16AUG2022

I haven’t been reading much and I also haven’t been writing much. The last book I read was Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and the last bit of “writing” I did was editing Sirens. As far as Oliver Twist goes, it wasn’t bad. It was a difficult read because of the vast vocabulary Dickens had and at times it wasn’t all that action-packed. Some of it was rather boring but I could see why it was a classic, especially given the context and time it was published in. I used my method of having the book in front of me and the audiobook playing through my headphones. I did that because if I only read the book and didn’t also listen, I would get too bogged down in the hefty vocabulary and my eyelids would get heavier and heavier. So, I made it a little easier on myself.

I haven’t read anything else by Dickens that I can recall but I may take a shot at a Christmas Carol when the season comes. Growing up, I had always enjoyed that movie; my family watches it every year so I wouldn’t be opposed. I hope that story ends up being an easier read though.

I’ve been a bit busy lately with life. Between work, trips with friends, and other obligations, I haven’t found much time to sit down and write. When I have had the chance and I have sat down, I’ve either felt no motivation whatsoever or I didn’t know what to write, so I allowed myself to get easily distracted. Today, even though I didn’t know what I wanted to write, I forced myself to type this out. It’s not much, but it’s honest work. I needed to sit down and feel my fingertips punch at the keys again. It’s been a while since I sat down to actually create anything. Each time recently that I’ve tried, I felt obligated to work on Sirens when I really wanted to write but forced myself to get that done.

Now that Sirens is in the beta phase (again), I can allow myself to sit down and write something. My goal is to take a break from writing a novel and work on a bunch of short stories. I recall reading Ray Bradbury said, “If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done.” I intend to write a lot of short stories – some fiction, some nonfiction. We’ll see how they go. I have some that I want to write for The Hill series, seeing as I need to catch up on that, but I need to sit my ass down and even allow myself to write. I’ve been guilting myself into having to work on Sirens every time that I haven’t allowed myself much fun. For the record, I despise editing. I do it because I have to. It’s not fun for me. I’d much rather create. That’s where the joy is for me. I plan on bringing that joy back because it’s been a while since I’ve been consistently writing.