lists, forums, and other things to keep me from editing

Ever have one of those days where you really did do a lot, but you didn't do what you were supposed to, and now you feel like you didn't do anything productive? Today was like that for me. Granted, the day is not yet done, but I know it's going to close out with me having not gotten any further on my edits on TWoNR. I did do some editing, I got six chapters done, which in the grand scheme of things isn't all that bad, but my goal was 50.

What else did I do? You know; did the edits, went and ran some errands, talked to Mom on the phone, then came home with every intent of doing more editing, and totally spent the rest of the day bumming on the internet.

It wasn't all waste though. I went through Amazon and made a wish list of about thirty books (most the beginning of series so you should triple that number, at least) that I think I should read in order to gain the experience I need to float in my genre. Top of the list is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. This is a book that a number of the readership thought the mythology in TWoNR was similar to. Then there is the Dark series by Christine Feehan. Her Carpathians intrigue me because they are also another take on vampires (like the Holy Children in TWoNR). Then Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter novels; just cause I want to read Acheron (the rogue God thing intrigues me) and hate reading books out of order. Then there are others that were mentioned at Cons and I wrote down because they sounded interesting or I felt foolish for not having read them.

I'm slowly getting through my list of people to read. I read Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip last week and this week I started working on 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I have Dean Koontz, Glen Cook, K.J. Parker, and Frank Herbert sitting on my shelf waiting for love.

I also joined the Absolute Writer Water Cooler which is a huge forum for people in the publishing industry and those aspiring to be that lucky. http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ I put up a couple questions and they were answered promptly and intelligently. Two things that I can't love enough. Then I read some blogs, and found this interesting site called: Flogging the Quill. http://www.floggingthequill.com/ I want to submit to it.