Miscellaneous, et al.

Just finished making a massive homemade lasagna for dinner tonight. I always do my sauce and cheese mix a little differently each time so hopefully it will taste okay. I tend to experiment when I'm having people over for dinner. I'm not sure why. All my old recipes just seem boring. But we're feeding two hungry missionary guys and they'll probably eat anything. Now that I think about it, my baking started this morning at five a.m. I got up and made chocolate chip muffins for my early morning class. Fifteen year-olds love food. If you didn't already know that.

Finished three books over the weekend that I was rereading about the murder/death of King Tut for my novel. I'm SO glad I did. Lots of details got put back into my head that fell out while I was in Bulgaria and revising my other two novels. They're filled with yellow sticky notes which I now need to put into my outline - or somewhere.

I've also become addicted to some blogs. In addition to the ones on the right side of your screen I've been reading Jennifer Jackson, an agent at Donald Maas Agency. WatchMeBe an aspiring writer, Mette Ivie Harrison ,a writer I recently discovered that I definitely want to read. In fact, I'm on my way to the library to get one of her books. And Shannon Hale, a recent Newbery winner whose first adult novel, AUSTENLAND will soon be out. (I've been watching all of Jane Austen's movies again recently. Okay, they're not HER movies, but you know what I mean).

The next best thing to writing is reading about writing. I jump around to a lot of other blogs, too, from people who post comments. Yesterday I posted for the first time on Alex Flinn's blog. I feel very shy about posting for some reason. Maybe I'll get braver.

Here's a link to the recent Newbery *storm* of the last week. Bad words, banned books, what a ruckus. New York Times letters to the editor.