Books and Movies and NO WRITING

Has it REALLY been this long since I blogged last?
See what Twitter has done to me? shame shame... I now have the attention span of a gnat.

So, after a bit of a writing/publishing wake-up call a few weeks ago, I pretty much shut down my computer, going DAYS without so much as hitting the power button. I felt a wee bit of guilt in those first hours, but I gotta say - overall, it's been like shedding shackles. And I do not intend to write again for another few weeks. Maybe after Easter.
(Important note: my iPhone is still my life-line, in case you thought I was shunning technology completely.)

What have I been doing during those writing hours? Aside from entertaining kiddo who had 2 weeks off for March Break (he goes back this afternoon - YAY!), I've been reading. READING. READING!!!
And not feeling guilty for not writing.
What a terrific way to recharge my creative batteries.

In romance: First up was a free Harlequin ebook that I downloaded onto my iPhone. This way I could pull it out for a few minutes while the kids were bowling, or whatever... It was a Blaze by Lesley Kelley and I think the title was Slow Hands. Enjoyable.
Then a Kresley Cole I picked up last year at Nationals. It was the third or fourth in a series so although I enjoyed it, I felt like I was late to the party.
This also happened with the next book (another Nationals freebee) a Kerrilyn Sparks book, The Undead Next Door. Lots of characters that I felt I should have already known...

Next was Kelley Armstrong's 2nd Nadia Stafford (hit woman) book called Made to Be Broken. I thoroughly enjoyed this strong heroine with a damaged past, a hidden life and who still maintains a 'normal' facade as lodge-owner in a touristy area of Ontario. I really must pick up K.A.'s paranormal books... one of these days... because I love her writing style. It's tight and flows beautifully, without the high, OTT drama that makes you feel like you're on a mind-blowing coaster. She has a great way of keeping the suspense up without making the reader exhausted.
And the characters are so interesting that you wish you knew them in real life.

Then I read Harlan Coben's Hold Tight. Coben never disappoints me. Like Armstrong, his style flows beatifully and he hooks you in the first chapter - ALWAYS. His characters are amazingly introspective and I find myself reading certain passages multiple times because his philosophies are enlightening and/or thought provoking. HIGHLY recommend.

Movies - another great way to creatively recharge.
Like many others, I succumbed to the Twilight DVD. Gotta say, it held up better on the small screen than it did on the big. Then I watched it again and it confirmed that yes, indeed, it was shit.
Duplicity, with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, had so much potential... but alas, it was long and convoluted and the sparkling chemistry I expected just wasn't really there. It wasn't a bad movie, just not as good as I had hoped.
But Monsters vs Aliens didn't disappoint! It was in 3D so that in itself was a trip, but it had some amusing lines and subtext. The kids loved it, therefore, so did I.

Why have I lost my blogging spark?

I used to love blogging...
Somewhere along the way, I lost my spark, lost my verve for the blogworld. And I think I know why. I'm not just a writer, but a reader, and I used to talk about books. A lot. Remember? #1 Ladies Detective Agency, Middlesex, anything by Eve Silver... and this past year, I've basically stopped reading.
(anything less than 3 books/month is a very dry spell)

Not altogether stopped... just stopped reading the kind of books I used to be drawn to. Nothing against Stephenie Meyer or JR Ward, but I haven't had a fix of Harlen Coben, Ridley Pearson, Minette Walters, Dennis Lehane, Sarah Dunant, etc. in ages.
I have an Ondaatje on my night stand with an in-tact spine and a thick layer of dust. Heck, I've got a Nelson DeMille HARDCOVER sitting under the tv remote and I've not even read the jacket blurb. So not like me...

This happened for a couple of reasons (I think)

• My TBR pile is so big I'm scared of it. Yes. True. Totally intimidated. What if I pick the wrong book??
• I have very prolific friends. I LOVE reading what my friends write, not just because I want to be supportive, but because I really like their stuff. But trying to keep up with them... omg, it just is impossible AND to maintain my own writing. I'm behind on my Kimber Chin, my Christine d'Abo's, waaay behind on my Amy Ruttan's and my JK Coi's, Molly O'Keefe's, and and and... the Toronto Romance Writers are too successful for my own good.
• I have a hard time reading romance and writing romance (clouds my brain, my storyline and I lose the character voices in my head).
• I've been watching more television - eek. Mindless drivel stuff that I shouldn't even bother with, but I feel like I have to keep my brain cells relatively uncluttered because my own novel has all these threads and bits I need to hang on to.

