The New Year

I'm back! I hope everyone has had a fantastic holiday season celebrating (or not) in their own special way. I will admit that I am usually a complete grinch. Most years see me grumbling pretty much from Thanksgiving until the new year. This year, however, was different. For whatever reason, I was really excited about Christmas.

The tree went up two days before Thanksgiving. *shock, horror* My mom's hand-painted village was also fully assembled before turkey day. Likewise, my shopping went splendidly well and quickly. No last minute shopping or lame stocking stuffers for once.

I took down the tree and the village today, ready to reclaim the living room. Actually, this is an improvement on the years where I spent Christmas day taking down all of the decorations in between cooking the meal.

The highlight of the season for me must have been listening to local radio DJ's get so bored with the standard Christmas music that they just started playing European Christmas music. I am now well acquainted with Sweedish Christmas carols.

This time of year always sees me more focused on my writing. I suppose it is because I have a winter birthday that makes me antsy and there's no sunshine, and therefore less distractions. Right now, I'm actually working on a plan to edit my latest novel into something suitable for Harlequin. Honestly, I just want to make some money off of my work and, out of curiousity, I checked their site to see if they required agents for submisions. They do not. So, I will be re-working the Viking novel into more of a romance (nothing too lurid) and seeing how it goes. I think I will write an entire post about this later.

***But that's enough about me. Tell me how your season's been. Happy, hopeful, sad, lonely, exciting... this is the one time of year where community's really try to pull together and I do think that is wonderful.

Happy New Year Everyone!