I have tons of self-control. Really. Except about books. And plants. And, okay, a really good peanut butter cookie.

This morning, I took the children to the library. While they poured over the shelves for their next reads, I skimmed the openings of the four books I’d had on hold, Louis Bayard’s Endangered Species, Nicola Griffith’s The Blue Place, Jason Pinter’s debut The Mark, and Charles Todd’s Wings of Fire.

Wow! Now all I want to do is sit myself down on the sofa and read and read and read. Pinter’s opening is so powerful that it even inspired me about what I need to do in upcoming revisions of my novel, THE QUETZAL’S TALE. Thank you, Jason!

And that’s not the worst of it. My friend Sherry Thomas’s second book, Delicious, hit the shelves this week, and my copy is burning a hole on my desk, beckoning, waiting for me to come lose myself in it. I loved her first book, Private Arrangements, and I’ve been counting the days for the new one.

Here’s where the self-control comes in. I’m on a new deadline for my script, “The Blue Jay’s Egg,” which I’m revising to enter in three more screenplay competitions. And I’m scheduled to post my script to my writer’s group Sunday. So I’m here, rear in chair, getting back to it. As soon as I finish this post. Really. So I can reward myself with a great read. And maybe a really good cookie.