January Titles

I've decided to catalogue what books I read this year, starting, of course, with January.  This month's titles include The Alchemist; Thirteen Reasons Why; The Bell Jar; and A Year of Writing Dangerously: 365 Days of Inspiration & Encouragement.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: A short tale of a boy on a mission to achieve his life's dream.  I had heard that this book was supposed to be life-changing, revealing secrets of the world and life unto its readers.  Not to be snobby or uppity, but I only sort of enjoyed it.  I felt like I had already been introduced to the life secrets and ways of living that the book discussed.  That was disappointing, but all in all, it was a good read.  Very easy, fast-paced, to the point.  I don't regret having read it-- it just wasn't the life-changer I was expecting and maybe even hoping for.  However, the introduction hit home for me, in a very powerful way, and that made the whole book completely worth it.

Thireteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher: A girl records thirteen tapes of herself explaining her reason for suicide, then mails them to those thirteen people whom she considers semi-responsible for her death.  The sense of guilt was overwhelming within the pages.  What I took away most from it, though, was the sense of how we're all interconnected, a topic very close to my own heart.  The smallest actions can have the biggest effects on people.  Probably should have read this book in high school, as that seemed to be the reading level, but I still appreciated that it made me stop and think.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath:  Ooooooh.  OOOOH.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this book-- a nearly autobiographical description of the main character's slow descent into madness-- but I LOVED it.  This book had me trying to figure out if maybe I weren't just as crazy.  Sylvia Plath's writing describes the descent in such a subtle, sensible way that you can barely tell the difference between Esther "normal" and Esther "crazy."  I practically ate this text right off the page, it was such a delicious story of madness and healing and slipping and finding yourself and losing yourself.  I highly recommend this one, if you're not afraid to get down and dirty with what it meant to be a woman in the 50s who wasn't quite right-- or was she?

A Year of Writing Dangerously by Barbara Abercrombie:  FAVORITE.  365 short "entries" about writing, encouragement, inspiration,  blunt acknowledgement of difficulties, stress, joy-- and a quote from an author tied in to each entry.  I am so in love with this book.  If you are a writer, consider yourself a writer, want to be a writer, or have any affiliation with writing, stop what you're doing, get in your car, and go find a copy of this book.  This book came at the perfect time in my life.

I have always felt different, abnormal, and weird for the things that go on in my headspace.  But this book reassured me in the most peaceful way.  It confirmed that the things I think, do, love, cry over, enjoy, stress about, etc.-- it's normal, because I see things through the eyes of a writer.  It confirmed in my mind for me that this is TRULY what I want to do with my life, and it gave me the courage and strength I needed to move forward.  It made me excited about coming home, exhausted after work, and squeezing in even just minutes of writing before bed.  I read this book greedily, in a week, instead of an entry a day for a year.  I needed the inspiration and comfort in large gulps, not doses.

I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from it, but honestly, 90% of them resonated so strongly with me that all I can say is to just go out and read the book for yourself.  It calmed me in a way that brought tears of joy to my eyes-- that's how happy and relieved I was to have the author tell me that not only is living this way normal, it's wonderful.  It's scary and exciting and dangerous and bizarre and looked down upon and praised and lonesome and fulfilling-- it's part of being a writer.

Looking forward to whatever titles pass under my eyes in February.  Read on!

Nola

I hear you easy in the morning

when your notes slip gold from your trumpet
and slide down the empty underbelly
of the interstate on-ramp,
floating fresh and clean and pure
above the dirty wet pavement

You are the grit beneath
my bitten fingernails
that I can’t ever scrub away,
while the homeless wilt beneath
that great big boiling sun,
under the unseeing glazed eyes
of dead men forever immortalized in stone,
the statues high above on sturdy columns

And it’s all so sad and beautiful,
just desolate enough to completely break my heart,
but enough shades of beauty
to keep me under this paperweight,
and you and I both know
that there are countless tiny reasons,
both beautiful and sad,
that hold me down, against my will,
but completely my own choice. 

Starting new chapters... literally.

I haven't made a New Year's resolution in... years.  I don't like them at all.

I think it's an enormous amount of unreasonable, and often vague, pressure to put on a person.  I know myself well enough to understand that I cannot stick to a goal for an entire year unless it is something concrete that I can take day by day, like my One Good Thing a Day journal.  Perhaps other people can handle year-long resolutions better than I, but I am fully aware of my own inability and am not ashamed of it.  It's just how I function as a person.

However, I am a firm believer in setting goals to help one's self down the road of self-improvement.  I try to set smaller goals (which I've talked about in this blog before), even daily goals just to test myself and push myself out of my comfort zone.  The longest my goals have ever been set for were semester-long goals, but now that I've graduated, those semesterly goals are over.  I need a new version of my semi-long-term goals to move myself forward.

That being said, I am, in fact, challenging myself to a vague, year-long goal, though not quite a resolution.  My NaNoWriMo project has been sitting practically untouched since November 30.  I got my 50k+ words, successfully completing the challenge (and accomplishing a personal goal, score!), but I did not finish the actual novel.  I gave myself December "off" with the intention of working on it not when I could, but when I felt like it, which turned out to be less than I expected, for various reasons.  December was an extremely difficult month for me, and I do not feel bad about having let my project sit without my attention.

But I do want to move forward with it.  I just don't know how to break it up into bite-sized goals because I'm not familiar with this type of thing.  So I'm giving myself the entire year to come up with an edited first draft of my NaNo novel.  That's right-- I hope to have a first draft of a novel in my hot little hands by December 2013!  That's such a big thing for me... a tangible product of a life-long dream.  I've been thinking of it for years, and now, it's time to act upon it and make it a reality.

Is a year too little?  Too long?  I guess I'll find out!  Starting a new chapter in my life!  Or rather... starting several new chapters.  A whole novel's worth.