2010 Debut Author Challenge

This is my favorite challenge: reading books by debut authors in 2010!

Find out more about the 2010 Debut Author Challenge!

My list:
1. Stephanie Perkins (Ana and the French Kiss)
2. Caitlin Kittredge (The Witch's Alphabet)
3. Rachel Hawkins (Hex Hall)
4. Kiersten White (Paranormalcy)
5. Andrea Cremer (Nightshade)
6. Heidi R. Kling (Sea)
7. Carrie Vaughn (Voices of Dragons)
8. Kristin Walker (A Match Made in High School)
9. Leah Cypess (Mistwood)
10. Shaun David Hutchinson (The Deathday Letter)
11. Chelsea M. Campbell (The Rise of Renegade X)
12. Alexandra Bracken (Brightly Woven)
13. Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)
14. Jennifer Hubbard (The Secret Year)
15. Suzanne Young (The Naughty List)
16. Bree Despain (The Dark Divine)
17. Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder)

Awesome Author Reading Challenge

The goal of this challenge is to read books by authors you've heard are great, but have not yet read.

Find out more about the Awesome Author Challenge!

I'm participating in the Over Achieving bracket by reading more than 10 authors.

My list:
1. Sarah Dessen
2. Maureen Johnson (Suite Scarlett 1/19)
3. Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red 5/28)
4. Melissa Marr
5. Chuck Palahniuk
6. Charlaine Harris
7. R.A. Salvatore (Homeland 4/3)
8. Laini Taylor (Lips Touch 7/27)
9. David Levithan
10. Jane Austen
11. Neil Gaiman
12. Richelle Mead
13. Courtney Summers (Cracked Up To Be 2/9)
14. Justine Larbalestier (Liar 1/7)
15. Aprilynne Pike (Wings 1/1)

100 Books In 2010

I've decided to go book crazy in 2010 by participating in a few reading challenges. First up: 100 books in 2010.

Find out more about the 100+ book challenge!

My list:
1. Wings - Aprilynne Pike - 1/1
2. Liar - Justine Larbalestier - 1/7
3. The Secret Year - Jennifer Hubbard - 1/9
4. Powerless - Matthew Cody - 1/15
5. The Dark Divine - Bree Despain - 1/16
6. Suite Scarlett - Maureen Johnson - 1/19
7. The Host - Stephenie Meyer - 1/26
8. Devilish - Maureen Johnson - 1/31
9. Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld - 2/7
10. Cracked Up To Be - Courtney Summers - 2/9
11. Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver - 2/12
12. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green - 2/16
13. The Naughty List - Suzanne Young - 2/17
14. A Match Made in High School - Kristin Walker - 2/19
15. Uglies - Scott Westerfeld - 2/26
16. Pretties - Scott Westerfeld - 2/27
17. Specials - Scott Westerfeld - 2/28
18. Heist Society - Ally Carter - 3/10
19. The Body Finder - Kimberly Derting - 3/18
20. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling - 3/24
21. Voices of Dragons - Carrie Vaughn - 3/31
22. Homeland - R.A. Salvatore - 4/3
23. Mistwood - Leah Cypess - 4/6
24. Spells - Aprilynne Pike - 4/10
25. Hex Hall - Rachel Hawkins - 4/14
26. Pretties - Scott Westerfeld - 5/20
27. Sisters Red - Jackson Pearce -5/28
28. As You Wish - Jackson Pearce- 5/31
29. Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling - 6/4
30. Short Second Life of Bree Tanner - S. Meyer - 6/9
31. Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling - 6/10
32. Shade - Jeri Smith-Ready - 6/12
33. Harry Potter & Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling - 6/14
34. Rise of Renegade X - Chelsea M. Campbell - 6/22
35. Harry Potter & Order of Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
36. Harry Potter & Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
37. Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rolwing
38. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
39. Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver
40. Nightshade - Andrea Cramer - 7/17
41. White Cat - Holly Black - 7/18
42. Lips Touch Three Times - Laini Taylor
43. A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray
44. The Deathday Letter - Shaun David Hutchinson
45. Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
46. Rebel Angels - Libba Bray
47. Forest of Hands and Teeth - Carrie Ryan
48. City of Bones - Cassandra Clare
49. Soulless - Gail Carriger - 8/16
50. The Season - Sarah MacLean
51. Candor - Pam Bachorz
52. Mockingjay - Collins - 8/25
53. Mockingjay (again) - Collins - 8/26
54. City of Bones - Cassandra Clare
55. Paranormalcy - Kiersten White
56. Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
57. The Ruby in the Smoke - Phillip Pulman
58. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - Levithan and Green
59. Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins
60. Matched - Ally Condie
61. Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver
62. City Under the Sand
63. The Forest for the Trees

