Reading, 'Riting, but no 'Rithmetic

What do you expect from an English major? I avoid the latter like a real vampire avoids the glittery vegetarians from Forks, WA.

Guess it's time to dust this thing off, eh? Beyond time, if I'm to judge by the IM's and emails. I have no explanation for the sudden rash of nothingness around here. I've been trying and trying to write. Mostly it's a matter of time, somehow I've just run out of it--I end each afternoon or each work shift (the best times for me to get anything done) clinging to the hope that I can put pen to paper/fingers to keyboard and knock something out. On the rare occasions that I've been able to find the time, I haven't been able to justify blogging or revising the novels--instead, I feel compelled to pour effort into fruitless letters to congressmen, state legislators, and other public officials. The cruel twist to contemporary American government is that we all feel that we need to put our $.02 in--and honestly feel like we're doing our duty and making a difference--when it's practically impossible to believe that our representativesrulers give a rip about what we think.

Frankly, I think there's a new version of Daylight Savings at work--where we actually get less time in each day. Don't ask my why Congress would want something like that, but I bet it makes as much sense as Daylight Savings in the 21^st Century does.

Anyway, what's been going on with me in the meantime?

It's pretty easy to see from the nature of the posts 'round here lately that I'm reading more than usual (which most people who know me would think is pretty near impossible). I wouldn't have thought so myself, truth be told, mostly seems like I'm just going like normal, but I'm continuing last year's experiment in tracking my books and I'm about 20 books ahead of where I was at this time last year. I have been reading more detective/mystery or urban fantasy novels than typical for me (which is really saying something), I've tried to branch out and read some "non-genre" stuff which has been so uniformly dreadful that I almost want to devote myself exclusively to hardboiled novels until Jonathan Tropper's next publication date.

While my reading has spiked, I am 10 movies behind last year--been watching a lot more TV on DVD, tho. I actually think I'm spending more time watching stuff than I did last year (which is probably not good for my gray matter long term) and yet my reading and writing (these last two weeks notwithstanding) have gone up. Go figure.

I have had hit a brick wall on the novel revision front--the NaNoWriMo 2009 novel has been tossed into a dark corner to probably never be looked at again. The small problems I knew existed in the idea/manuscript kept getting larger and worse the more I worked on them or thought them through to the extent that I'm pretty sure if I spent more time working on it I'd be left with nothing. Which is a real shame, even if I'm totally disenchanted with the story now, the central cast of characters has really endeared themselves to me, I just have to find a more suitable home for them.

Not that any of you can tell, but I've also been hard at work at getting myself into a shape slightly less like a blob. Between better (not great) eating habits and exercise (the culprit behind a lot of the no time for writing), I've dropped 20 lbs. so far this year. If only there was a way to translate similar effort and willpower into filling in the thinning hair...

so that's that, will try to keep things regular for awhile--at least until my next dry spell.