it's a cold, rainy night in december, and every time we let the dogs out, they come in tracking in mud, so now we have to clean off their pads on their way in. this i find a little difficult. if it were just me, i'd let them track in some mud, and then try to mop it off once in a while.

my reading has gotten very intense. i take on more than i can handle and wake up on a morning like this with two huge books and a smaller book to finish, and, well, no way i can finish them all. i get deep into them and they're intense. i keep track of the world cup on the side. i run errands for the family. i run stuff upstairs for the boy with the broken leg. i will eventually walk all the dogs, just to get on my feet and get out of here.

what's missing in this picture? i am actually in the middle of a novel, but once again it's somewhat mired in the fact that i don't have a real solid plan. i want it to have inter-mixing plots - the best novels always do - and one or two of them are ok, the others, still being developed. all this has gathered to make me somewhat paralyzed. rather than waking up and writing, which would be ideal, i start reading other stuff almost from the beginning. it's easier, it's gentle, it's like curling up with a good book. only i never put it aside and do my work.

in terms of marketing i'm doing ok. i can only read 60-100 pages a day, but i'm getting well more than that on my overall average. today, only one so far. one page read, which is maybe four tenths of a cent. the whole thing doesn't amount to more than a trip or two to mcdonalds. but with every page read someone else knows some more about what i write. slowly the word gets around. last year after six months of marketing i went through the whole christmas season without a sale. this year i've had a few and don't even know who bought them. there are many ways word got around and slowly it will pick up.

got christmas lights out on the front porch of this old historic house in galesburg. it's simple, but it's lit. that too is an improvement. i think one makes a statement with one's deco and in general the town is somewhat loud that way. one house has over-done balloon decorations: dinosaur, various disney characters, etc. and then also a creche. is the statement that they go together? you see various combinations and wonder. houses that were overdone in gory halloween deco are also overdone in christmas. go figure. the whole town is a little overdone. we on the other hand are basic, underdone.

but our dogs provide the nourishment for the soil, at least when i can't get at it to pick it up, like when it's in a leafy pile of brush. i let a few of them go. let it all return to the earth, from whence it came.