Yeesh, this has been a busy month!! Fortunately, things at work will now slow down considerably. The DNA lab is now officially open and accepting evidence, and–more importantly from a busy-ness POV–the application for accreditation has been submitted and we can all sit back and take a deep breath. Whew! Barring any major misadventure, October should be much calmer.

The weather is starting to cool off just a tetch, making it far more pleasant for my morning run. I only run three times a week or so (things start hurting too much if I try to run 2 days in a row), and during the summer in Louisiana it’s so miserably hot and humid–even at 5am–that it’s hard to convince myself that I really do need to push for the whole darn three miles. (On a good day I usually settled for 2.5 miles of gasping, sweating joy.)

Don’t get me wrong, I do NOT like running. I have to get up insanely early to do it, I get hot and sweaty and nasty, and my body keeps producing sweat for about half an hour after I stop running (I’ve learned to eat breakfast and then take my shower, otherwise the shower is pointless.) And it hurts. But I just can’t deny that it’s insanely effective at getting the excess weight off of this creaky bod, even with that “Age 40+” multiplier in play on my ability to lose weight.

On the writing front, I’ve put approximately the first half of Book 2 through my writer’s group (doing the 3 chapters/ month method.) I’m still going through and working the major kinks out of the rough draft as I go, but I think I like having the input as I go through the book with my edits. It’s making it easier to see the big problems and deal with them before I invest too much time writing stuff that’s not going to work. Unfortunately, dealing with one of the major problems meant yanking out the last third of my rough draft and completely rewriting it, but I figure it saved me time to rewrite it merely at the “crap first draft” stage instead of at the “almost ready” stage.

And yes, I’m still waiting to hear about Book 1. No, I have no fingernails left. But hey–it makes it easier to type!

And finally, on the reading front, I’m actually doing a lot of it, for a change. I do my exercise bike on the mornings that I don’t run, so that gives me 30-40 minutes of uninterrupted reading time.

Here are the currently-reading or to-be-read books on my “nightstand”:

Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris (reading)
Bitten by Kelley Armstrong (reading on the advice of my agent’s assistant who says Kelley Armstrong rocks. So far, I agree!)
Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur
Touch the Dark by Karen Chance
Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow
California Demon: The Secret Life of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner

(seeing a trend? :) )

And then, to buck the trend, I have Last Known Victim by Erica Spindler. Ms. Spindler is a local author of thrillers, and quite a successful one. She’s also very friendly and charming, and it was a delight to talk to her at her signing on Wednesday. Buy her books!

On my already-read stack:
Rachel Morgan books 1-5 by Kim Harrison (I chewed through these over Labor Day weekend. We drove up to Memphis, and while Jack drove, I read! Excellent books, and I can’t wait for the next one!)
The Dresden Files books 1-3 by Jim Butcher
All of the currently published Southern Vampire Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. ( I LOVE these books!)
Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner (A light, quick read that was good enough to make me buy the next.)

Am I missing anything else that I should be reading? Speak now!