When Care (Care’s Online Book Club) told me about her goal of writing a letter a day this year, I knew it was something I really wanted to do, too.

But an entire year of writing a letter a day? A year was just way too overwhelming. It was okay that I didn’t actually know 365 people to write to – Care assured me I didn’t need to write to a different person each time, I could write letters to the same recipients.

But what a commitment! A letter every single day.

I love digging into a project, like the Creative Every Day project, but I knew adding writing a letter a day this year to my list of intentions was just setting myself up for failure.

Then last week, Care posted about a challenge she’d found: A Month of Letters 2012. Since she was already writing a letter every day, signing up for the challenge was a no-brainer for her.

Me? I had to think about it a little. It was only for a month. I could handle a month, right? Not only that, it happens to be the shortest month of the year (even with this being a leap year).

When I was little, I wrote to penpals across the world. Last year, when we finally went through the accumulation of a decade of junk in preparation for our big move, I came across a box of letters I’d received from penpals when I was a kid. I’d kept every single one.

Looking through this box, I remembered how much fun it was to sit down with a decorated sheet of paper, and write about what was happening in my life. The delight of finding an interesting stamp to use. The thrill of writing down the address on the envelope and picturing my little missive winging its way across the continents.

I miss that.

Don’t get me wrong – I love emails. I write long chatty, emails to friends every day. I receive long, chatty emails back. Long, chatty emails are a much loved part of my daily routine.

But there’s something about putting pen to paper that is really just so delightful.

So I’m up for this challenge of writing a letter a day for a month. Care tells me, after a month of letter writing for her, it’s been a real life changer.

And finally! A reason for all the pretty note paper I can’t resist buying! (Not to mention, justification for buying more …)

Would you like to receive a hand-written letter from me this month? Email me your snail mail address and I’ll add you to my correspondence list!

No related posts.

Thank you to Joy Weese Moll, for suggesting that I put together a list of books ideal for creative inspiration for this month’s BAND (Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees) discussion of books that support goals and resolutions. It was a great idea, and I’ve had a blast this past weekend going through the books on my shelves, picking out the most creativity-inspiring books!

One of my intentions for 2012 is to be more creative – and to add a nice dose of commitment to this intention, I also signed up for the Creative Every Day challenge. I’ve been doing fairly well with this “be creative” goal of mine, but one thing I’ve discovered: it’s much easier to do something creative every day if I prepare myself for creativity.

Preparation for creativity requires two things: materials, and inspiration. It’s easy to get together the materials you need, once you’ve been inspired. So creative inspiration is key!

These are all books I pulled from my bookshelves; some of them I’ve read, some of them have been hanging around waiting (often for quite a while) for me to read them. I spent the weekend looking through a huge pile of books (I am notorious for being unable to resist these kinds of books) and ended up with this list of ten creativity-inspiring books.

1. 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity, by Jeff Yamaguchi

52 Projects is the companion book to the 52 Projects website. It’s worth reading through the projects because even when a project doesn’t particularly tempt you, you might find yourself coming up with appealing variations on the theme. Here’s one for book lovers (who aren’t adverse to writing in books, that is!):

Write in the margins of your books. Underline your favorite passages. Then, make sure to donate the books, or sell them to a used bookstore, to put them back into circulation.

2. Journal Bliss: Creative prompts to unleash your inner eccentric, by Violette

This glossy, colorful book is filled with ideas for your journal – if you’ve never incorporated art into your daily journal, you’ll come away with ideas for some fun things to liven up your pages. What I liked best about this book is its emphasis on doodling and drawing. I love the idea of creating my own fanciful lettering, too. And here’s something I could definitely make use of:

Start a file, box or scrapbook of flourishes and interesting doodles that you like clipped from magazines, junk mail or catalogs. Then, refer to your inspiration collection whenever you need ideas for your own doodles.

3. Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain, by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield

This thick little paperback is beautifully designed and great for just flipping open whenever you’re in need of a bit of creative inspiration. While the book is meant for graphic designers, it’s easy to change things up and transform the design-related exercises into art or writing ones. There are lots of photography prompts, too, for those days when you just want to play around with your digital camera.

