Friday, October 4, 2024

Friday Feature: The Library Pile


 I'm delighted to be back to writing Friday Features! (For more on this journey, see Tuesday's blog post :-)

Up this week: the library pile.

While I'm still not on the every-other-week library schedule I was on when my daughter was small, I'm getting there much more frequently than I have in a long time. The piles of books I bring home are also noticeably smaller but, since I have plenty of books on my bookshelves (and Kindle) at home, I have plenty of choices, which is what brought me back to Friday Features. 

In this week's stack, Run, Rose, Run is what brought me to the library in the first place. I saw a write-up about it in People (which is a book recommendation source more often than I care to admit), so I reserved it. While at the library to pick it up, I snagged the other three books from the bookshelves just inside the door holding the newest acquisitions (as you can see from the stickers).

Talk about temptation.

I started with Make Space for Happiness, which is a book about why we have clutter and what it replaces. It's written in a very approachable style, with a bit of tough love interwoven among the insights. As someone who loves all things organizing, I'm looking forward to finishing it.

Penny Chic grabbed my attention because I've been on a personal style kick. It was a quick read (as expected) and older than I expected (2014) since I snagged it off the new arrivals shelf. Written by a fashion blogger for an audience substantially younger than I am, it didn't have much to offer me, but it was fun to page through and a very quick read.

Having saved the novels for last, I'm also looking forward to Happy Place by Emily Henry. I've liked some of her books, but not others, and I'm hoping this one falls into the former category. I'm in the mood for a good novel. 

What are you reading? Have you read any of these? Share your thoughts and/or recommendations in the comments :-)

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Filling Up on Literary Hors D'Oeuvres


 Last month, for the first time in several years, I didn't meet or exceed my goal of finishing two books by the end of the month. It wasn't that I wasn't reading. I'd been reading magazines and sampling other books, but not finishing them. Some didn't keep my interest, and others did, but I didn't get them finished. Re-discovering this blog from three years ago reminded me that some months -- or seasons -- are sampling seasons, and that it sometimes takes a lot of sampling to find a main course that's worth finishing.

A few weeks ago, after starting to read yet another new book, I embarked on a reading sampling. At the beginning of the month, frustrated by my habit of starting many books then taking forever to finish them, I'd set a goal to finish reading (any) one of the books I'd already started, along with (any) one of the books I'd started listening to on Audible by the end of October. 

Why a reading sampling? Wasn't that the opposite of what I was trying to achieve? Actually, it was a step toward it. My mission was to read excerpts from several of the books on the small shelf beside the family room sofa (my "actively reading" shelf) and determine the most likely candidate for an October 31 completion. In addition, I'd relocate anything I picked up that didn't pique my interest. 

It was an interesting idea. Nearly everything on the shelf is non-fiction, so there was no mixing of characters and plots, something that would have been have interesting in a completely different (and most likely confusing) way. As I scanned the shelves, I already had a front-runner in mind -- a book interesting enough to keep my attention, with enough pages read that a month-end finish was realistic -- but I was open to new possibilities. 

With only two weeks to go, I quickly eliminated several of the shelf denizens. More than one possible selection was too dense to be a contender; others looked good, but hadn't yet been started, so they didn't make the cut. 

Or so I thought. 

I picked up a book recently relocated from another reading pile, one with a bookmark stuck in about halfway through. I quickly realized that although I'd skimmed some of it because it had content relevant to one of my classes, I hadn't actually started reading it. Had I realized that, I'd have left it on the shelf.

But it was too late. Intoxicated by its new book smell and alluring subject matter, I was powerless. I flipped back to the beginning, starting my third new book in two days.

I think I might have a problem.

Needless to say, the newcomer quickly captured my attention. Now I have two contenders. One with fewer pages remaining (the obvious choice) and the one I held in my hand. And did I mention I started another one this morning? And yet another yesterday?

I can quit any time. Really. (Starting new books, that is. I have no intention of quitting reading).

By the end of the evening's sampling, I had narrowed it down to two books. I want to savor both yesterday's new book or this morning's new book more than a two-week reading window will allow, so they're on the reading list, but not the read-in-the-next-two-weeks reading list.

Which book did I choose? Did I finish? Did I meet my goal?

