Creeping Up on the New Year

I’m going to experiment a little with a new format, so bear with me.

Writing News:

I took a week off after finishing the rough draft of Ewan’s book. Trying to write during the Christmas holidays is just about impossible, and it was good timing to let the story simmer. This week, I’m going to hit it hard and see if I can get through about 100 pages or so. It has to be very clean and very tight so that I don’t have too many revisions–otherwise I might not have a book out in the U.S. in ‘09. We are doing something special with Wedded to the Enemy and are trying to do a back-to-back release in 2010. In the meantime, I have to work like a crazy woman to try and get a book ready for this coming year. Lots of books and stories are due, and it’s an exciting time. Can’t wait to dig into the new stuff!

One thing was really exciting this past Saturday. The Chicago Tribune reviewed Her Warrior Slave and here’s what John Charles had to say: “Willingham skillfully combines a cast of wonderfully original characters with a refreshingly different, meticulously detailed setting to create a vivid tale of love and danger in medieval Ireland.”

Definitely a nice holiday present!

Family News:

The children celebrated Christmas and there was a great deal of happiness when they received a Wii from Santa. I was happy to receive the Wii Fit, and have been having fun learning how to exercise with a video game. The hula hooping makes me laugh because I feel like an idiot twirling imaginary hula hoops while watching the screen. But it sure is fun.

My youngest is still working on the toilet training. It’s always a two-steps-forward, three-steps-back sort of thing. We were doing great up until the day or so after Christmas when we traveled. He’s done a lot of backsliding, but I’m not worried about it. Right now, all I’m focusing on is him learning what a toilet is for. I think he’s got that part down. Next step is recognizing when he has to go, and getting there before an accident. I’ve decided not to switch him into true training pants until he’s about 15-16 months old and has better control. In the meantime, there’s no harm letting him use the toilet when he wants to and keeping with the diapers. Once you switch to cloth, you can’t go back. No sense in rushing things. He’s doing fantastic, though, and I think it’ll go fine once he’s ready.

Happy New Year to All!