NaNoWriMo: Coming Up On The Final Stretch

Hello everyone, I'm back!

Woo, and I'm very glad I unplugged last week, I don't think I would have been able to catch up without it.

Blood Ties @ 64,011 (I slacked a bit on this one, but I needed to focus on Plural for NaNo)
Plural @ 43,886 (So close!)

And here we are. The last days of NaNoWriMo, the whirlwind of coffee and writing that has taken over my November.

Now. The bad news.

I messed up on Plural. Badly.

Yes, yes, I know, it's okay to mess up, it's okay if your rough draft is crap, that's the point of NaNo. But that's not how I messed up.

At about 25K words, I took a wrong turn, and it changed the whole story, and not in a good way. The only way to fix it is to re-write the whole last half. Which sucks, I know. I'm going to finish my wrong-turned story as is, then after I've had a break from it I'm going to jump back in and figure out how to fix this thing.

I'm disappointed that the whole last half is probably going to be deleted, but hey, at least I wrote it. It's not total crap writing, it was good practice, it's just total crap plotting. See, I wrote in a scene which triggered a chain of events which dragged the plot down one of those sketchy dead end alleys with no streetlights and, you know, there's rumors that it's haunted, and maybe that's true, or maybe that's just a hobo hiding in the shadows screaming like that. You don't know. But you definitely don't want to walk down that alley on a dark night by yourself. Because you will get stabbed-- be it by a ghost or a crazy hobo. It makes little difference when you're bleeding to death next to a Dumpster which smells of rotting flesh and stale alcohol.

Hm. Well. That was an interesting tangent I went off on there. Anyway, you get my point, I'm sure. No? My point is that my story got stabbed to death by the ghost of a hobo in a creepy dead end alleyway. Poor story.

Anyway, I don't regret writing it, even if most of it will be scrapped. It was practice. Practice is good. And now I need to write 6K more words of practice to get to that 50K goal.

Have I learned a lesson? Yes.

I am an Outliner. This is very obvious now. I like outlining, it's one of my favorite parts of the writing process. So from now on, I will (probably) outline all the time (most likely).

So, I still have lots of blog posts to catch up on. (Sorry I can't comment on all of your posts, I follow over 100 blogs!) But let me know how your week was!

How was your third week of NaNo-ing?
Do you think you'll win?

Unplugged

I'm still behind on both Plural and Blood Ties. It's so bad, I'm not even going to post word counts. (It's actually not that bad, I'm just tired and can't be bothered to open the docs to check out the count.)

Sooo, this is just a quick post to say that I'm taking a break from blogging this week. I thought I'd give Unplug Week a try. (Unplug Week occurs the 3rd week of every month, and all you do is unplug your internet and focus more on writing! Easy peasy.)

I'm not completely unplugging, I'll still be checking my email and updating my NaNo stats, but I'm cutting myself off from the internet and all it's procrastination temptations!

Rawr.

See you next Monday :)

NaNoWriMo: Days 11,12,13 (The Catch Up Edition)

Hey guys! I'm not dead! I've just been playing catch up the last few days, because I fell far, far, behind. (Like, 10K total behind. Yeouch.)

So...

Blood Ties @ 58K
Plural @ 20K

I'm still a bit behind on Plural (as of the 13th I should be at 21,667) but that's small beans. I'm so not out of the race.

Here's how I screwed up, then fixed things:

Day 10, was already behind. See last post.

Day 11, had a crazy busy day at work because it was Veterans Day. Did not write at all. Fell way behind.