Here’s one for those who love the zombie genre:

As any sane person will tell you, there will be a time when the area we currently live in will be overrun by hordes of flesh-craving zombies. Naturally, we have all prepared for this inevitability, correct? Of course we have. The task today, in case this vital piece of preparation has eluded your usually comprehensive safety regimen, is to devise your zombie survival plan.

4. Living Out Loud: Activities to Fuel a Creative Life, by Keri Smith

Not only is this colorfully illustrated book filled with fun creative activities, there are also pages for you to write on or doodle in, game boards, fold-out pages and even sheets of stickers. It reminds me of a kid’s fun book – for adults!

Recipe Box of Secrets: Be your own research project

We are all collectors at heart. Creating a Box of Secrets gives you the chance to explore and to research things that will help you see the big picture when you need perspective.

5. The Write-Brain Workbook: 366 exercises to liberate your writing, by Bonnie Neubauer

Unlike most books of writing exercises, The Write-Brain Workbook is designed to be written in. The pages are colorful and visually appealing, and each exercise also includes a bonus exercise entitled “Take the Next Step”. While you can read through the exercises from beginning to end, it’s definitely a book to flip open to a random page and ready, set … GO! Here’s the exercise I opened the page to just now:

You are a disgruntled Tooth Fairy. You can’t understand why Santa and even the Easter Bunny get more attention than you. You just visited twins who expected $20 per tooth. Start with: “I can’t believe …”

6. The Imagineering Workout, by The Disney Imagineers

The Imagineering Workout is filled with creativity tips from members of Disney’s Imagineering team. (Even a stroll through all the job titles is fun; can you imagine being a “visioning consultant”?!) Direct from the “How to use this book” page:

The Imagineering Workout is designed for those who are interested in shaping and toning their creative muscles. It’s written from the collective practice, wit, and wisdom of over one hundred Imagineers – each creative and yet each different in their creative expression. As a result, this book is a collection of exercises, note cards, write-in cards, jotted notes, journal pages, and illustrations that capture aspects of the creative process and routines Imagineers use daily to keep their creative muscles in the best of condition.

7. The Creative License, by Danny Gregory

The Creative License is all about living a more creative life, and Danny Gregory shows you how by focusing on drawing and journaling. The book is motivating and inspiring; it reminds you, you can do it. Here’s what I know: It really doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to draw – drawing is a skill that can be learned. I know this because I didn’t know how to draw. And then one day, I decided to learn. And it was fun. And then I stopped drawing. Now I’m ready to start again. If I can learn to draw, you can too!

We’re going to start by developing one of your creative skills. It’s a skill that you had when you were small but now almost certainly think you have lost. It’s a skill that will immediately begin to stretch your mind, to transform how you see the world. It’s a skill that takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master.

You are going to learn to draw.

Yikes! (Gulp!)

8. Creative Is A Verb: If you’re alive, you’re creative, by Patti Digh

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know I’m in love with index cards. I use them in my writing, I use them to jot down quotes, I use them to brainstorm. In Patti Digh’s Creative Is a Verb, you journey back to your creativity with a few simple materials: a black pen, and a stack of 3X5 unlined index cards. And the Creative Challenge exercises come in two versions: word and image. So whether you’re a writer or an artist, there’ll be something in here to fill your creative well.

This is a book about waking up to the beauty around you – the beauty of seeing more and living more deeply. What emerges from that equation is art. Not Art with a capital A. That kind of Art scares me because it takes us out of the doing (writing to write, painting to paint) and right into performance, comparison, sales. I’m talking about art with no capital. The art that is your life. Artfulness that only you can create, that is uniquely, incredibly yours.

9. The Crafter’s Devotional: 365 days of tips, tricks, and techniques for unlocking your creative spirit, by Barbara R. Call

Don’t worry if you’re not very crafty; I’m not (I’m a menace around glue guns), and opening The Crafter’s Devotional at random, I came across lots of things that inspired me. Even the crafty techniques that are sprinkled throughout the book are doable – fun for creative self-challenges (although you may have to research specific techniques a bit if you’re not familiar with the process involved). And there are more than craft techniques here; you’ll also find lots of quotes, artist interviews, creativity prompts and entries that just make you think and engage.

