It’s time to update this thing! January was insanely busy, and things are only now beginning to settle down a bit.

Writing-wise, I was off to a good start, working on some new short stories early in the New Year. Unfortunately work got busy fast, with long hours and an unexpected trip to Munich for two weeks! One weekend I did a brief tour of the city and went to the Bavarian Alps to see some castles, so I can’t complain too much. I’ll post another entry with photos soon.

Ever since getting back home I’ve been devoting most of my spare time to working on my first iPhone application, and that’s going well so far. I knew there’d be some conflict between this and the writing, but since I spent hardly any time on the app in January, I figured it was time to balance things out. With the way the economy is right now, it might be a wise idea to prioritize that above my writing for now. The ‘Thing A Week’ plan won’t be working anytime soon.

While on the trip I finished reading Samantha Henderson’s novel, Heaven’s Bones: A Novel of the Mists, blazing through it in record time. I’d had a peek at it previously and provided some comments on the early chapters, and now I wish I’d had the time to read it all back then. I hardly know how to describe it, other than to say it’s a combination gothic steampunk police procedural fantasy with substantial medical and horror elements. That’s a poor description at best, so you really have to read it for yourself. It’s fiendishly clever and has a style reminiscent of some of Sam’s other stories set in Victorian times. From what I understand there’s a bit of a shared-world Wizards of the Coast setting, but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment any without having that background. Anyway, pick it up, especially if you’re a Sam Henderson fan.

The weekend before last I put together the potting bench Carrie gave me for Christmas, so that’s sitting in the basement ready to go. She’s already used it to plant her terrarium, which turned out very nicely. I’ll need to get some veggie seeds started soon, and the bench will make the process much more comfortable than in the past. I’ll also need some new growlights, since the old ones are presently illuminating a bunch of cacti and Bonsai.

With the imminent release of the Watchmen movie, I’m finally taking it off the shelf and adding it to the reading pile. I hear this is one of the best graphic novels of all time, so I hope it doesn’t diminish everything else I read afterward. I’ve also got a stack of Wolverine back issues to catch up on, in preparation for the forthcoming movie. From what I’ve seen, it looks like that’ll be a good one, too.

What I’m Reading:
Just After Sunset, Stephen King
Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Tags: gardening, travel, writing