Image by Rousseau from Pixabay
Fast forward a week, to when I finished the Audible book (Michael J. Fox's No Time Like the Future). Mission #1 accomplished. 

Fast forward another week, to the last week of the month. On Thursday, I finished You're Not Listening 
by Kate Murphy. Mission accomplished, with three days to spare. 

I wonder what I'll read in November. 

I think it's time to sample the contenders.

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Reinstatement


 Once upon a time there was a blogger who retired early. With time on her hands, she committed (some might say overcommitted) to a regular blogging schedule and, in the beginning, it was good. She wrote regularly and the commitment she made to posting regularly gave structure to her days, while keeping her brain and fingers nimble.

Then, the retired blogger took on some outside (paying) work. At first, it was manageable but, over time, it grew and grew. Before she knew it, she was struggling to find time to come up with topics, let alone the energy to string intelligent sentences together. Her posts trickled off and she was sad, but she was also tired. 

Tired won. 

Some of her favorite posts to write were the Friday Features. Originally, she did them on a weekly basis. Then, as life got busy, writing about reading presented more of a challenge, not to mention detracting from the whole reading thing in the first place. The blogger tried other Friday ideas, but they never worked as well on the page as they did in her imagination.

A little while later, the blogger, who also liked to read, discovered that her bookshelves were bulging. In an effort to save money and keep books from overrunning the house, she returned to her local library. This action, as you can imagine, expanded her to-be-read pile, something that had both advantages and disadvantages.

One advantage was that increasing her reading led the blogger back to her Friday Features. As is often the case in fables and fairy tales, she'd learned her lesson about overcommitting and opted to re-establish this feature on an every-other-week basis. 

The blogger, who is happy to be back to writing about books, hopes that her readers will join her on the porch swing for these Friday Features, and that she, her readers and her Friday Features will live happily ever after.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Sometimes I Wonder

MetsikGarden via Pixabay


I'm a big fan of The Big Bang Theory. At the end of each episode, creator Chuck Lorre posts vanity cards.

The other night, I was watching a rerun and the card at the end was a list: Sometimes I wonder.

That got me thinking. 

Here are a few things I wonder:
  • How does anyone ever get to inbox zero?
  • Are Type A organizers' homes always that perfectly tidy or do they have Monica Geller closets?
  • What impact will AI have on writers, writing, and books?
  • When I retire for real, will I be bored?
  • Are shopping malls gone for good, or will they have a resurgence?
  • Will I find a home for my novel? 
  • How much money do I really need for retirement?
  • Who will be our next president?
  • Could I ever leave this house and live somewhere else?
  • Why do bad things happen to good people?
  • Why do good things happen to bad people?
  • What is heaven like?
I'm sure that I'll think of several more as soon as I post this blog and, admittedly, some are too personal to post. 

How about you? What do you wonder?

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Black and White


 I'd planned my outfit ahead of time. All I needed to do was choose a white shirt to go with my black-and-white skirt.

And this is what that process looked like.

I'd like to say this is the whole collection, but that would be a lie. 

Surely I sorted through this pile and got rid of a few when I got home from work, right?

Well, that's half right. I did sort through them.... 

Right before I hung them all up and put them back in my closet, beside the group of black shirts that's approximately the same size. 

In my defense, I did consider each shirt before returning it to the closet. All the shirts were white, but they varied in length, sleeve length, and style.

Hence, my trial-and-error styling.

I really do try to avoid keeping clothes that aren't "just right." But, I also have a tendency to buy multiples of shirts that are "just right," especially when they're black or white because they go with everything. 

Or so I thought. But, as it turns out, when it comes to getting dressed for work, the choices are not always black and white.

Even when they are.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Finding a New Way In


 In February 2022, I embarked on The Writer 28 Day Word Challenge, which was part of my pursuit of a balance between creativity and productivity. It started me on the path I wrote about in yesterday's post, so I thought I'd share a post from that experiment today.

Today's word was "fizzle" and that's exactly what my writing did.

But that's okay. One of my purposes in taking on this challenge was to write every day and, just a week into this project, I've been successful in that pursuit. One day, I barely made it in under the wire, but I made it.

Another goal was to shake things up -- to boost my creativity and come at my writing from a new angle. So, when the word "fizzle" conjured up nothing useful, I went a different way, using the word as an acrostic and brainstorming as many interesting words as I could to go with each letter. I may never use them for any specific purpose, but it was fun playing with language. 

