In the spirit of out with the old and in with the new, I changed the lay-out and design of my blog. The set-up is different. To see the rest of this post, you need to click on “read now” below and to the right of “Happy New Year!” Obviously, this is for folks who follow the link from Facebook. The rest of you must have figured it out, or maybe you waited until I did another post and this one showed up on the list of previous posts below it. However you found it, I’m glad you’re here.

Hard to believe we’re already more than a week into 2013 and I’m just now writing my first blog post of the year. I’ve been busy working on my next novel. Frankly, I could barely tear myself away from it long enough to knock out this post.

Contrary to what I said in my last post, my third novel isn’t part of the holiday series. Happens all the time. Announcing my intention to do one thing practically guarantees I’ll do something else. These reminders that I’m not the one in control have popped up so often that I’ve about given up planning for the future. I just try to be prepared for whatever may come my way.

The idea for the story I’m working on isn’t new. In fact, to those of you who’ve followed my blog long enough, the plot will look familiar. The difference is that now I bring to its telling everything I’ve learned through the process of writing a memoir and two novels. I feel like it’s my best work yet–at least the first 10,000 words–and I can’t wait to see where the characters take me.

Until Thanksgiving continues to do better than I ever imagined. It started the year at lucky number thirteen on the Dreamspinner Press best sellers list, climbing to number twelve as of yesterday.  They keep a separate list for paperbacks, and my book has been either number one or number two on it for more than a week. I’m just amazed. No word yet on After Christmas Eve.

I’m equally amazed by the results of my fitness and weight loss program. Now that I live alone, I’m living on frozen dinners. Years ago, that would have been sad. But the Top Chef and Lean Cuisine dinners I’ve been getting are really good and, compared with the Banquet dinners of my youth, are relatively good for me. In my case, the biggest help is the automatic portion control. When it’s gone, I’m done. If I’m still hungry, I’ll eat a piece of fruit.

Getting a run in has been a challenge, and the holidays messed up my gym routines. But mostly, I’ve stayed on track and have even been hitting all three of my weekly strength training sessions. When my trainer took my measurements for this quarter, I’d lost an inch around my waist and chest since the last check, and my body fat has dropped by five percent since I started going to the gym a little more than a year ago. Success breeds success. The better I do, the better I want to do.

As a special treat to celebrate 2013, click here for a video of me and my ex dancing (a la Dance, Dance, Revolution) to Frozen Ray–my favorite DDR song. We recorded this back in October. I’ve lost about ten pounds since then. Just saying. I’m happy that we remain close, getting together every week or so for dinner and play dates for our dogs. That’s Toodles in the background, and my Paint-by-Number collection on the wall. I’m not kidding.

The new design has forced another change. The layout doesn’t provide space for my name and a name for the blog. No doubt this is possible, I just don’t know how to do it. But I’m thinking it might be time for the name to change, too. So at least for a while, this will by the last time I close with…

My Glass House