The solution for my blogging woes? READ MORE.
Sounds easy but sadly, I must stay away from the genres/sub-genres I dabble in (just while I'm finishing my novel - not forever!)
I think I'll turn to literary... or maybe CLASSICS!! Yes, I'm sure there are tons of classics I've never read. Like Austen. I have NEVER read an Austen (insert gasp). I know... I hate myself.

My immediate 'to read' list includes:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by GGM (just started)
2. Divisidero by Ondaatje
3. As the Crow Flies by Ann Marie MacDonald
4. *Pride and Predjudice (Amy's suggestion)
5. *Emma (Amy's suggestion)
6. *Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery (M.)
7. *Possession by A.S. Byatt (TL)
8. ?
9. ?
10. The Gatehouse by Nelson DeMille (saving this one 'til last)

The floor is hereby open for suggestions. Please help me fill in my spring/summer reading list.

Reading - A Personal History, and an Unofficial Poll

The bookshelf meme of the other day got me thinking about my reading habits.

I began picking books from the adult section of the Mary J.L. Black Library when I was 13; there was no 'young adult' books back then, or certainly none that I was aware of. One of the first 'grown up' books I ever read was Sydney Sheldon's Rage of Angels, and I was blown away. Up to that point, I'd been reading the sappy 'tween' books, "Rachel hated being 14. Too young to date, too old for childish games AND she had a crush on her best friends younger brother... blah blah yawn blah". In Rage of Angels, I'd finally found a book that moved me emotionally while keeping pace with my need to consume plots and characters, and something that took me more than a wintery Saturday afternoon to read from cover to cover.
I carried RoA around with me for weeks, propping between the cover of my biology book, science text, or whatever class I was in (yeah, my grades reflected it)...

After reading everything Sidney Sheldon had to offer, I moved on to category romances - checking new Harlequins out as soon as they hit the circular racks. (Probably a good thing the Blazes weren't around then, 'cause those would have been one hell of an education for a small-town gal like me *snicker*)

I grew bored of Harlequin by age 17 and moved to Danielle Steele (The Promise *sigh* - I still remember Nancy & Michael. This is the first book that made me cry.), then eventually Johanna Lyndsay, Kathleen Woodiwiss (r.i.p.) and a few other romance divas.
Then it stopped. I couldn't pick up another romance or bodice ripper. I moved completely away from anything with any hint of romance and dived feet first into anything with espionage, guns or the cold war. Ludlum was my new god.
Fast forward, I went into mainstream and literary. I actually sort of privately scoffed at romance *ducking*.

My point? I've come full circle. On my bookshelf you'll find a little taste of everything, from Harlequin Superromances to literary - historical non-fiction, vampires, dukes and Borgias - courtroom dramas, suspense and chick lit.

What's important to me now is looking for a GOOD book - a well-written, well-plotted story that moves me emotionally and presents characters that I can relate to on some level and a believable plot (or convincingly unbelievable!). Now, where have a heard that before?
I've come full-circle as my tastes and expections matured. And if anything, I've learned not to shun a book because of it's genre or, to borrow a cliche, never judge a book by it's cover.

Unofficial Poll: How have YOUR reading habits changed over the years?

And writers - go check out Amy's musings on plotter vs pantser at Six Degrees of Sexy...

Empty Head Syndrome

I can't read. I can't write.

Let's deal with the 'read' part first.
If you've been keeping track, you'll know that I finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides two nights ago, and you'll already know how I felt about that book. Here's the problem: When you read a REALLY GREAT book, you want it to stay with you awhile. At least I do. You want the characters to live on, if only in your head, for as long as the memory stays strong.
At the same time, I'm feeling the pressure of the 50 book challenge. The stack of paperbacks on my TBR shelf are calling. I even picked up two or three, struggled through the first few pages and discarded them in disgust. They just can't compare to the richness and depth of Middlesex! I also don't really want the Middlesex folks to leave me just yet and once I'm into another novel, - poof! It's all over for Desdemona, Callie, et al.

Let's move to the 'write' part.
Scanning the old day planner at the beginning of the month, I quickly realized that I wasn't going to get much writing done. Too many things happening -- kids out of school, writing course, Destiny by Design edits, TRW newsletter, appointments filling up my 'available time', etc. Rather than get my knickers in a knot about the time that I don't have, I made a conscious decision to let things ride for a bit. So here I am with a few hours to kill and I absolutely cannot find my focus!! I can't decide whether to ride the wave of the sale of Destiny by Design and write another erotic romance (I've so many ideas!!), or if I should concentrate on my novel WIP. Or should I revisit the pirate WIP (which I've abandoned).

Ah, hell. I'm going to clean the bathroom. . .