Today I packed dishes, dishes and more dishes. Also a bazillion salt and pepper shakers and many many framed photos of my cousins.

I am a packing fool! (This is all for my aunt and uncle who are moving, not me.)

I have not read much of anything because packers can't take breaks to read but before I have been mulling over a book I received last weekend. It was a paranormal romance (I get these sometimes to review and I have no idea why and also I can't seem to stop them - not that there's anything wrong with paranormal romance but I don't know how I would review it even if I had the time to read it) and part of the story involved the same twist that I had dreamed up for my YA urban fantasy (WIP but sadly quite slow right now). It's a twist that I've seen in other places (tv for one) but not a common twist - but then, seeing it in a paranormal romance with the accompanying hot breathing...well, I'm thinking my twist might not be so twisty anymore.

In other words, maybe this was the rude "get on another track" wake-up call. Honestly I've been retooling the book for a little while now, casually messing around with it. There is so much YA urban fantsy out there - buckets and buckets of it - and I kinda think I would get lost in that crowd. I've always been more partial to adding the historical bits to this book anyway and there is very little of the fantsy in what I have written thus far. I'll still leave in a ghost (cause the ghost is way cool) but I'm sorta not too sure on the fantasy.

And I officially think this is my most boring blog post ever, by the way.

So that's an update: YA book maybe going more in a hist/mystery direction (which it already was) but without big fantasy twist. As for the AK Flying Memoir, that is in nearly in shape for the agent and should have gone last weekend but in trying to get life squared away at home so I could leave for five days, I didn't get to revising three of the chapters and still need to do that (hopefully on the train ride home Friday). Several chapters left to write, but that is after the agent has this big chunk.

Really, I need to be writing much much faster.

I am delighted by all the positive feedback to "Flying Cars & Lost Cities" (Maybe "Forgotten Cities"?) and so glad that so many folks have said we would fit quite nicely in the world that Jon Scieszka has already created with Guys Read. Here's hoping this new site continues to come together and see the light of day in the coming months.

Just read Girlwood by Claire Dean - still not sure exactly what kind of book this one is (the fantasy elements are really quite subtle) but I enjoyed it. More on that later.

Off to bed now - more packing tomorrow.....