Day 12, wrote 5K on Blood Ties, caught myself up there. Did not touch Plural. Fell super duper behind.

Day 13, pulled an all nighter and got sort of caught up on Plural. I still have no doubt that I will reach 50K by the end of the month, even if I'm a bit behind on count/day at the moment.

The plan for Day 14 (technically, today)
Work
Sleep
Get to 60K on Blood Ties
Get to 23,334 on Plural

The plan for Day 15+
STOP SLACKING OFF
KEEP UP ON YOUR GOALS
THEN YOU WON'T HAVE TO STAY AWAKE ALL NIGHT
PLAYING CATCH UP
AND BE A GRUMPY KAT AT WORK



Coffee now, please and thank-you.

Hope your weekend is full of writing and fun!

NaNoWriMo: Day 10

Blood Ties still at 53,816. Should be at 55,234. (Short 1,418 words.)
Plural at 16,674. All caught up!

So, day ten was a continuation of fail-ness. I didn't write on Blood Ties at all, I worked all day, and I have work early tomorrow, so I can't stay up late catching up. It's cool. I have Thursday and Friday off, Blood Ties will definitely get there.

Truth is, I have been prioritizing Plural. Not just because I like it better, (this week) but because I want to 'win' NaNoWriMo. Plural is really my focus this month, Blood Ties is the side project. Though my goal was to finish them both in November, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it. Not because I'll slack on my 2.7K/day writing goals, but because both books are turning out to be longer than I expected. Blood Ties is looking to be about 80K, and Plural is getting longer with every scene I write. Instead of being a little 50K novel, it turned into a 60K novel. After tonight it's looking to be at least 70K. 1/3 of the way done? I don't think so!

It will probably take most of December to wrap them both up. That's okay. Three completed drafts for 2009 is awesome. Especially since the first one took nearly six months to finish!

My goals for 2010 are much higher. I'll go into detail later.

For now, I need sleep.

Later, gators
-Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 9

Blood Ties @ 53,816 (Short 418 words)
Plural @ 14,680 (Short 320 words)

Day 9
Kat Fail #1

Okay, so it's not a huge fail. I wrote about 600 on BT and about 1300 on Plural. 2K is by no means an epic fail. But I still fell short of my goals. So it's a little fail. I'll have to make up the words I'm short tomorrow. It's not so very bad. I can do it. Probably.

The lame part is that this is the beginning of my work week, which means less time for writing. Plus, I'm all frazzled after work. It takes me a while to shift focus in my mind. I'll get it though. If I don't make up the words tomorrow, they will continue to roll over (like cell phone minutes except scary. "BLARG I AM TUESDAY'S MISSING WORDS, COMING TO HAUNT YOU ALL DAY FRIDAY RAWRRR!!!")

I don't think I'm doing too bad though. I'm not getting all down on myself or being exceptionally hard, which is a good thing. In the past when I got behind on my word goals it was a reason to give up. "I'll never make it up, anyway. There's no point in trying. Might as well quit." That's a horrible attitude to have. I'm glad I'm (kinda) over it. At least, this time I'm not feeling that way. Yay, me!

Well, have a good Tuesday guys! Keep up on your word goals, but don't be too hard on yourself if you fall short. Just think of all you've accomplished so far. It's worth it. Trust me.

Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 8

Blood Ties @ 53,234
Plural @ 13,420

I just want to take a moment to thank all my blog readers and especially those who comment. You guys are great! Your words are so encouraging, and I'm so glad you take the time out of your lives to send some good thoughts my way. Thanks for cheering me on :)

Word counts still going strong. This is good.

I've reconciled my issues with Blood Ties. We're speaking again. The story will come around, learn to behave. I have faith in that. The last chapter I wrote just needs some work. Lots of work.

Plural is actually getting really good. It's turning into a book I didn't expect. My MC is about to sneak out of her house to join a group of people who are painting an epic battle of unicorns vs. dinosaurs on a billboard hanging over the most heavily trafficked part of town. Good times.

Well, I must go hunting for food now. Hope your weekend was awesome!

Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 7

Blood Ties @ 52,180
Plural of Love @ 12,172

Something weird has happened.