Revisit Childhood Crafts: Today’s task should be a fun trip down memory lane. Visit your favorite craft, toy, or art store and buy a kit for a craft you used to do as a kid. It could be bead looming, a miniature potter’s wheel, paper dolls, or sequin art. It may not look exactly like you remember, and the materials may have changed, but try to find a kit that resembles something you liked as a little child.

Buy the kit, take it home, and do the craft.

10. Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists : 52 creative exercises to make drawing more fun, by Carla Sonheim

This is probably the book I’ll turn to the most this year for the Creative Every Day challenge. There are a ton of creative project ideas in the drawing exercises in Drawing Lab, and best of all, your drawing skills will improve as you work your way through the book. I think this is also a great book for choosing something creative randomly. Flip it open and see what you find.

One suggestion I loved was Doodling on Steroids. You’ll need ten pre-selected drawing implements (markers, pens, pencils – anything that you can doodle with) and an audiobook (yes! an audiobook!). Here’s what you do: doodle while you’re listening to the audiobook. Don’t concentrate on what you’re doodling; focus on your audiobook. Switch your drawing tool every minute or so, making use that you use all ten of your drawing tools.

When your book or podcast is over, take some time to study your doodle drawing. You will likely learn some things about yourself, such as that you like purple or you are drawn to patterns and shapes more than to identifiable objects. These types of insights can be valuable as you endeavor to tease out your individual style.

These books are great fun to have around, and very inspiring. What titles would you recommend for living a more creative life?

Related posts:

1. Creative Every Day 2012
2. Inspiration Monday: Love, Prompts and Comments
3. [TSS] My Year of Creativity
4. April Sparks – Blogging From A to Z in April
5. Angry Birds and Creativity

I thought I’d take you all on a trip down memory lane with this week’s Weekend Cooking post.

This is the very first cookbook I ever bought: James Barber’s Fear of Frying. In addition to writing cookbooks, Barber (1923-2007)  was also the host of CBC’s Urban Peasant.

I bought this cookbook back in my student days at the University of Toronto. I’d just moved out with my boyfriend, and other than boiling water, I had no idea how to cook a thing. As the price tag shows, I found this little gem of a book in the bargain bin of a local book store for $2.40.

It was a bittersweet time in my life. My family had all moved back to Vancouver, and I was all alone in a new city (I was never actually living  in the city, but in the suburban outskirts), attending my first year of classes at U of T and mired in a relationship that was destined to become a  rocky,  unhappy marriage. But there were some fond memories from that time too, and this little book was one of them.

It was just such a fun book!

When Ward and I went through our major book decluttering last year, in preparation for our move to Toronto, I came across Fear of Frying on our cookbook shelves. “Oh!” I said to Ward. “Make sure you don’t put this in the giveaway box! I LOVED this book so much!”

A few sample pages may show you why (Barber also illustrated the book):

Mmmushrooms

The preamble to Mmmushrooms (each spread in the book has a chatty little preamble on one page, and the illustrated recipe on the facing page):

… But the most lily white and virginal mushrooms can also be made into a flavourful, textured, thoroughly dignified meal, instead of just something to add to a steak, if you remember to cook them with the lid on. That was my uncle’s secret. Sprinkled them with a little lemon juice if you want to be super-sophisticated, or use basil instead of tarragon. Just be kind and just be gentle.

Consider the Oyster

And from Consider the Oyster:

Very few restaurants are to be trusted with an oyster. They don’t have time to be gentle, to carefully watch, to feel for them, to understand them.

…

And now you can do it. When we did this on television I received over 2,000 letters. The nicest one said “Sir, you are wicked. I love you.” See what trouble a little simplicity can get you into.

So, did I ever make anything from this wonderful little gem? Yes! I did! I have vague memories of attempting this dish:

Garlic Chicken

Just don’t tell ‘em. Not unless you can trust ‘em. You pick up a clove, put it close and squeeze the skin. The middle pops out into your mouth. It tastes as soft and gentle as lichee nuts, not at all like garlic. Once they get the feel of it they’ll want more.

