Miscellany and assorted oddments

The writing group met today, after skipping the December meeting due to life and other inconveniences.  We had no "homework" to read, so we talked about things we'd had trouble with, various writing resources, and our goals for 2012.  I talked a little about how I've been focusing most of my writing effort on copy editing, which isn't a problem for me, but the group saw it as one.  They recommended that I dole out some time for my own writing.

The thing is, with this blog, it feels like I'm already doing that.  I'm selfishly taking time when I could be doing something I'm being paid to do, and not being productive with that time.  If I don't push myself to do it, the editing could take forever, and I certainly don't want to be working on it in February.

We'll see how I feel about the subject after I've slept on it, though.

Meanwhile, we talked about a couple of bits of good news.  Tara has her second book contract, and got in her edits for the first.  She writes romance.  The second book has a tentative release date of late March/early April.  She doesn't yet know when the first will come out.  I'll link to them, regardless.

Catt's writing is harder for me to put into a box, but she writes fantasy, urban fantasy, erotica, and poetry.  Her writing is lyrical and poetic.  She's also one of the few SWAG members to write from an outline.  Bizarre, I know.  She has a book coming out, as well, which I'll be reviewing here in as timely a manner as I can manage.

Next month, the writing group is doing its own version of NaNoWriMo, where we devote a month that isn't crazy with family visits and holiday preparation to writing 50,000 words, or as many as we need to.  Very few of us had time to participate in November, and we all agreed February was far more sensible, so February it is.  We plan on weekly write-ins, one of which will occur on my birthday.  So we have tentative dinner plans for that day, followed by a write-in.

And in completely non-writer-group news, I bought a Kindle with gift cards given to us by family for Christmas.  I plan on loading it up mostly with books purchased locally.  My favorite local bookstore does allow purchasing ebooks from their site, and they can be used on the Kindle.  It takes a couple of extra steps, but that's good.  Making book buying easier for me is a dangerous proposition.

How's your reading and writing life going?