First, I made a big change to Plural of Love. I started writing in present tense. And-- WOW!-- I like it sooo much better. Huge, huge, huge improvement. I have yet to go back and change the early chapters from past to present tense, but that's not what NaNo is about, so I'll hold off on that until revisions.

I never would have guessed that such a little tweak-- changing tenses-- could make such a big difference. I should know better, really. Blood Ties started out in third person past tense. I wrote about one chapter, then discarded it because it was crap. A couple months later I was free writing in my notebook and I re-wrote a possible beginning to the story. In first person present tense. It was soooo much better. So I took it from there, and a month later, the story is almost complete.

Except... Now I'm falling out of love with the story.

I thought it was soooo good. I loved it. But now I've written in a HUGE twist, and I'm not sure I like what's happening to the story. I'm not sure what's going on with my characters. Why are they being such brats? Up until now, the written words and the story ideal floating around in my head matched. They flowed together. But now the written story is transforming into something ugly and it doesn't match the beautiful story idea in my head. And I can't help but feel like I'm messing it all up. GRRRR!!!!!!

It's not the twist itself. The twist was the whole basis for the story. And really, I don't know which direction to take my characters in without this twist. There is no story without this event. This event makes the book. So I must be doing something wrong. But what? How do I fix this???

Perhaps I only have enough story-love for one WiP at a time. Maybe that's my problem.

Either way, I'm going to keep writing both. I have to. I have to push through the horrible writing, the lines I hate, the characters doing things I don't want them to do.

Because I can change something they say. I can re-write their actions. I can tweak, and re-arrange the story once it's all down.

But I can't do anything if they don't do anything.

So they have to keep doing things that make me cringe.

And I have to keep putting words on that page.

So I will.

NaNoWriMo: Day 6

Blood Ties @ 51,156
Plural of Love @ 10,212

Day six and my writing goals are starting to get to me. 1.7K a day on Plural plus 1K a day on Blood Ties. Nearly three thousand words a day, every day. And I planned to do this for a month? WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I don't want to lessen my goals, but I do want to tune my focus. Because, hey, if I finish Blood Ties, then that's 1K less words/day. So. I have the next two days off. If I put all my attention into finishing Blood Ties, I may be able to do it. Or at least, I'll make a rather large dent in the story, and I can have a bit of free time again.

Mmmm, free time. What's that like?

How was week one of NaNoWriMo for you guys? Did you meet all your goals? I hope so!

Oh, and the person who found my blog by Googling "NaNoWriMo fed up already" I feel your pain. Plural of Love is grinding on my last nerve. I keep yelling at the screen, "I hate you, Story. You plague me!" But then I grit my teeth and I write through it and by the time I finish and re-read what I've written my anger has channeled my words into something halfway decent and I do not want to delete it all, burn my notebooks and put a fist through my computer screen. I just kind of enjoy daydreaming about doing all that.

Still, though, something about Plural is not just clicking with me. I'm not in love with the story. It just sort of pisses me off. Constantly. And I don't know why. I've never felt this way about a story before. I wonder what it is.

Anyway, have a good weekend!

Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 5

Blood Ties @ 50,032
Plural of Love @ 8,442

Weeee! I've broken fifty thousand words with Blood Ties! This makes me very happy.

Also, I sent the first ten chapters (I just finished chapter 11) to my critique partner and she liked it! Woo hoo! It's not total crap! Plus, I wrote about four thousand words today! Yay! Time to celebrate by eating and showering!

This post is rather bland. Here's some filler! I mean, an excerpt!

* * * * * * * * * *

Since it took me all of five minutes to get ready, it's still dark outside and Tristan's not yet here. It's not snowing anymore, though from the waist high drifts it looks like it went all night. I decide to climb a tree and wait for him. Up in the branches I find a comfortable place to settle, free from leaves poking me in the eye and sticks stabbing my back. I watch the sun rise over the mountains and I wait.

He arrives right on time, the sun is still dragging itself over the horizon. He stands at the cave entrance, his breath making little clouds as he exhales, arms crossed, waiting for me. He doesn't notice my footprints. Doesn't see me hiding, a patch of brown high up in the snow covered branches. I smile to myself and make him wait for a couple minutes before I swing out of the tree, abruptly dropping myself into a large pile of snow right beside him.

