And ta-da…we have the first Iron Kin excerpt which is the first half of chapter one.  As usual the rest of chapter one will be up later this month and then chapter two in March.

I also have these pretties….

So I’ll have to do a giveaway of one soon…stay tuned!

Otherwise, I’m kind of surprised that it’s February already.  But then again January was pretty busy.  I divested myself of a wisdom tooth (well, my oral surgeon did the removing but you know what I mean),  one of my dearest friends has a baby (he snuck in on New Year’s Eve but we’ll call that January), I saw Neil Gaimain talk, I finished the first draft of the first of my Melanie Scott books (third person…present day…fun!), I continued in the development of my latest comedy crush by watching many Tim Minchin DVDs (musical, funny, guyliner…what’s not to love), I watched Series 3 of Downton Abbey (can’t discuss, SPOILERS) and the Hobbit and Pitch Perfect and started writing Fire Kin.

I (sob) made a start at culling my book collection as small house plus many books means something has to give eventually. I’m becoming much more selective about what I buy in paper versus e (where availability and pricing allows), so hopefully that will stem the tide of new paper books once I clear the decks a bit (this may be overly optimistic thinking). And I even read some books.  My two faves were The One That Got Away by Kelly Hunter (if you like contemporary romance, you should be reading Kelly…it’s out now so go go go read it) and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (late to that party but book of much plot twistiness, admiration for her brain, I have).

I also signed up to do a photo a day type project for the next year (Project Life 365) and a iphone photography course and started looking at other crafty things to try this year (copious spare time, not so much, therefore quick things there must be as any knitting projects are going to take months at the moment). I like color and pictures and things so may try Project Life or Smash books or both. Who knows? I’m also working with my lovely and fabulous web designer to get the funkier, prettier, does-more-stuff version of Melanie’s website up (more playing with colours and fonts and pictures). All in all, to quote, Calvin and Hobbes, the days are just packed! How about all of you? How did the year kick off?