Happy new year?

I had one of those Depths of Despair moments yesterday. You know what I mean. As someone who has never been truly depressed, I can sometimes imagine what it might be like during my fleeting moments in the Depths of Despair. It was about nine thirty last night. I was sitting in front of the TV, having watched the last acceptable hour of television on TiVo, having no interest in anything being shown on real-time television, and realizing that although we put away the Christmas decorations, the house was clean and I'd made a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, I was surely the laziest most boring girl in the entire world and this Sitting On My Ass-ness did not bode well for the new year. It came to a head when Phillip looked at me with concern and said, "Don't you have a book to read?" I shook my head and then he said, "Do you want to work on your story?" And I thought about my two writing projects hanging out on the USB drive upstairs, two things I have barely bothered to think about since I got pregnant, and then I started to cry. For it is horribly sad when one's extremely-not-interested-in-writing husband is the person who reminds you that you used to have this idea that you might, you know, write something some day.

GAH.

Anyway, first things first: I do not have a book to read. I have two Flannery O'Connor books I planned to read eventually (with Theresa, who I have not emailed back and probably hates me, therefore negating any chance that I will actually read these books, sorry Theresa!) and a mystery novel I just can't get into. So I am taking recommendations. The requirements are: does not make my brain hurt, is entertaining but not so entertaining that I can't put it down to go to sleep, does not beat me over the head with The Lesson and fits inside my purse. Go at it, Internet.

The second thing is that I am not one to be in the Depths of Despair for very long, so I scurried over to my bookshelf, picked out an Inspirational Novel and crawled into bed, determined to have my writerly instincts aroused by the stunning and glorious language. My Inspirational Novel was The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt, about an eleven-year-old girl who plays the cello, and is one of my favorite books ever.  Actually, nearly all of my favorite books are about eleven-year-old girls. Do you have one of those to recommend?

The third thing is that I am fully entrenched in Miss Snark's latest crap-o-meter. (Are you not familiar with Miss Snark? For shame!) 700 or so crazy people wrote 'hooks' for their unpublished novels and emailed them to Miss Snark for her comments. The hooks and comments were published on her blog and I have read each and every one of them. I know nothing about the publishing business, how to acquire an agent, what an agent actually does and how you convince anyone other than your mother that your work is not a steaming pile of you know what. But 700 hooks later, nearly all of which were unmercilessly ground into the dirt by Miss Snark's stiletto heel, I am anxious to get started on my own. The crap-o-meter may have taught me more than my 8 frillion creative writing classes combined. My two unfinished projects should probably be tossed into the incinerator by now, so I've started thinking about my third project, a combination of my favorite parts of the two other projects, something "hook-able", something someone other than my mother might want to read.

Whether or not I get off my butt and work on this new idea is up for debate. 

Last year I had a gigando list of resolutions (most of which I kept and/or achieved, thank you very much!), but this year I think my only resolution will be to write more. And by "write" I do not mean "blog". Sigh. Besides. If last night's Dance Dance Revolution competition taking place inside my abdomen was any indication, I don't have much time left before I'll be devoting most of my free time to chasing the most hyperactive kid in the universe up and down my stairs.

Comments

[Christina/Mrs Broccoli Guy]

Oh I know that feeling well... the I'm Not Accomplishing Anything feeling...of course you ought to be reminded rather often that just by sitting there you are in fact accomplishing something - that of growing a child, a thing which I think is the greatest of all accomplishments. But I too have the dream of writing a Great Novel (or even just a Publishable Novel) someday and so I am very impressed with your 2007 goal and the things you are already doing to achieve it. I on the other hand am telling myself that blogging is a good way of keeping my juices flowing until the day when I actually do have the time/attention span to Write For Real. (humor me, will ya?)

[Kate P]

De-lurking to confess I too have been sitting on a novel (and its half-finished sequel) for around a decade (mostly written my senior year of high school/freshman year of college). I fear it's too tame for adults but a little too sophisticated for young adults. Or maybe I have it the other way around. And of course I'm still re-re-writing sections, in my head before I get out of bed in the morning, on scraps of paper while I'm out. But not actually sitting down and writing, of course. It never happens, and I often wonder if it's b/c I was severely depressed when I wrote in my late teens and now that I'm not, I can't create. (And why did Target have to put Season 1 of Veronica Mars on sale?) This is probably the one goal I was missing from my goals for the year, so I'm glad you got me thinking about it!

These might be kinda old-school for your reading recommendations, but the first thing that came to mind was "Up from Jericho Tel" by E.L. Konigsburg. Konigsburg never talked down to young adult readers--very smart, very honest. Also (and I'm going really old school here) just about anything by Louisa May Alcott other than "Little Women." My favorite is "Eight Cousins." Happy New Year and happy reading, Maggie.

[Laura (Annslee JiaNa's Mama)]

Also delurking..I think you should enjoy the downtime. It is about to end for a while so just relax and let hubby bring you more ice cream : ) I am a former English teacher but my reading list these days only includes toddler ideas, adoption stuff and photography books...hmmmmm...I will be thinking for you ....