He shouts and falls backward, burying himself in slush and getting drenched in the process. His attempt to give me a scornful look only makes me laugh, and then he's gathering handfuls of snow, packing it together in a big, fluffy ball. He hurls it my way, but I'm too quick. I have more practice dodging things that could hurt me. So I duck out of the way and his snowball flies over my head and explodes against a tree.

I pop my head back up. “Good morning, Tristan,” I say through another laugh.

“Is it?” he grumbles. But I can see he's trying hard not to smile. And this makes me happy. This right here, right now. Laughing, smiling, playing. Like we're friends. I mean, I suppose we are friends, now. And I think I kind of like that.

“Ready to get started?” I ask casually, like we're not about to plot a murder.

“Sure thing,” he replies in the same tone.

* * * * * * * * * *

Weeeee! Hope your NaNo-ing is going well!

<3 Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 4

Blood Ties @ 48,111
Plural @ 6,790

Wow, BT is almost at 50K! That's awesome. It's just past halfway done, so it is looking to be a longish novel. I'll have to edit it down in revisions, as my goal is somewhere between 75-80K.

Plural is going okay. It's certainly... interesting. It too is looking like it's going to be longer than I originally planned. We shall see.

Not much to say today. I have tomorrow off, and my goal is to break 50K with BT so perhaps I'll have something exciting to share then! For tonight I will give you a picture of my workspace from Day 3. I bought a 105 piece bag of candy the day before Halloween. I'm impressed it lasted three days. I'm also impressed I'm not in a sugar coma right now.

(Yes, those are all empty wrappers.)

(Yes, I need to clean up a bit. Hey, gimme a break. I'm doing NaNoWriMo not NaHoCleMo!)

(Yes, that orange and white thing is a stuffed puppy balancing the last Hershey bar on her nose. That's Cat. She's my muse. I'll talk about her in a future post, tomorrow maybe.)

(Yes, I ate the last Hershey bar after I took the photo.)

(It was indeed delicious.)

NaNoWriMo: Day 3

Blood Ties @ 47,096
Plural @ 5,322

So I'm still going strong. Meeting all my goals. Writing very late at night seems to be working well for me. I'll probably get way ahead once I have a day off and I can spend all afternoon in front of the computer.

I've decided that I'm going to write 1K/day for Blood Ties no matter what. So if I write 3K one day, I don't get to take two days off or anything, I still have to write 1K EVERY DAY. Words written on Plural, however, will carry over. So if I write a lot one day, I can have a day off.

Not much more to say for the day, so here's a teaser from Plural for your enjoyment. I'm kind of digging Claire's voice.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mom took Dad's hand in hers and gave me her serious face. “Claire, we think you should see Dr. Lavender again.”

“You're kidding.” My jaw almost crashed to the table. Dr. Lavender was the eccentric shrink my parents sent me to when they were “separating”. Of course, they were only “separated” for a month. They got into a big fight then swore up and down that divorce was the only answer. They dated other people just enough to make one another jealous. Then they got back together. Had a big ceremony where they re-did their wedding vows. Then they blew half my college fund on a second honeymoon so they could “reconnect” while I was stuck home babysitting my seven-year-old sister Maddie.

Anyway, because their “separation” was undoubtedly hard on me, they threw me into group therapy with Dr. Lavender, who I strongly suspected was not even a real doctor. Or, you know, she was the kind of “real” doctor in the same way the dude dressed as Elvis who married people at a drive-thru in Vegas was a “real” priest.

“I do NOT want to talk to that woman again!” I said, clenching my fists into balls as though that would prove I was a grown-up and in control of my emotions.

* * * * * * * * * *

Well, that is all I have for you today! Have a good night!
-Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 2

Blood Ties @ 46,165
Plural @ 3,582

I actually did all my writing between midnight and 4AM today. Which was nice, because I slept til noon and worked til 7:30PM. Also, since my writing goals were already met for the day I didn't have to worry or stress about where I would find time to write. I plan to spend the rest of the evening relaxing with my boyfriend, then when he goes to sleep, I'll start writing again. I like writing at late at night. Everything is nice and quiet. Peaceful.

