I'm not sure how much I can/should say just yet, but there are currently two publishers expressing serious interest in my book proposal. As you might imagine, this is very exciting news.

…offering us space to place new steps of change.

My book proposal is done. After four attempts over the last 15 months, I've finally moved passed the developmental editing stage. I completed line edits last night. I guess this means that the next step is getting my manuscript on the desks of acquisition editors. This is pretty exciting — and the timing is particularly good with Dre and I house hunting right now. An advance from a publisher would definitely help with our down payment. Thanks to all of you who've pitched in with ideas, support, and suggestions over the last year. I'm sure I'll be asking for more as things move forward.

Fair readers, I need your help with another book-related issue.

My book has as a title ("And the Bride Wore a Hula Hoop") but no subtitle. Some of my ideas included "The Electrolicious guide to weird weddings" or "The Electrolicious guide to the wedding you want," but none of these quite nailed it. Do any of you have any ideas?

I've been trying to stay very task focused lately, further efforts at maintaining some sort of momentum during this season of hibernation and generalized malaise. But I move in circles, looping around the apartment not getting much done at all. My goal yesterday was to finish up my book proposal. I got it all prepped and ready to finish — but didn't actually finish it. It also took me three hours to sweep the bedroom and take out the trash, because I'm so distractable that on my way to fetch the broom I find myself making a pot of tea and shuffling piles of stuff around in the living room.

I try to give myself permission to have days like this ("It's ok to spend three hours burning two CDs"), but I still get frustrated with myself. How many times can I check my email before realizing that oh look: I still haven't taken out the trash? Nor do I have any new email.

I have a near constant internal dialog going with myself about what I should be doing at any given moment. I'm really good at figuring out what needs to be done — not so good at the execution. I guess this makes me a natural manager. But it mostly just makes me feel distracted, ineffectual, and incompetent.

This, my friends, is why I don't have a television. It's hard enough for me to get anything done with my computer screen around. Adding another screen to the house would probably result in me forgetting how to urinate or tie my shoes.

This time of year, it's crucial to keep the momentum going. I've found that I do best if I take a running start at the depths of winter. I know I'll slow down eventually (February in Seattle is a study in hermitage), and hopefully I can keep as much oomph going as possible on the various projects I'm working on.

I've made some major progress on my book proposal, although I'm disappointed to find that I do my best writing in a slightly intoxicated state. I suppose I am not the first writer to discover this about themselves, and I don't plan to pull a Hunter S. Thompson anytime soon (…and now, for my next trick, I will continue typing while ingesting peyote buttons and GHB, while taking a percocet suppository!), and at this point I'll take whatever help I can get to get this book proposal moving forward. Goal: to have it in the hands of the agency by the new year. Swear to god I can do this.