Let’s recap + Onyx

This is almost like one of those year-end missives about what I’ve been up to in 2006—except it’s a missive about what I’ve been up to at the end of 2006, since I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks.

I had plans to work on short stories and to do a quick polish of Ghost Inn during my hiatus. Didn’t touch ’em. No fiction writing or editing whatsoever during the interim. And I’m not upset about that—I think I needed the break. I did do some non-fiction work, but I’ll get to that later. I kept up with e-mail and message boards to an extent, but didn’t post much at all. I didn’t even turn on the computer in my office for days at a time. I’d do a quick pass through my regular haunts on my laptop in the living room.

What I actually did: spent a lot of time playing board games with my wife and daughter, watching movies, reading, cooking. Believe it or not, I made: oatmeal cookies with date filling (I underestimated the importance of making sure the dough was flat before cutting them, so they were a little lopsided), dark fruit cake (it turned out really well!), turkey dinner (a few days after Christmas), and turkey soup (one of my favorite parts of turkey dinner, and this soup came out fantastic).

We watched mostly older movies on video/DVD (Independence Day and Star Trek Generations, for example), but also saw American Dreamz via On-Demand and the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night. During the days when I was home alone, I watched a lot of Law & Order reruns, since I haven’t been watching the show for a while due to our previously poor NBC reception. Donofrio rocks. I watched the repeated Doctor Who Christmas special on Christmas Day.

I read Michael Connelly’s Echo Park and started Joseph Wambaugh’s Hollywood Station.

I also started up a book review web site, called Onyx Reviews. I had been writing reviews for Accent Literary Review, but they managed only one update during 2006 and things were piling up, including an interview with Tabitha King that I wanted to get out there. So I decided on a DIY job. Why Onyx? I honestly don’t know. The name just came to me and after bouncing it around in my mind for a couple of weeks, I decided to go with it. The font on the banner at the top of each page is, appropriately enough: Onyx. I mirrored all the Accent Reviews I did, including a batch that have been on deck for almost half a year. I’ll also be bringing back some of my archive reviews when I review newer books by the same author. I plan to update this on a regular basis. That’s the plan, anyway.

Back to reality today. Up at 4:00 am to get our daughter to the airport to send her back to university, and back to work. I’m looking forward to getting back on a regular schedule again, as much as I enjoyed and needed the time off last week.