I finished reading Butcher‘s Small Favor. Very very good, although the middle part felt a bit slow. Also read Cole‘s Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night and Rich‘s Free-Range Chickens.

On my own writing front — I figured out what's been bugging me about the second quarter of the book. There are two sex scenes, and they're so…dry.

What I mean is that the characters are doing this and that, but very little emotions are coming through. My characters have a lot of history together, so the scenes rang false when I reread them for the sheer lack of feelings from both of them. A lot of missed opportunities.

I also decided to add a couple of short scenes to advance the main subplot (the court intrigue part). They're all new and feature secondary characters. I think they'll add a bit more to the subplot because currently the book's about 85% romance.

After dinner I spent about ten minutes jotting down notes on my next project — a futuristic paranormal romance. I can't decide if I want to write it in 1st person or not. The heroine is snarky and slightly eccentric, but I think the snarky 1st person narrator is a bit of a cliché now. I wonder if her voice can come through just as clearly in 3rd person.

Hmmm.

mood: sleepy
watched last night: The Forbidden Kingdom
bought today: a small calendar from a ¥100 store

Tomorrow I start the first real day of writing after a long break plus brainstorming. I'm totally anxious to get going. This month has only nineteen working days due to various national holidays, etc. and so on. Knowing that of course makes me even more determined to make the best use of those days. I'm trying to figure out the point where marginal productivity diminishes because I feel like I've been working hard for a long time without sufficient return for all my effort. I spend so many months on something, but at the end I don't have a whole lot to show for. So that's something I really want to work on this year.