Blogging the Fading Lands

Well, everyone, the new year is here, and with it some exciting news, and great New Year's Resolutions.

King Goes to Germany

As I mentioned before, my publisher sold the German rights to KING OF SWORD AND SKY, and the translation is well under way. The book is currently available for preorder from Amazon.de, the german amazon.com... and just look at the absolutely gorgeous cover they put together.

Tairen Soul Update

I'm finishing up the TAIREN SOUL manuscript, the fifth and final book in Rain & Ellsyetta's story. My goal is to be done and have the MS turned in first of Feb to my new editor, the lovely and talented Leah Hultenschmidt. My first (and much beloved) editor, Alicia Condon, (to whom I dedicated QUEEN) has gone to Kensington to take over as Editorial Director of the Brava line. (Some of you may know the previous Brava Ed Dir, Kate Duffy, passed away last year.) I will miss Alicia. She was a lifesaver on QUEEN. But I'm looking forward to working with Leah.

In any event, as soon as I turn TS in, I'll announce the confirmed release date to members of my Announcement List and post it on my blog, twitter, etc.. (If you haven't already joined the announcement list, you can do that on my website, www.clwilson.com on the "Contact C.L. Wilson" page under "Friends of the Fey")

New Year's Resolutions

On a personal front, this year is my year for getting control back in basically all aspects of my life. One key place I've decided to start is losing weight and getting in shape.

As an author, especially an slow writing author, much of my day consists of sitting at my computer, typing on my keyboard. I haven't gotten my Dragon Naturally Speaking software to work halfway well enough to dictate a book while walking on a treadmill (and the process of "speaking" a book is sooooooo different than letting the words flow from my fingertips, that I don't know I could successfully do it even if I could get DNS humming), so BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard) is it for me. Though a required part of my job, the sedentary nature of BICHOK results in a number of not-so-great side effects - like the appearance of increasingly high numbers when I step on my bathroom scale, increasingly wide waistbands in my clothes, bad posture, back pain, and carpal tunnel.

Last Nov, I decided enough was enough. Its time to lose weight and get in shape. Now, I've done all sorts of diets, and lost weight on them too. But I've always gained the weight back--and more. (This is why I hate the term "losing weight". It's never really lost. It always knows exactly where to find me again! And it usually brings friends!!! )

So, as part of my New Year's Resolution to lose weight, get fit, and regain my youthful girlish figure (or at least a not-so-bad-40-something figure), I've joined Weight Watchers online, and asked my DH and kids for a Wii fit for Christmas.

Now, I hate exercise. I hate to sweat and get all icky, sticky, & stinky. Worse, I hate to be bored, and there's nothing more boring to me than running on a treadmill or lifting weights . But I luuuuuurve video games :) Wii Fit is absolutely the perfect melding of exercise and video games. So my sister and I are doing WW online together and playing the Wii version of The Biggest Loser plus Wii Fit (Yoga, etc) and Leslie Sansone's fabulous Walk Away the Pounds.

Let me tell you, Biggest Loser, even on "powder puff" level, kicks my tookis! Sweat? Uh, yeah. I do. But in just 3 days, I'm already 3+ lbs down. Water weight? Some of it. But some is ugly fat. YAY me!

As an Aside

As you can see, I've also discovered smileys for blogs. I'll try not to get too obnoxious with them in future posts. I don't know how to activate smileys for comments - at least not on blogger. If anyone knows how, let me know. I'm trying to figure out how to create a tag cloud as well. I use a custom template for blooger, hosted on my own website, so the "gadgets" available to most blogger-hosted blogs aren't available to me, and I've wasted days trying to track down a solution.

Question of the Day

For those of you who have fought the weight loss battle (and it is a battle), what are your tips and tricks for losing weight and keeping it off? Also, have you made any New Year's resolutions you'd be willing to share?