Happy Chinese New Year!

And so begins a new year. The dragon run was awesome. Alpha placed second in his age group and it was so cute to watch his expressions -- he seemed uncertain about what was going on, but was digging the situation nonetheless -- and cheer him on as he pumped his little arms, his little legs stomping, oh. So cute.

So I think the New Years run will become tradition. For those of you who are reading and like the blogging interaction, what are some of your favorite traditions?

 As for writing stuff, back to the Guardian Article:

I worry a lot about the pace of my story.

Elmore Leonard says about this: "Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill."

How many times have you been reading a story when it seems like things are slowing down, slowing down, slowing... and what do you do?

If you're me, you skim the slow stuff and skip to where it seems like it gets interesting again. No doubt there's some important stuff in there I'm missing? And yet, I usually don't feel like I've missed out on that much. I still get the gist of what's going on.

So why does the writer include all that extra stuff if it's not important?

The aforementioned Margaret Atwood weighs in on pace and flow with this: "Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B."

So what's important to one person isn't necessarily going to be for another? How am I supposed to work around that as an author? There's never an easy answer, is there.

Hours logged today*: 3    Pages logged today*: 5    Total pages logged today*: 105

*by "today" I mean last night, of course, since I write after the boys have gone to bed, but I've decided to blog during naptime starting here, so I have as of yet to get to my novel-writing for this day. As long as it all goes in the bag, eh?

Moment of Magic today:

 Being Alpha's Mama is magical everyday. This is him at the race -- yay Alpha!