Plural is going a little better. This is the first story I've ever attempted to write without an outline, I just a vague idea of what I want to happen. Already it's surprising me. I thought the main character's parents were going to have minimal face time, but no, they want their time in the spotlight. And at first I thought the MC had an older brother who was a total slacker. But no again! Turns out my MC wants a little ten-year-old sister who loves soccer.

Still, I don't know how I feel about Plural. Usually when I read back a scene I can tell if it's good or bad or needs work. I've learned to look at it objectively. But that's really, really hard to do with this story for some reason. Which is pretty weird considering how detached I feel from it. I should be completely objective! But when I re-read it I can't tell if it's good or bad.

Blood Ties is still going good. I'm writing the buildup to the HUGE twist.I'm not sure how readers will take it, because I want it to be an OMG! surprise, but not a what-the-heck-where-did-that-come-from? surprise. Mostly I worry that the little hints sprinkled throughout make it obvious, and not a surprise at all. We shall see. I have one awesome beta reader (Hi Ina!) but I'd like a couple different opinions, so when I'm finished I'll try to find someone else I can bribe with candy--- I MEAN SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO READ MY BOOK BECAUSE THEY LIKE THE PREMISE AND THAT IS ALL.

So that's how I spent my second day of NaNoWriMo. How did you guys do? Ahead of your goals? Falling behind? Stress eating left over candy?

-Kat

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

So, today was the first day of NaNoWriMo!

How'd you guys do?

Me? I made both my word count goals for the day, so that's good.

Blood Ties is at 45,121
Plural of Love is at 2,023

I have to admit, it was hard getting into Plural of Love, even just to get out that first 2K. Beginnings are usually easy for me. I have a great idea, a great opening, so I go for it and start writing... then three chapters later, my first draft isn't perfect and that irks me. And then I have this new, shiny idea... You get the picture.

Anyway, I'm not sure why Plural is so hard to get into. Possibly because I don't really know the characters. It's the least outlined story I've ever done. I mean, two pages in I had to break and search online to find a last name for my MC. A last name! The whole month of October I should have been outlining. But noooo, Blood Ties decided to get all interesting and stuff. Jerk.

Also, Blood Ties is present tense. And I'm loving it. And apparently so used to it because I'm finding it nearly impossible to stick to past tense with Plural. I might change tenses if I get fed up enough.

Was it always so hard to write past tense? No, Untouched is past tense. It was easy then. What the heck happened? I don't even know.

So here's the first chapter of Plural of Love. It's super short. I was really mad at it while writing, though after reading it a couple times, it gets my seal of approval. But barely-- it's still on probation. I'm keeping an eye on you, Plural...

* * * * *

Chapter One:
In Which (Possibly) I Attempt Suicide

It all started on the day I nearly died. He almost died that day, too, but that's another story. That was also where the similarities of our matching near-deaths ended. He carved the word 'free' into his wrist with a jagged piece of glass. I was hit by a train.

This is what happened: I stopped my car on the railroad track and just sat there. Staring at the train. Watching it chug along. Closer, closer, closer. Just in time, I pressed the gas pedal and shot forward to avoid the train colliding with the driver side door. The trunk was not so lucky. The train smashed into the back left bumper and sent me careening into the street where the car flipped. Twice.

I remember three things. First, watching the train screech to a halt some hundred yards down the track. Second, I distinctly remember the sirens. They filled the air ominously, hauntingly. I couldn't tell from which direction they came. Everywhere, it seemed. And lastly, right before passing out, I remember staring through the crushed glass windshield as an orange autumn leaf fluttered to the ground and landed right out of reach. Then I closed my eyes and everything was gone.

* * * * *

Meh.

I do like the chapter titles I'm going with. I've never named my chapters before, it's always been chapter one, chapter two, etc. They're fun to come up with.

Fellow NaNoers, how was your first day? Or, if you're from the future, how's the second day treating you? Meeting all your goals I hope!

By the way, you can find me here. Be my writing buddy!