…

Don’t be scared of garlic. There’s nothing wrong with my social life.

How did it turn out? Unfortunately, I don’t remember. But I never thought of myself as being any great shakes in the cooking department, so it probably didn’t turn out all that well.

And to be honest, when I first started writing this post, I thought this was the Barber book that contained THE recipe I did make all the time – the one recipe I could make, and make well. But paging through it, I realized it wasn’t. A quick Google search revealed that my favourite recipe came from another of Barber’s books, Ginger Tea Makes Friends. I must have lost that book somewhere in the many years between those university days and now.

So I’ve ordered a used copy from Amazon! (So much for my no-more-print-books-if-I-can-help-it resolution). When the book arrives, I’ll post my favourite recipe in an upcoming Weekend Cooking post. I’ll probably wrestle control of the kitchen from Ward and make it myself first. I’m looking forward to taking another trip down memory lane, but next time with my taste buds, too!

For more fun food-related posts, make sure you head on over to this week’s Weekend Cooking. Weekend Cooking is a weekly event hosted at Beth Fish Reads.

Related posts:

1. Weekend Cooking: The Best Roast Chicken
2. O is for Olives
3. Anything-Goes Instant Ramen Noodles
4. Holy Lobster Mashed Potatoes, Batman!
5. My Burning Frozen Meatballs Question

It’s been a while since I’ve written a “random stuff” post, but I woke up today to a whole pile of jumbled thoughts, so it seemed like a perfect time for random, you know?

Bookish Random

I’ve been having a blast filling my Kindle and Overdrive iPad apps with loads of interesting reads. In no particular order, here are some titles I added recently:

And the Kindle version of A Cold Day for Murder, by Dana Stabenow, the first Kate Shugak mystery, is free right now at Amazon!

Have you read any of these titles?

Drama Is The Interwebs

All I can say is, wow. People who think the world of books and reading and writing is low-key and well, boring, have never clicked on Twitter links tweeted by the bookish community.

There is a whole lot of drama out there, folks. Drama on Goodreads, drama on individual blogs, drama in tweets (although I haven’t actually caught any of that this week).

And I am pleased to continue in voyeur mode (is that the word I mean?), playing the observer and not dipping my toes in any of it!

A Pinterest Question

I’ve been wondering something. Here’s the way Pinterest plays at my house. I pin recipe links to my Muse in the Kitchen board on Pinterest, then email them to Ward. I keep my fingers crossed and lo! and behold! every so often he serves up a dish I pinned on Pinterest.

So, can I make the claim, “I made something I pinned on Pinterest”? What do you think? After all, the dish wouldn’t have ended up on the dining room table without my initial input. Right? Right???

I had a whole lot more random in my mind when I first started writing this post, but such is my memory, I’ve forgotten most of it. Maybe I should tell you about the dream I had this morning, where I found myself back in university again? Nah, I thought not.

Related posts:

1. Pinning My TBR (And Other Fun Bookish Ways to Use Pinterest)
2. Yes, Im Food-Obsessed

I fell in love with Pinterest a few months ago, and have been madly pinning away ever since. In addition to lots of other, non-bookish things, I have a board called Bookish Things where I pin all the awesome bookish stuff that delights my little bibliophile heart.

But recently, I’ve discovered a few more fun bookish ways to use Pinterest. My favourite so far? Pinning my TBR!

Check out my board, The Ever-expanding TBR Pile. Isn’t it a great little bookish board? What I love is being able to see my to-read list visually. It’s SO beautiful!

And best of all, I pin a lot of books directly from my favourite book bloggers’ review posts – this means when I write about the books I’m reading or have read, I can link directly to those who are to blame for adding to my TBR pile the reviews which persuaded me to add the book to my to-read list. I’ve tried many ways in the past to keep track of who recommended what, as I like to give credit where credit is due; pinning my TBR pile does this fabulously for me.

I also have a Pinterest board for books read (or currently reading) in 2012. It’s on the sparse side right now, but just being able to pin a book on my board once I’m done is proving to be very motivating when it comes to my reading goal.

