This has been my view of Bard for most of her life--the top half of her face visible, the bottom half covered by a new book every couple of days. For the past few weeks, this has been the view of pretty much everyone in the house. Well, with different faces, of course. The point is, we've all been doing a lot of reading.I've been reading every chance I can get. I just finished Stephen King's Bag of Bones and now I remember why I don't read King's novels. While the language itself is highly readable, the stories sometimes leave me feeling cheated and at a loss (with the exception of The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption). I didn't really gain anything from reading Bag of Bones, other than the realization that writing isn't all that much of a mystery. After reading King's On Writing, I know that the majority of his ideas come from nowhere, and his writing is almost entirely stream-of-consciousness "unearthing" of a story in the first draft. I guess I chose to read Bag of Bones because I wanted to see how he got from "here" (the birth of an idea) to "there" (the finished work). Now I know.
I'm also reading Teach Your Own by John Holt, which I've never before read. Have you? Did you like it? I've read other things--articles and so-forth--by Holt, but never a whole book of his. I like what I've read so far.
Another current read is Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler. Tyler is one of my favorite authors, but I'm having a hard time getting into this one. It may be the fact that I was simultaneously reading a Stephen King novel, full of jump-value and heart-racing pace. Maybe it's time to get into the lazy, meandering river of Tyler's writing again.
And speaking of lazy and meandering, I'm also reading The Poisonwood Bible. I know, it's ages old, but I'm just getting to it. I'm also listening to Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer in the car when I'm driving alone. I'm not sure if I love her writing yet, but I sure do enjoy the poetry of it.
For my sketching hobby, I've been thumbing through a few books on that craft as well. I've enjoyed our art class and am looking forward to the upcoming class on Portrait Drawing by the same author.
Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough time to do the things we want to do once you find them (quick...what's the name of that song???), so I'm trying to figure out where I'm going, what I'm doing, why I'm doing them. The writing bug keeps nipping at my brain, tingling in my fingers, but I simply don't seem to get the opportunities to sit down and WRITE with the exception of the minimal updates to this, my humble blog.
How do you do what you love? How do you carve out the time? Who do you have in your life that makes doing what you love possible? And do you help them do what they love, too?
Forever wondering...
