Deciding What to Do...

The Read ...

Still wondering what fiction I'll read next.  I think it's going to be the second Theodosia.  Still, got some important stuff done during my "Hunger Games break".  The unread and half-read magazines piled by my reading chair is down to an inch ... including catalogs from which I might buy something.  [Christmas's coming.  Ugh.]

My non-fiction reading includes Nick Bunker's Making Haste from Babylon: the Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World.  He calls his work a "new history".  It's definitely more of a social commentary of the economic and religious conditions of late Elizabethan and early Stuart England than a list of events and people.  The events/people form the backbone of the work, but he offers his readers some different interpretations from the American mythology.

The surprising thing.  This work dove-tails with my Half-Elven who are set in a transition from a feudal society to a mercantile one.  I've even picked up some interesting information about boat keels and tonnage.

Some interesting facts.  The Puritans may have been "religious refugees", but they were also a commercial venture.  If they hadn't discovered vast quantities of beaver living north of the colony, the whole enterprise might have failed.  The "godly", as they called themselves to distinguish themselves from the popish contamination,  were as interested in their wallets as their salvation.  Of course, the sure sign of their salvation was their fat wallet.  [How's that for circular thinking?]

The book is slow going, but I'll continue to read in small doses.

Web Stuff ...

Am having problems finding time to market and network.  Actually, I think the things are the same bit of torture.  Maybe that's why I find them so hard to fit into my day. Big thing is to get my [free] stat counters up.  Somehow I managed to goof up the first time I tried.

Have I ever said I hate marketing? 

Progress ...

I solved the whole problem of submitting Dark Solstice by finding a beta reader with a full plate.  I, of course, should wait until she finishes her reading.

Finally ...  I'm making progress on Voices of Ghost Creek.  While worrying the opening hook, and not finding a scene I liked better than the starting point, I've copy edited the first chapter two times and eliminated two small info dumps.  Also, added a couple comments to foreshadow the conflict with the main "villain" in the story.  --  There, I sprained my arm patting myself on the back.  Now if I can only clean off my desk again, I might have some room to revise in earnest.

Guess the gargoyles are feeling neglected.

Trivia ...

The weather must be turning.  The cat spent more than ten minutes on my lap.