And just yesterday, I started boards for Rave-Worthy Reads and Comfort Reads. I’ve only pinned a few books so far, but it’s been fun thinking about what books I’ve loved in the past few years, and what books qualify as comfort reads for me.

Bottom line? I think Pinterest is such a great way to spread the news about great books!

What about you? Do you use Pinterest for bookish pinning?

Related posts:

1. Some Thursday Random
2. Yes, Im Food-Obsessed

I have a confession to make: I’m not much of a cupcake person. I’ll squeal with as much enthusiasm as everyone else when I see a picture of a super cute cupcake on Pinterest, but really, I have very little interesting in actually eating one. I just like cute and pretty food.

BUT …

Earlier this month I was reading the January issue of O! Magazine, and came across a recipe for Maple Bacon Cupcakes.

Now, if there’s one thing I absolutely adore, it’s maple and bacon, together. The sweet and the savory of maple and bacon are a marriage that’s meant to be, in my opinion.

So I emailed the recipe to Ward (I subscribe to O! on my iPad, and one of the handy things you can do with your subscription is email things to people. I like to plague my husband with recipes email my husband recipes from everywhere and anywhere, and hope for the best).

And the very next day, he made these:

Excuse me while I make my usual “bad photo” disclaimer: this shot was taken with my 3G iPhone and does not do the actual cupcakes any justice whatsoever.

But trust me, these cupcakes are absolutely, completely and addictively delicious. So delicious, I find I can’t ever eat just one. It’s like the potato-chip phenomenon, only when it involves a cupcake, that’s a mighty dangerous proposition.

Want to see how addictive these are for yourself? Here’s the recipe, courtesy of O! Magazine – and yes, I dare you to eat just one …

The following recipe is from the January 2012 issue of O! Magazine:

For cupcakes:
½ pound thick cut bacon (about 8 to 10 strips)
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
16 Tbsp. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. maple extract (found in the spice aisle)
Maple syrup, to garnish

For cinnamon buttercream:
16 Tbsp. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar (a little less than 1 pound)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Lay bacon on a sheet pan and bake for 8 to 15 minutes until crisp and golden brown. Set aside 2 pieces of the bacon for topping, and dice the rest.
2. Lower heat to 350°. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl combine flours, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
4. Add the eggs to butter mixture 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Slowly add the dry ingredients and milk in 2 alternating batches, mixing well between additions. Then add vanilla and maple extracts and reserved diced bacon, and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.
5. Scoop batter into prepared cupcake pan, filling each cuo 2/3 full. Bake for 22 to 26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
6. Meanwhile, make cinnamon buttercream: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Reduce speed to low and slowly add the powdered sugar until fully incorporated. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until combined. Slowly sprinkle in the cinnamon, adding more to taste.
7. When cupcakes are completely cool, frost with the buttercream. Chop the reserved slices of bacon into 24 pieces and garnish each cupcake with a piece. Drizzle maple syrup over the top and serve. If not eating immediately, refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Enjoyed this food-related blog post? Check out more delicious links at this week’s Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Cooking: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar
2. O is for Olives
3. A Little Bit of Random: Our Kitchen, Now vs. Then
4. Holy Lobster Mashed Potatoes, Batman!

One of the perks of blogging is the truly awesome accountability tool it can be. It’s mid-January already (four days past the mid-point, actually) so what better way to motivate myself goal-wise than post this little update?

So how have I been doing with all my new year goals? Well …

This week has actually been the first week I’ve found myself in sync with my daily goals. The first week of January was virtually a write-off – but then again, I knew it would be, and my expectations weren’t high. The second week turned out to be a little busier than I’d expected, with some new deadlines turning up on my desk that I hadn’t anticipated.

This week, though, has been great. The kind of week that had me saying, “Ah, this is the life …”

So, excuses aside, here’s how I’ve been shaping up with my daily and weekly goals:

The Dailys

1. Read. I finally got my Toronto Public Library library card last week, and to say I felt like a kid in a candy store as I ambled through TPL’s ebook site is no exaggeration.

So, after a rough start at the very beginning of the new year, I’ve been doing quite well with my daily “Read” goal; I’ve just finished Alan Bradley’s The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag – a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite a while now – and I have quite a few more books waiting for me on my iPad.

