And this I have done.  It’s been kind of hard.  It absolutely stunk to be doing great, around Day 20 or so—but instead of getting to reward myself for doing great, I was still punishing myself for not having yet done well enough.

The best thing about this challenge, though, was the steadily decreasing difficulty.  The workouts themselves stayed pretty freaking hard, but getting up the motivation to do them became easier and easier the farther I got.  It was that whole “in a row” clause.  By Day 8, the idea of missing a day and having to start over was pretty excruciating; by Day 20, it just wasn’t going to happen.  I worked out at midnight with a pounding headache just to keep my skin in the game.

It reminds me of something I once read: that you don’t use your will power to make a big change in your life; you use it to create the environment in which making that change is easier.  Like, you don’t use will power to diet; you use it to throw out your junk food and stock up on broccoli.  You don’t use will power to exercise, you use it to make a silly bargain with yourself and tell people about it so that if you fall down on the job you’ll wind up with egg on your face.

I did cheat one other time that I didn’t mention.  Mark and I are in Gatlinburg this week for another bridge competition.  When we were getting ready for the trip, I said to him, “It’s such a shame that I don’t get to buy a new book to read in the hot tub.”

Then Mark’s eyes melted in the way they only do for me.  Because reading books in the hot tub may well be my favoritest of all favorite activities.  And then he went out and bought me Soulless by Gail Carriger, which I was Into.  It’s full of steampunk and sexy werewolves, and has already been devoured.  Thanks for being my enabler, sweetie!

So, now that my thrity days are over, there are two questions before me.  Where to I go from here?  And, what should I buy?

As for where do I go from here, I think I’m going to take one or two days to rest up, and then launch a new thirty day deal.  I am feeling stronger, slimmer, and more stamina-tastic, and I’m not willing to give any of that up.  But I want some new terms, maybe something not quite so punishing.  I’m thinking less stick, more carrot.

As for what I’ll buy, here are the candidates:

Changeless, by Gail Carriger. Sequel to Soulless.  Oh, who am I kidding.  I’m getting this one.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King.  I swear I own this, but I haven’t been able to track it down in three years.  Maybe it’s time to buy a new copy?  There was that one box of unidentified items that never made it out of California…

The Fire in Fiction, by Donald Maass.  Absolutely loved Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel.  If this is half as good, I need it.

Danse Macabre.  Stephen King’s book on the horror genre.  While I don’t write horror, I love reading about other genres.

Snow White and Rose Red, by Patricia Wrede.  Read this in high school at least twice, and for some reason heave been itching to read it again lately.

I’m Just Here for More Food.  Because I am an Alton Brown fangirl and a half.

I can’t get them all, because if I do that I’ll finish one or two and then buy something else and forget these completely.  (Isn’t it nice being old enough to know yourself a bit?)  So, where do I start?  Or is there something else I should be buying with my new found freedom?

Now, this was already a bit of a fishy deal because I have plenty of stuff to read around here.  I still have two of my books from Christmas, plus assorted odds and ends Mark or I have picked up along the way.

But still, I love the buying of the books, so I thought it was a fair incentive.  And I’ve gone around over the last twelve days bragging to anyone who would listen.  “I made myself a deal,” I say.  “No books for thirty days.  Thirty days.  No books.”

So here’s where I fell down.

I’ve been wanting to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet for a while, mostly because it has a badass title, but also because it’s by Jamie Ford, one of the best known authors represented by the agent who has my manuscript.  Also, seperately, I’m applying to Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp this year, and while searching for info about it, I found a very good walkthrough on Jamie Ford’s site.  So, after reading that I was even more into taking a look at Ford’s work.  Still, I remained firm on my deal.  A deal is a deal, after all.

But then, the coup de grace was delivered.  Mark and I decided to go out of town to visit friends this weekend.  And we didn’t have a new audiobook.

Now, an audiobook is not, technically, what I meant when I said no books.  Also, I had a credit on my Audible account, so I was not technically “buying” it.  And furthermore, there were two people in need of a book for the trip, and one of them was not me.

However, I can’t help but feel that this whole scenario was a trifle illegit.

We’re heading back to the ATL this morning, and we’ll be finishing up Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  And loving it.  Mark, who isn’t normally a litfic guy, keeps looking at me and saying “This is a good book.”

On a side note, isn’t it weird how the Web makes you feel like you know people you don’t?  I keep imagining a scenario in which this agent calls to offer me representation.  Perhaps I’d mention my plans for Literary Boot Camp, and she’d say, “Oh, my client went to Literary Boot Camp.”

“I know,” I’d say.  “I read it on his blog.”

And then we could discuss his family, and his opinions about the whole Amazon/McMillan thing.

I have to say, it’s wild reading sci fi from the seventies.  People keep using futuristic versions of outdated technology, like intercoms.  Oh, and watches.  Which just goes to show that we’re all products of our own times, or something like that.

Mark and I started with Mote, which is a good thing, because if we had started with Ringworld there’s a good chance we would not have continued.  It is hard science.  Like, uh, diamond hard.

Now, I enjoy a little hard science now and again.  I can appreciate the Herculean effort involved in creating the Ringworld—a enormous ring of metal, as large as the Earth’s orbit, which spins around its sun.  People live on the interior edge of the Ringworld, which has a surface area equal to three hundred million Earths.

