Speaking of catching up...

San Diego at sunset

1.  So I just got back from a week long writing retreat in San Diego.  It was kind of a whiplash transition to go from sitting outside in the sun looking at the water to holed up in my house while the snow and ice refuses to melt outside!  I miss the warm afternoons!  I had a fantastic time at the retreat -- really lovely conversations with smart, thoughtful and talented people.  And of course I got lots of work done which makes me happy.  I hit that stage in the book where I need to step back, re-organize, and then revise so toward the end I was doing less writing and more pondering/planning.  I'm already looking forward to the next retreat (Branson, MO in Feb).

2.  Speaking of coming home, what with all the craziness around the holidays JP and I had to put off exchanging gifts and when I got back to the house I walked in to find his present to me: bookcases!  I can't tell you how much this thrills me! So this weekend I'll be re-organizing the books piled around the house.  YAY!  I realized just how dire things had gotten with my lack of book organizing a few weeks ago when I was standing at my local indie trying to remember if I'd bought a particular book and if I had, where it might be (i.e. which stack littered around the house).  I'm still not sure this one big bookcase will be enough to set things right but it's a start!

3.  Speaking of books... I just shipped home a big box of ARCs I picked up at ALA.  So... perhaps I'll need another bookcase after all!

4.  Speaking of ALA, I went and it was awesome!  BOOKS EVERYWHERE!  I also was lucky enough to run into some awesome authors, readers, librarians, booksellers.  Honestly, it was almost overwhelming at times.  And yes, many many ARCs.

5.  Speaking of ARCs, Random House had The Dark and Hollow Places at their booth and were handing it out.  This is slightly terrifying to me because that means people are going to be reading it soon. 

6.  Speaking of The Dark and Hollow Places, for the first time today I realized that the release date -- 3.22.11 -- is pretty cool when you write it out like that.

7.  Speaking of cool... did I mention there's still snow and ice outside?  Like to the point where I could skate across our front yard?  Of course the neighbor's house is totally melted because it's in the sun. 

8.  Speaking of the lack of flowers in our yard, I just saw the Italian cover of The Forest of Hands and Teeth.  It's totally unexpected but at the same time I think it's utterly GORGEOUS!  I think the title translates into The Forest of Death and Lost Love (any Italian speakers out there want to correct me?).  

9.  Speaking of unexpected, my birthday is this weekend.  Usually I'm much more on top of this sort of thing but this year it's snuck up on me!  I haven't even decided what to get myself!

10.  Speaking of not being on top of things, I just found a folder of email in my email program from a year ago.  I'm slowly making my way through it.  I can't tell you how embarrassed this makes me!  

11.  Speaking of getting embarrassed, can I tell you how much I'm loving Dance Central on Xbox Kinect and how glad I am that our account is in no way connected to twitter or facebook to share the pics the program takes while you're dancing?

12.  Speaking of dancing, I think I'll go do that now :)