2. Write. I’ve discovered something about myself: the hard part for me isn’t the actual doing, it’s the “getting to it”. I’m just so skilled at procrastination, it’s quite amazing. But if I can get myself to actually sit down and start something, it’s actually kind of hard to tear myself away.

That’s what’s been happening with my writing. My first project of the year is revising and editing my mystery WIP, 120,000 words of which have been sitting on my hard drive, gathering dust, for the past four years. I’m implementing the index card method for all of my WIPs this year, so the first step was to go through my draft and get all the scenes down in index cards. I finally finished this task last night, and I’m now looking at a stack of 98 cards that contains the bones of what I’ve written so far.

Next up: filling in the gaps. I’ll be brainstorming more index cards, as there were quite a few gaps that needed to be filled. Also, I realized I needed more suspects; it’s not so much that it’s clear whodunnit. It’s more like it doesn’t seem likely that anyone did it, and as a reader, I enjoy mysteries the most when there are a lot of possibilities, rather than none at all. So I’ll be adding in my red herrings the remainder of this week!

3. Create. I did well initially with this goal. Participating in the Creative Every Day challenge was a great motivator. But then my intentions went a little wayward in the second week of the month. This week, though, I’m back on track.

Here’s what I’ve discovered: since I’ve been in a habit of letting my creative side slide the past three or four years, in order to create a new habit of being creative every day, I need to prepare to be creative.

It sounds a little counterintuitive – after all, isn’t creativity supposed to be spontaneous? Well, not necessarily. And what’s been working for me is putting together a concrete list of creative projects, and prepping the materials for them so they’re within easy reach.

I’ve been having the most fun with the Secondary Character Bank I’ve been creating. Since I’m not counting my writing as part of my Creative Every Day challenge, it’s a great way to incorporate a writing-related activity into the challenge. And I’m finding it’s also a juicy source of inspiration for more stories!

4. Meditate. I can give myself a prize for this one! I’ve been very good with my Meditate goal, although most days I only meditated for about ten minutes. But ten minutes is far better than no minutes, right? Plus, this week I’ve been aiming for 15-20 minutes. Small steps really do gain momentum!

The Weeklys

My weekly goals right now are: blogging, exercising and experiencing. (Given the flexibility of my DIY Moleskine planner, I’ll likely be adding and deleting from these weekly goals.)

So far I’ve met the blogging one (yay!). I’ve totally sucked with the exercising one (which started out the new year as a daily goal, so you can see how far I’ve tumbled with this one). And I’ve really been doing well with the experiencing one.

By “experience”, all I mean is getting outside and doing stuff. During all those years I spent in the suburbs, I rarely ventured outside unless it was to drive to the grocery store or the mall or Costco. I didn’t walk much at all; everything was always a drive away, and as for the neighbourhood, well, you can only walk around the block a few times before the scenery of house after house after house gets a bit boring.

But I’ve been getting out quite a lot the past few weeks, and what I’ve been loving is how so many things are within walking distance!

On Tuesday, as part of a homeschooling event for our youngest, Dylan, we attended one of the Free Noon-hour Concert Series programmes at Roy Thomson Hall: the Bach Children’s Chorus. It was simply beautiful, and the bonus was being able to walk home from the concert!

So that’s my mid-January update. How have you been doing with your 2012 goals and resolutions?

Related posts:

1. Welcome, 2012!
2. [TSS] My Year of Creativity
3. Inspiration Monday: Love, Prompts and Comments
4. Blogging Rhythm
5. C is for Catch-up: Daughter, Early Rising and Fun (and that takes care of D, E & F)

Last year was so busy and so chaotic, I really fell behind on my fiction reading, and when I don’t read, I find I’m not as creative as I can be. The ideas don’t come as quickly, and I don’t write as much. I play a lot less and when it comes to doing artful little things, I never seem to have the time.

This year, I’m changing things around in my life. I’ve come to realize that I need to make the things I want to do a priority. Reading is high on my list, and so it’s one of my four daily intentions (the other three are writing, meditating and creating).

