Oh, hey there

Holy canoli, I realized today that almost all my posts for 2016 have been book reviews. That's not a bad thing, really, but I thought I'd give a quick update on life and writing and everything else that goes with it.

Well, life. Sprint car season has started back up, and the boy is more involved than ever. Even right now, we have a sprint car sitting in our garage, waiting to be worked on. It's gong to be a process, and the payoff isn't certain. The smile that comes to his face whenever he sees it, though, makes it all worth it. I'm also trying to organize schedules around sprint car season, and that's proven easier than I thought. We're going on vacation in about a month and a half, and I'm already preparing for that. Also, do you understand how hard it is to shop for clothes when the weather keeps changing every two seconds? Yeah, that hasn't been fun. I bought shorts and cute t-shirts, and the shorts have been confined to drawers because we had rain, and now it's 90 degrees and I hate global warming.

Also on the life line (*ba dum tiss*), I have eight books on my NetGalley shelf, so I figured I'd buy eight more from Barnes and Noble. I'm doing really well with this whole reading thing. Anyway, expect an inundation of book reviews over the next two weeks, because four of the books on my shelf are coming out soon, and I'm hoping to get reviews our before they're published. Fingers crossed!

What else, what else, what else? Oh! Oliver is doing great. I just took him to the vet this morning for his last check up and now we have to get him to walk five minutes, three times a day. WALK. THREE TIMES A DAY. Hahahahahaha. When I laughed, the vet did, too, so that tells you how Oliver is with exercise. He loves to swim, so the warm weather is good, but who knows how long it's going to last and I'm not getting in a freezing swimming pool with him. I'm not even letting him get in a freezing swimming pool. He wouldn't stand for it, anyway. So, I guess, we'll see how the walking goes. Prediction: IT DOES NOT GO WELL.

But what about this writing that you mentioned, Bree? Well, let me tell you: I've been writing. For reals. Over the last few months, I've been dabbling with a few stories, just adding things here and there to keep me moving, but nothing has stuck. I've been in something of a rut, and I didn't know what to do. Is this it? Have I done all my writing and now my brain is like, nope, not today, not tomorrow, not ever?

Well, no, all I needed was a little inspiration, and it came from a book and, oddly enough, Tumblr.

So I've been writing every day for the last two weeks, and it's become a little routine. It's been nice having something that I know I'm going to do every day, but it's been a pain trying to schedule everything around it. Not being lazy on the weekends would help, but then when am I supposed to be lazy? That's a thought that plagues me every Sunday when I even think about getting out of pajamas to go to the grocery store.

It's madness, I say.

So I don't want to jinx anything, but the writing has been going really well. I'm doing what I've always wanted to do and just write without looking back. I read what I wrote the day before so I know where I'm going, but I'm trying not to edit. That's where it always gets me. I edit during my writing process and then I get discouraged, and it's not pretty. Once I'm finished with the first draft, I'll talk a little more about it, but I don't want to be like THIS IS MY STORY AND I LOVE IT AND THINGS ARE GREAT and then I stop writing.

Give me a few weeks and then I'll make the grand reveal like a magician.

Basically this means that most of my posts are going to be full of book reviews because I don't want to update on my writing for reasons explained above. If you really care to read about how I'm doing with my writing, click on the Tumblr button on the right and I'll do my best to update things there. Also, ducks have come back to our pool, so check out my Instagram for animals and sprint cars and nerdiness and possibly Champions League tears. I'd say depending on if Bayern wins or not, but I'll probably be in tears either way.

Oh, and yes, it's fun being me.