I’ve always admired morning people, so much so that I have decided to try and become one. No, really. I’m going to try to be a morning person.

See, it’s been very hard for me to find the time to write lately, much less keep up with this blog or keep up with the various reading groups I’m part of. The only time I could think of, when no one would be clamoring for my attention, was first thing in the morning, while everyone else is still asleep. So I set my alarm clock for 5 AM. I woke up, for some reason, at 4:30. So I got up and, so far, have been very productive. Since the first chapter of my book was very well received at my writing group meeting this past weekend, I have now plotted out the second chapter of my book and can start digging into it. The house is very quiet – the only sounds are the small heater blowing at my feet and the clicking of keys on the keyboard. Rather peaceful. Now if only the caffeine would start kicking in.

I wanted to mention two books that I am reading in conjunction with two websites that I adore. The first book is The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by the one and only J.R.R. Tolkien. I do love me some Tolkien! What’s making this re-reading of the series so enjoyable this time around is reading it one chapter a day along with Mark over at MarkReads.net. I love his website! He is incredibly funny and reviews books one chapter at a time. I first found him because of his Harry Potter reviews and, even though there are seven of those books and they are really, really long, I still sat there and read all of Mark’s posts about every single chapter. It took a while to get through them all! After several mentions in those reviews about how much he hated reading Twilight, I knew I had to read those reviews as well. Wow, he really hated those books! He’s also reviewed the Hunger Games trilogy, the His Dark Materials series, and several others. His reviews are funny and insightful and a really great time.

The second book I’m reading is Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I’m reading it with a small book club that I run over at the Mallorean Tavern, a website that started out as a David Eddings fan site, but is now more a general fantasy, book, and pop culture forum. I’ve been a member for years, but we’ve always had a hard time keeping up a book club because of people’s schedules. When I became a moderator, I knew that the book club was one of the things that I really wanted to bring back. We started our first book club discussion back in May and are now on our fifth book. The whole site is a lot of fun, with discussions of books, movies, television, and the occasional RPG going on in the back room.

So now that I’m a morning person (or at least I am for today), I can hopefully be a more faithful blogger. But for now, I should probably get back to work.