Decisions decisions

Oh well, its decision time again. What do I read next. I finished what I referred to last week as a Kinsey Milhone book and need to choose something else to read. Just to clarify, Kinsey is the character in the Sue Grafton Alphabet series and the book that I have just finished is "I is for Innocent." I do have "J is for Judgement" but I think I'll give Kinsey a rest for the moment. So what to read next.
There are literally hundreds of books in this house that I haven't read but somehow I can't make my mind up about which one to choose. I haven't read a biography for a bit, well for at least two books anyway, somaybe I'll give one of them a go. Himself bought me the biography (or is it "ies" given that they are in the same book?) of Lady Jane Grey's sisters so maybe that'll be the one. No doubt you will all lose hours of sleep until you find out the answer to that one. Just kidding.
On a different note, I finished the rough draft of the article that I was writing last week but I didn't polish it and send it off because I decided to write the second article that I had in  my mind. Actual writing with a pen on paper which was a lot of fun. I plan on polishing this week. I also want to write a letter to a newspaper in response to a letter that I read in there today. Not that productive I know but at least it will let me get something off my chest.
Did you get the snow the other day? Up here we get a lot of snow usually although we only had one real session of it last year but we're not quite Scotland so we don't usually get it in October so I hope it isn't a sign of the things to come. 
Anyway, I'll let you know what book I choose and I'd be interested to know how other people make their choices.

My week in a nutshell

So what can I tell you about what I did this week? Well the pink pen ran out of ink for a start and it wasn't from over work. I noticed that it was empty when I started to work on my first project. Trouble is that I need to go to a shop that isn't local (used to be when I worked there) to get a refill , so that could take a while. Nil desperandum - I found a red pen (outside that is, not the ink) and that is proving to be an adequate substitute.
I know I mentioned my "first" writing project but to be honest its been my only, but it's coming along quite nicely and I hope to have it completed this week. As usual when I made my "to do" list there were too many things on it and I only got to the first one. A few years ago, every Sunday, I used to post "this week I'll..." and I used to give myself too much to do back then too. I mean, five days a week I go to work before 8am and I get back around 6pm. Then I make tea, usually by 7pm. I then have to eat and before you know it, its bed time. I try and fit some writing into t least one of my days off but this week I had a lot of other stuff to see to. Maybe I'll try to concentrate on doing one thing well instead of trying to do lots of things in a mediocre manner.
Remember I was going to sign up to Ancestry.co.uk to search into my past? Well I haven't done that yet, mainly because I didn't want to buy a month and then disappear to Krakow and I know that I'm back now but...well to be honest I've had other more important (more boring) things to do so I just haven't got round to it but I will.
What else happened this week? Well not a lot really. I had 3 books on the go and I finished one of them. One of my regular customers had brought it when he discovered that we both liked Ed McBain. The book was called "Privileged Conversation" by Evan Hunter (Ed's real name) and it was brilliant. The man wrote the best dialogue I have ever read in my life. I'm almost finished the Kinsey Milhone that I took to Krakow and then there's my "breakfast book" which is by Raymond Khourey. I should point out that I am not being anti social by having a breakfast book because I am usually on my own apart from the dog and to be honest he's not much of a conversationalist.
I finally got to see "Warhorse" the other day and I wailed from beginning to end.
The only other thing I did this week was buy a new Winter coat. It was a bargain from a charity shop and I make no apologies for that. I work in a charity shop so I know what kind of bargains you can pick up in them. When I see the prices that regular shops charge for clothes it makes my eyes water. Seriously when I see what we get donated I am amazed. I mean we often don't get as much as we used to but sometimes the quality is phenomenal. I think it has something to do with the "throw away" society that we live in now.
Anyway that was my week in a nutshell. Not a lot of it was to do with writing but it was about me.

Honey I'm home.

Hello everyone, as you can see I am back from my techno-less sabbatical and here is where I spent it.
For anyone that doesn't recognise this place it is the main square in Krakow Old Town and the building is The Cloth Hall. We spent a wonderful 5 days there and I can heartily recommend it as somewhere to visit.
But I'm back now and the reality of normal life is kicking back in. For instance, it is back to work tomorrow so ya boo hiss and all that but as I keep telling Himself if life was spent on holiday all the time then these times would not be special anymore. I really don't want to go back to work tomorrow at the moment but I'm sure that by this afternoon or this evening at the worst my head will have got itself back into the right place.
So I know that you will have spent all week worrying about what decisions I will make regarding the direction my writing will take so I will put you out of your misery. Just kidding BTW.
Well, remember BTL and how several of the agents that I had sent it to said that they did not like G but I love him so I don't want to get rid of him? Well, I have decided that I need to make G more appealing so I am going to revisit that project with that intention in mind. I have also had a couple of ideas for new projects - both of them non fiction. When (many years ago) I realised that I wanted to write I wanted to be a journalist so maybe non fiction has always been my first love so why fight it. Back then I also had a couple of attempts at writing a book so I am pretty much doing now what I started out doing. Anyway, I'm going to start working on the NF ideas later today - getting a plan sketched out at least.

Sabbaticals and lessons learned

I changed the look of my blog  but I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. I'm not going to be around Blogland after today until next weekend so maybe I'll leave it and look at it with new eyes then. They won't literally be "new eyes" obviously. I mean, the reason that I'm not going to be around isn't because I'm having radical eye surgery or anything, no they will be metaphorical "new eyes."
These few days away from Blogland (and all things technological) is something that happens annually and for the last 2 years my witing "life" has changed after it. Two years ago I decided that I would concentrate on writing non fiction and had found a regular outlet and I spent the following year doing just that. After last years sabbatical I switched the computer on to discover an email waiting for me saying that said outlet was no longer in operation and that I had lost my market. If nothing else, that taught me the lesson that you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket. I have spent the last year doing nothing in particular writing wise so I can't help wondering what will happen after this years technology-less few days.
So I will see you all next week and I will leave you with this photograph.