Other" and "Serial" sections.

Now I'm off for a jog in the 32-degree morning air (two days in a row for that, too!). Later.