How did I do last week? Not very well, I’m afraid. Not just with the reading, but with each of my other three intentions. But that’s okay. I had the last of the deadlines from my busy work season last week, so it was understandable.

On Monday, I logged onto my library’s ebook lending site, and had a field day. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

Z, by Michael Thomas Ford, is a YA zombie book. I haven’t read very many zombie books, despite the recent zombie-book-craze; as far as I’m concerned, Justin Cronin’s The Passage set the zombie-book bar quite high. But I decided to give Z a try, as it looked like an interesting, quick read, especially since I like books about gamers and gaming:

The First Rule of Torching: Cleanse with fire.

Josh is by far the best zombie Torcher around—at least, he is in his virtual-reality zombie-hunting game. Josh has quickly risen through the player ranks, relying on the skill, cunning, and agility of a real Torcher.

The Second Rule of Torching: Save all humans.

But luckily for Josh, zombies exist only in the virtual world. The real zombie war is now more than fifteen years in the past, and the battle to defeat the deadly epidemic that devastated his family—and millions of others—is the stuff of history lessons.

The Third Rule of Torching: You can’t bring them back.

Charlie is the top-ranked player in the game. Since all the players are shrouded in anonymity, Josh never expects Charlie to be a girl—and he never expects the offer she makes him: to join the underground gaming league that takes the virtual-reality game off the screen and into the streets. Josh is thrilled. But the more involved he gets, the more he realizes that not everything is what it seems. Real blood is spilling, members of the team are disappearing, and the zombies in the game are acting strange. And then there’s the matter of a mysterious drug called Z. . . .

I finished Z last night. An interesting book with an interesting premise. I found the action towards the end a little bit too fast-paced, but for a young reader who’s interested in zombies and gaming, there’s enough thrills and chills to keep those pages turning.

The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly. Confession: this is my first Michael Connelly book. It’s been on my to-read list since forever, or so it seems, so when it showed up as available at my library’s ebook site, I grabbed it.

How am I liking it so far? Very enjoyable. I’m only at the beginning, but I’m already very intrigued by lawyer Mickey Haller.

For defense attorney Mickey Haller, the clock is always running. With two ex-wives, four Lincoln Town Cars that he uses as offices, and dozens of guilty clients, he can’t afford to miss a trick. When he gets picked by a Beverly Hills rich boy arrested for assault, Mickey sees a franchise case: a nice, long, expensive trial with maximum billable hours–until it hurtles him into the last place he wants to be. Suddenly hustling, cynical Mickey Haller is confronted with pure evil and someone who may be truly innocent. Now, for a lawyer who has always gone for the easy score, getting justice means taking the deadliest risk of all.

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, narrated by Wil Wheaton. Yes, just call me a crowd follower – everyone was raving about this book last year, so I decided to spend an Audible credit on it. After all, Wil Wheaton’s the narrator! Plus, it’s a book about gaming. How could I resist? Have I mentioned, I love books about gamers and gaming?

I started chapter one last night, and despite feeling quite sleepy, I was enthralled from the very beginning. I listened for as long as I could before the call of sleep proved to be too much for me. I will definitely have to find some wakeful time for listening to the rest of Ready Player One!

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them. 

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.

A quest for the ultimate prize.

Are you ready?

So this is what I’ve been doing reading-wise so far this year. What about you? What books have you picked up to start the new year off?

Related posts:

1. The Sunday Salon – Currently reading: Charlaine Harris, Alexander McCall Smith & Beverly Bartlett
2. Reading Temptations
3. From the Stacks Reading Challenge
4. The Sunday Salon – Currently Reading: Book of Lies, Casting Spells and The Fire
5. Allergies, Lots of Reading, and Finishing a DNF

I am super-thrilled to be participating in Leah Piken Kolidas’s Creative Every Day 2012 Challenge. And a little nervous, I must admit – because you all know me and my track record with those pesky little things called “challenges”.

(And for all my bookish friends, I can almost guarantee that I’ll be breaking my self-imposed “Hi, I’m no-reading-challenges Belle” tradition of the past three-odd years – because this is, after all, my year of Commitment! Discipline! Doing! Being! Living! Reading! Just saying.)

