Okay, so I read the first chapter of Practical Demonkeeping and I'm not hooked and I'm eying other things on my shelf....  I bought more books Tuesday night before the critique group.  I bought a book by Alan Moore on writing for GN's and comics and two McKinley books - which fit in with two goals so I might be putting aside the Christopher Moore book.  This is bad since I keep doing the same thing to his other book, Fluke.  I really, really, really liked Lamb and You Suck was good - but I could never get beyond the first chapter of Fluke and the Practical Demonkeeping first chapter just kinda... didn't get me.  Struggling with the idea of pressing on or grabbing up Chalice or Dragonsbane by McKinley....

[edit] Okay, I'm cheating on my writing. Today I will be brain-dead and not mind.  I took Chalice with me to work today and managed to get through the first section of the first chapter and OMG I'm hooked already! Have I mentioned I really like Robin McKinley's books? I want to know more about the elemental fire Priest, the Master and what the heck the Chalice does!!!![/edit]

I was super excited with the comments I got back from the critique group; I got some great opinions and review and I'm actually looking forward to tackling the issues addressed.  I really feel like it's all coming alive.  I might need to rethink some of the names... I know why people are named like they are - but the reader won't for quite a while - if at all in this book.  I think that's a thing to tackle much, much later once I know where the book actually ends.

I had another one of my super weird, crazy dreams last night.  This time I think I can blame Avatar for a little of it, but not the dragons bit.  There were these floating islands or maybe they were really tall plateaus that looked like islands that were covered by jungles.  Anyways!  My dream followed a character who did some interesting things and dragons were involved in a non-stereotypical rawr-I-will-eat-you way.  I was able to jot down what I remembered of the dream and do a reasonable amount of brain storming on it.  I don't have a climax for it - which is the main problem I see.  I could, however, make it a very curious short story with the material I have right now for the quarterly Glimmer Train contest on writing a 12,000 or less word story.  There's a regular contest schedule set up there too!  I'm getting interested...  Jane Friedman clued me into that on her blog, There Are No Rules.  She has some really good stuff on there.  Like this blog she wrote about a book she wrote with someone else [BIG edit] the someone else is Becky Levine.[/BIG edit] called The Writing and Critique Group Survival Guide - and I want it. I've bought more books in the last week than I really should have, so I'm sticking this on the To-Buy-Eventually list - like, in a month or something when it looks like I'll read it sooner rather than later.  I'm really big on revision right now so I need stuff like this for tips and whatnot! ... Hmm, maybe I do really need this book now...

I'm watching the minutes tick by as I loose my lunch break.  *sigh*  Yesterday was crazy and today is worse; my job is not normally like this so I'm more surprised about all of this crazy stuff and more or less frustrated with myself for the inability to do everything perfectly the first time.  I don't talk about my work here much - I realize - mostly because I'm following my company's blogs and I don't see myself as a spokes-person or anywhere near equipped to talk about my company or what we do so I keep my trap shut.  I would never want to jeopardize my job here because I like it. I like the people I work with.  I don't always understand what we do, but I can do the job, I'm reasonably happy with it and in this economy and time those are things not everyone has.  I'm thankful for my job - but I'd be really happy if the last few days did not repeat themselves in the level of crazy that's been going on.  I think this afternoon, should everything not blow up, I'm going to tackle the mess that has become my desk!