This word challenge is part of a bigger picture. This year, I'm inviting creativity in. I still have projects with finite goals, but focusing on productivity and goal-oriented writing have left me stymied and in danger of losing all the joy that writing can bring. It was time to rediscover the love of the written word that made me want to write in the first place.

So I'm doing something new. I'm investigating sketchnoting, podcasting, and word-a-day challenges, including the craze du jour, Wordle. I'm creating graphics for my Facebook group page and wrapping my writing in broader pursuits, hoping that new approaches will feed the muse, who seems to have grown tired of the steady diet of closed loop tasks I keep giving her. 

Doing something new gives us the luxury of being more playful. Stepping out of our usual tasks and stepping back from our usual targets gives us the freedom to worry less about being perfectly productive. And ironically, if past experience is any indication, freeing ourselves of the need to be perfectly productive can, in the end, lead us to approach the same old tasks with a brand new energy.

As winter persists before tiptoeing slowly into spring, I want to bring in my own sunlight. To do this, I'll be on the lookout for new creative pursuits, or opportunities to involve myself in old ones, with the common denominator being the freedom to explore and create instead of persist and finish. I'm not giving up on my finite projects; I'm just making them a part of something bigger that I hope will nourish and sustain them -- and me. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Creative Endeavors

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

 Creative energy is a funny thing, and something that's 
been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I won't set the world on fire with my skills in physics and calculus, but when it comes to creativity, I find that the older I get, the more important it becomes. 

In my teens and twenties, it was theatre and crafts. And writing.

In my thirties, it was making our house into a home, and crafts with my daughter. And writing.

Over the next several decades, writing became my primary creative pursuit -- so much so that many of the others faded away. No more counted cross stitch. Or finger painting. Or coloring books — oh, wait -- I do have a few of those. 

But I never seem to find time for them.

From time to time, I think about auditioning for a show again, wondering, as I always have, how I'd find the time for rehearsals and all of the additional work that goes into learning lines and songs and blocking and choreography. Not only would some of the time have to come out of my writing time, but, in addition, I fear that my creative energy would be sapped because acting and writing both draw their power from the same source.

Though writing still holds a place of honor in my creative pursuits, the business of writing drains me. Pouring all of my energy into a book is fun when I'm doing it but then, once that work is complete, my control slips away as the final steps in the process depend on decisions made by editors and agents and publishers.

Fortunately, aging has brought me full circle -- or perhaps beyond, if that's possible. Several years ago, when the writing got hard, I began prioritizing creativity over productivity. Unafraid of making mistakes because I was, after all, just playing, I began dabbling in sketchnoting, then sketching/drawing. I wasn't creating anything I wanted to share with the world, and so there was no pressure. Just a playful way of finding a back door into the creativity that seemed to be difficult to access when it came to words on the page.

Then, an article in a newsletter mentioned trash (think office trash, not kitchen trash) collage, and I rediscovered the love of an art form I'd played with in high school and college. Using words and images clipped from magazines, I began playing with color, size, placement, texture, and depth, working first on one collage at a time, then on multiple collages, each with a theme of its own, most likely clear only to me. 

For most of my life, I never thought of myself as artistic. I can sing and act, and I can write, but those were the extent of my creative capabilities.

Or so I thought. 

The beauty of art for art's sake is that it doesn't have to be perfect. Collaging and sketching and experimenting with lettering relax me. And, since I'm doing all these things for an audience of one, they can be lovely, flawed, or a complete disaster because it's the making that matters. And the making is entirely (and literally) in my hands, which is a great counterbalance to the business end of writing in which I currently find myself.

It's funny, actually. I think I've grown more cautious overall as I've gotten older but, when it comes to creative expression, the opposite is true. I keep finding more things to dabble in, and the more I dabble, the more I trust my eye, and the less I care about the opinions of others. And that last one is a brand new experience for me. 

Where do you dabble? In the garden? In the kitchen? With words, paints, music, or clay? With clothing or wall coverings or needle and thread? Wherever you do it and whatever tools you use, I hope you can do it playfully and lose yourself in it in a way that refreshes you.

One main reason that adulting is overrated is because we no longer prioritize play. Interestingly (to me, at least) is that the older I get, the more I realize that's exactly what matters.