I joined the Creative Every Day challenge because I want to invite more creativity into my life. I’m pretty well near burnout with all of my indexing deadlines, and have gotten into a terrible habit of making only work a priority, and not any of the other things that matter to me. 2012 is the year I’m changing this.

According to the challenge page:

Creativity is meant in the broadest sense, so it doesn’t have to be something art related. Your creative acts could be in cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay…or whatever!

So I’m going to be creative about being creative! It’s going to be an anything-goes challenge for me.

(I’m not including writing as part of my #CED2011 activities, because I’m making writing a priority this year and I have a separate goal to write for at least 20 minutes every day.)

Today is the first check-in of the year, and in a way, I guess you could say I’m not off to a great start. I didn’t create anything yesterday – but on the other hand, I planned it that way. I had a pressing deadline that I simply had to get done. Also, the first weekly spread in my DiY Moleskine planner starts today, January 2, so it made sense to not worry about goals and such on January 1, and start today. (Don’t you just love my logic?)

So what creative thing have I done? A group of my friends have been selecting a “word for the year”, and my friend Ahmee, emailed our little group this morning suggesting: “Take your word and fill a page with it.”

So I did. I dug up an old visual journal (with all of TWO spreads filled, one done in 2004 and one done in 2005 …!), flipped to the first blank spread, and filled the right hand page with my word for the year:

No, I didn’t try for any sort of artistic effect. I’m planning to get back into the creative mode gently and easily, and if I try for something pretty or colourful, I’ll just increase the pressure on myself, which is probably a surefire way to make sure I don’t fulfill this challenge.

So I opted for something simple. A frame, a few ink smudges, and my word of the year. In a visual journal that I hope I’ll fill lots of pages in as the year progresses.

I’ll be posting weekly updates on Mondays (there’s the “commitment” word again. And “discipline”. We shall see, right?), so you can all keep me accountable!

What about you? What challenges are you planning to participate in this year?

Related posts:

1. From My Shelves: Ten Books for Creative Inspiration

(Photo credit)

Happy new year, everyone!

I can’t believe how excited I’m feeling about this new year. There’s an almost palpable, tangible energy in the air right now, a really good energy that’s lifting me right up there.

All this, despite another heavy deadline-filled week ahead of me. But after that, things shift back to normal – and that’s exciting, too!

2011 was quite an incredible year for me, filled with a lot of learning experiences. My good friend Jules wrote, about her Christmas, that everything was the same, but at the same time, so incredibly different – because she was different.

That’s the way I’m feeling today. I am different. And the experience of this new year is very different from past new years.

I’d never been one to make resolutions. The thought of goals used to make me cringe. Other than my work, I would have said “undisciplined” was one word that described me quite well. (I say, “other than my work”, because I am incredibly deadline-oriented, which means when it comes to my work, I have no option but to be disciplined!)

Somehow, all of that has evaporated. I’ve learned to let go of a good portion of my resistance to some of the things that worked as a barrier between me and my dreams in the past. Also, the old adage, “if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting” keeps coming to me.

So this year? I’m letting go of “doing what I’ve been doing” and embracing doing things differently.

Goals for 2012

Yes, I have them! That, in and of itself, is well worth celebrating!

I finished creating my DIY planner the other day, complete with a customized-just-for-me planning system. And this system incorporates both daily goals, weekly goals, and project goals.

For someone who’s refused to set goals for so many years, this is a huge, huge change.

My daily goals? Read. Write. Create. Meditate. Exercise.

My regular weekly goals? So far, I only have a one. Experience life. It shouldn’t be that difficult, now that I’m living in Toronto. There’s so much to do around here!

And my new system lets me have flexible weekly goals, too.

I haven’t tackled my project list yet. I’m adapting the projects portion of Getting Things Done (GTD is an enticing system but it is way overkill for what I want in my life), so that’s one of my weekly goals this first week of the new year.

So yes, I’m all set! I’m welcoming 2012 with wide open arms.

What do you have planned for yourself in the new year? Do you like to set goals or make resolutions, or are you happiest when you just wing it?

Related posts:

1. Planning for 2012
2. My Mid-January Goals Update
3. [TSS] My Year of Creativity