Why do you choose to read the books you read? How often is it just because that’s what you feel like?
It’s been a while since that was the main reason I chose a book, but I’m finding that these days it’s the only successful way I actually finish anything. When my time and attention have a lot competing for them (children, work, housework, chronic illness) reading has to fit into the small gaps left over, and if a book doesn’t manage to lodge in my brain and remind me to pick it up again at every opportunity, it will take me a lot longer. I need to be invested.
The below was originally posted as a thread on Twitter, I’ve decided to add it here as well
I’ve been reading again this week which is a relief because my brain’s just not been in that mode for a while. It’s got me thinking about parenting and reading.
The main thing parenting changed was that I needed to lean very much into ebooks. I almost always have my phone with me, whether I’m trapped under a sleeping baby, sitting doing two million repetitions of ‘watch me!’, have an unexpectedly long waiting room sit.
This book had been on my radar for a while, although for some reason I’d not realised it was written by Bella Mackie whose Jog On Journal I used when I briefly had a go at taking up running; for some reason I’d thought it was written by a man. When it was chosen for a work book club recently I decided it was time to give it a go.
How to Kill Your Family follows serial killer Grace Bernard. Raised by a single mother and then bereaved and abandoned by her millionaire father, Grace vows revenge on him from a young age. The novel is her first person account of her crimes, written from prison after being convicted of a murder she didn’t actually commit.
Hi, internet. It’s been a while since I blogged here.
I’ve been away for a while, for the same reason I’ve been away before – in 2021 I had my second baby, and being pregnant and then having a newborn are exhausting, and priorities have to be chosen. Blogging is something I do for fun, so it drops off the list fairly quickly.
I’m currently about to return to work again after being off on maternity leave, and I’ve built into the new routine some time for writing. Primarily this will be about finishing my novel (finally, please, finally) but occasionally I’m hoping to write a little post here about what I’m up to. I’ll be on Instagram and Twitter to chat writing and books as well. On here I’m expecting to be writing some reviews, some posts about the writing process. We’ll see.
I think there are few of us for whom 2021 hasn’t been odd so far, to say the least. A lot of 2020 feels like lost time, passed in survival mode. I say this with a keen awareness that I’ve been very lucky – nobody I know has been badly ill with Covid-19.
The first four months of 2021 have also passed in a flash, but it seems different now. For me at least, it’s become less about anticipating what’s coming and more about living in the here and now. In January we discovered we’re expecting our second child – a wonderful but equally terrifying thing, given the circumstances. Early pregnancy is exhausting, especially combined with caring for an energetic two year old. All that alongside general pandemic-time anxiety, which became more interesting once I cam off my antidepressants.
I did some rewriting and some new writing today. I decided to change the perspective, person and tense of my prologue – it’s the kind of change that can be incredibly intimidating in case it doesn’t work and you’re left with two versions that aren’t right. But it did work, and that is incredibly satisfying. I’ve also written one of three ‘interludes’ which will pop up between Parts of the novel, in the same voice as the prologue. It’s hard getting to know a new narrator whose voice I’m using for such a small amount of words, and giving it a distinctive enough flavour to be worth interrupting the rest – but I really feel like what I’ve written earns its place.
Any challenges?
Other than the usual challenges of writing while parenting a toddler, not really. Yay!
I loved writing my MyNoWriMo posts in December, and while January has been slow writing-wise, I want to keep these up. Apart from anything else I find them quite motivating as part of a writing routine.
Word Count
Year to date – 2141
Total Project Word Count
62,372
How I felt about my writing
Although I’ve slowed down, I am feeling positive. I have a confidence in me that this book is good, and is a story worth telling that heaven forfend someone might actually want to read.
Any challenges?
January has been a weird month in that it felt about eleventy million years long, and for a lot of it I’ve been exhausted and felt like I was running on fumes. Between work, being a mum and regular hospital appointments, and reading because it was good for keeping my sanity, writing has just slipped down the priority list again. I can feel the end of this book though, just beyond the reach of my fingertips, and I am desperate to get there.
So I’m trying to get some routine back into February again. I’ve been invited back to a writing group I attended a few years ago (meeting virtually of course) so I’m excited to join that and let it give me some motivation. Being around other writers always relights that fire to keep creating.
Early in January I did also manage to fit writing into small moments using my phone and a Bluetooth keyboard, but interestingly I found that what I wrote needed a lot more editing afterwards – so I’m not sure how good a tactic it is if I’ve got other options.
I love the show Jane the Virgin, the protagonist of which is a writer. There’s a moment in the last season where Jane’s father walks in and asks her how the writing’s going and she says, “still on a roll”, and he replies, “Keep rolling, my brilliant daughter”. When I have written so far this year, I felt like that.
Historical literary fiction is at its best in Fitzgerald’s exploration of the early life of the romantic poet and philosopher Novalis. The language is a perfect comforting cushion to indulge in as the light starts to return in February.
If you’ve not read it yet, this is a perfect sumptuous book to kick off your year’s reading. Miller’s takes one of mythology’s little understood characters – often reduced to a cameo mention in other heroes stories – and shows us her life, from how she comes to hold her distinct values and her discovery and refinement of her craft. This book balances beautiful writing with spectacular character portrayals and an irresistibly pacy narrative.
Happy. Sad. Inspired. Joyful. Satisfied. Everything.
I’m really encouraged to have passed 60k today, which means I am getting closer to the end. My prediction is that the whole book should be between 80 and 90,000 words.
Any challenges?
So the main challenge today has again been managing to actually sit down a write while being demanded for games by a toddler, or just required to stand within a foot’s distance while he plays his own games. But the writing itself is working so well – it moves and all the elements I need to hit to make this story cohere and feel satisfying, to interweave and have a satisfying thematic conclusion, are just making sense to me.
In the TV show Jane the Virgin, which I love, there’s a moment in the last season when Jane’s father comes in and asks her how her writing’s going and she says “Still on a roll.” He replies, “Keep rolling, my brilliant daughter.” Today I feel a bit like that.
Here’s hoping it lasts. I really do feel like the end is in sight with this book now – after a long time gathering strength in my head, it’s like a cresting wave which finally has to break on the sand.
And the thing I’m afraid of is that if I don’t catch this moment and let that wave go, then I’ll miss the moment and it won’t happen. Previous experience has taught me this might not be true, but what’s different this time is I have another idea tugging at my mind – characters who want me to start sketching scenes to get to know them, a structure which wants fleshing out. If I lose the thread of this story now, I will find myself picking up an entirely new one instead. But I’ve put so much work into this idea, and I’m not willing to let it fade away.
A Book or Ten 