January 31, 2002
This might be a record for brevity, but as they say, "brevity is the soul of wit." Or something like that, anyway.
We'd like to report that January has been an exciting month full of new adventures and activities, but in all truthfulness it has been rather dull. Roni and Glenn have both been immersed in writing projects, which has left little time for much else. Roni continues to work on the novel she began during November as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project. She spends her free hours at the computer making revisions to the plot and expanding her dialogue. At last count she was up to 70,000 words and still going.
Glenn has been reading her manuscript in his "spare" time, amid work and his own writing project. At the start of January he began work on a new novel that currently stands at around 25,000 words. He is determined to complete it and market it somewhere, although he is unsure where. He does his writing late at night, usually after getting off of work. It is a busy pace, but one he seems to find conducive to his odd schedule.
Work has been a mixed bag for all of us. Roni picked up a couple of new clients during January, which has helped fill some of the hours left idle by the death of her most regular client in November. January is typically a slow month anyhow, so it is nice to have some projects to focus on. Glenn has been drafted into producing yet another election-related special section for the newspaper, this one focusing on the California primary set for March 5. It deadlines the middle of February, but so far the pace seems to be less grueling than it was for the November 2000 race.
Ben is back at school, after having a short break for Christmas vacation. He spent much of January taking part in a reading marathon, during which he read for more than 700 minutes. He was only required to read 300 minutes to be eligible for a reading award. He protested a bit at having to do it, but he is excited now that he did. He is well into reading chapter books now, his latest interest being the Jackie Chan adventure series. Last week he took part in a class field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley where he says he had a good time. He came home with a can of goo that is useful for something, but we haven't quite figured out what.
Our kitties Ariel and Eevee are still at war, but the balance of power may be shifting. Eevee has been growing and is now almost adult size, but he still has a kitten's voice, which isn't very intimidating. He has the moves down, however, and was doing some cat voodoo psych-out routine on Ariel this morning. It won't be long before he cuffs her a good one and she stops growling at him every time he moves.
OK, that's it for this month's 15-minute update. We'll write again when our muse strikes us -- hopefully before the end of February!
Glenn, Roni and Ben