I can appreciate the difficulty in creating a material strong enough to construct the Ringworld, and in fabricating enough of it, and in clearing the solar system of planets, moons, and meteors (because you need the matter they’re composed of, and also because a structure with three hundred million times Earth’s surface area is about three hundred million times more likely to be hit by space debris).  I can appreciate the fact that the Ringworld gets its gravity from centripetal force.  And I can even appreciate the fact that what we perceive as centripetal force is actually inertia.

But at some point, and it’s usually around the phase “forty percent of neutrinos,” something inside me just gives up.

Which is why audio book is about the ideal format for me to enjoy this story.  I’ve heard people refer to audio books as “unskimmable,” but for me it’s exactly the opposite.  When I’ve got a page in front of me, I feel obligated to pay proper attention to each word.  When I’m listening, though, I don’t.  My mind sort of naturally skims for me; when I reach a point where my interest lags, my thoughts drift off in another direction—and generally drift back twenty or thirty seconds later, usually before I miss anything juicy.

If you love hard sci, or if you’re ok with skimming, I’d recommend either of these books.  It’s easy to see why they’re classics.  They are both built on incredibly big ideas, and each has an intriguing mystery at its heart.

We’ll probably need a third tome to listen to on a road trip at the end of March.  Does anyone have a really good sci fi rec?

For my last post at my old address I opened the floor to questions, and here’s what I got:

From Kelly: Where do you see yourself in two years?  In five?  Ten?

Whew, big question.  I mean, there’s a lot of categories to cover, right?  Career, family, etc.  Let’s dive in.

In two years, I’d like to be a published author, and also a mother.  I’d like to be a better cook by this time also.  I’d like to be making most of my meals from scratch, and making good use of my freezer.  Basically, two-years-from-now Jane is just me, only slightly improved in every area.  The big question that remains is: will I be living in Atlanta still or not?  Although I like it, Atlanta doesn’t feel completely like home.  I can’t really say whether we’ll still be here in two years.  I would be happy with either answer.

In five years, I hope I’ll be working on the third or fourth sequel to my current book.  Also on the first or second sequel to my first kid.  By this time I would hope that I’ll have an inkling of how my publishing career is going to play out:  am I going to be a bestseller?  A midlist?  Of course, I’m hoping for the former.  By this time, I suspect Mark and I will have moved on to our second house, probably not in Atlanta.  Some places we have talked about:  Austin, and the research triangle in North Carolina.  Once again, pulling for the former.

In ten years, I guess whatever kids I am going to have will be had.  I hope to still be working on the same mystery series.  Maybe it’s naive to think I’ll be able to stay interested in, and devoted to, a single project for a decade or more–but believe it or not, I actually have loose plans for the series up through this point.  Book 14 is totally going to knock your socks off.

And from Leigh Anne: What is the one book I should read next?

So, this gets at something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now: the dichotomy (some might say war) between literary fiction and genre fiction.  Like, should I recommend to you something uplifting and meaningful and full of artistic cachet?  Or just something I really enjoyed?  ‘Cause my rep’s on the line, right?  A writer, with a writing blog, gets asked for a book recommendation, and you can’t help but judge her a little bit by what she chooses.

Well, lately I am in a place where I just want to talk about the things I love, literary snobbery be damned.  And so I will suggest something totally offbeat: Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham.  This one is decidedly in the “I just loved the pants off it” category.  It’s fun, fantastical, and a graphic novel to boot. It’s about all the characters you remember from fairy tales: Snow White, Prince Charming, the Big Bad Wolf.  They’re living in hiding in New York, and … oh, just read it.

Also from Leigh Anne: How did my sister, Kate, wind up on ESPN?

She was in the audience for what was apparently one hell of a basketball game.

Thanks for the questions, guys.  Join me next time, when I revisit this whole literary/genre conflict.

Then there’s the stack of books that sits beside the bed in the guest room. If I have time, I try to tweak this collection for each new guest, to offer something that appeals to their interests. For some people this is easy; for others… not. But here is a list of the criteria I use to arrange my guest room reads.

• No more than five books.

Five is really the maximum number that a person can mentally sift through all at once. Try for more, and people will ignore them, because nothing jumps out as the One, the One Book They Want to Read.

• Make sure no two books are very similar.

You can include two mysteries, as long as they’re from very different sub-genres. Or two histories as long as they’re of very different eras. But in general, each book you offer should stand on its own, as a sterling example of the best you could find of its type.

• Include 1 or 2 “Bathroom Reads.”

These are books that you can pick up, read for a while, and then put down with no sense of disappointment. Anything episodic is good. Some of my favorites are Miss Manners books, or Calvin & Hobbes collections.

• Include some fiction and some nonfiction.

Fiction is the bulk of my library, but I know I can turn to authors like Bill Bryson or Malcolm Gladwell for good, widely appealing nonfiction. And of course, I have a staggering glut of books like this for any writer friends who come calling.

Those are my basic rules for organizing my guest room shelf. It’s a fun task I get to do right before company arrives; after the sheets have been washed and the floors have been scoured, I get to comb through my library and try to pick out just the right things for my friends. Which leads me to my last rule:

• Don’t push it.

Nobody wants to be quizzed about their reading habits. Just select the books, and then shut up about it. If the stack was disturbed at the end of the visit, you’ll know you’ve done a good job.