Words

After about a year of mostly flufftastic literature (i.e. bodice rippers and teenage vampire love stories), the prime exception being Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, it is time again to use my brain. I'm currently reading (Life and Fate is still there, I'm plugging along) The Assault by Harry Mulisch. It is making me think again and this is good. Life and Fate should inspire thoughtful analysis, but I started reading it when I was still in mental hibernation and find myself reading for story and character more so than insight and meaning. Hopefully, now that I'm awake, I'll get more from the second half of the book.

I have decided to read Shakespeare this summer. All the plays. Even Romeo and Juliet which shall be put off until last because I don't really care much for that one because of the story (okay, I loathe it). My mom has a heavy tome from her college days "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare". It will require reading at a table for I don't believe I can hold the book upright for any length of time nor set it in my lap for fear of cutting off circulation to my legs. Still. It is every play in one place and I don't have to buy anything.

I currently have an aversion to bookstores. My stack of unread new and borrowed books is a heavy presence and has finally reached guilt-inducing status. The Assault was pulled from this tower, thus have I begun to chip away at my guilt. I do go to Borders once a month, in the last week of each month to pick up the latest copy of F1Racing, but I do not stray upstairs to where they have books. Yes, they do have books downstairs, but the chocolate at the register is a greater temptation.

My brain is waking up in other areas, as well. My Nanowrimo idea from last year is still appealing and, now that I've found a placed to set my story, I'm thinking about it every day. The setting is central California as I remember it from childhood. My memory tends to mist things into a loveliness that might not have ever existed, so it still isn't a real place. Nonetheless, setting the story in a place I would like to spend more time has resparked my desire to write. I know I will, one far distant day, finish this thing.