The Strange Beast Called November

It's November, everyone! That lovely month of good food and festive feeling and not quite hating winter's guts yet.

Who is doing NaNoWriMo? Who is wishing they were doing NaNoWriMo? Who is lamenting that NaNoWriMo even exists? (I see you, Patrice.)

Personally I've just finished editing a final-ish draft of a new book, and I'm not quite ready to write the next one, in a month or otherwise. So no NaNo for me. Instead I find myself in the challenging but optimistic position of not knowing which of many tasks to take on first.

Exhibit A: Reading!

If I'm not writing a book this month, maybe I should take some time to read a few extra books. I started off strong with Maggie Stiefvater's The Dream Thieves (which was just as good as I was hoping), and now I've gone and picked up four more books at the library today. Three are by authors I already know and love (including Clariel by Garth Nix!!!). The other was an impulse grab. If I do nothing but read, maybe I can get through all of them before they're due in two weeks. But that's not likely because of...

Exhibit B: Research!

I absolutely have a new book in mind to get started on writing, but the trouble is, there are a lot of historical elements that need investigation. What do 17th century Holland and 1920s Appalachia have in common? Well I'm not spilling the beans on the answer yet, so I'll have to leave you in suspense. If you do have an answer of your own though, leave it in the comments. I'd love to hear it!

Exhibit C: *mumble mumble*

[Super secret project here.]

And if that weren't enough, there is, after all, a holiday at the end of the month. Happy November!

Catch Up, Part 1

High time for a bit of catch up, right? In the haze of no sleep I about gave up on blogging, I admit. There was a bit of a rough patch for four long months until we figured out what was causing us to be up every 45 minutes all night every night. But that's behind us now (hurrah!), so here's what's been happening while I've been gone.

Baby

He's really been the front and center of everything for the past eight months. What was life like before him? I hardly remember. It's funny--my husband reminded me that we're coming up on our one year house-versary, and that seems impossible. Didn't we just move in? But the baby being eight months is no surprise. I feel like he's been a fixture of my life forever.

Like every baby he's had his personal highs and lows. He has one tooth. (Speaking of which, when my cousin was learning fractions he called 1/2 one twoth. I look forward to similar adorableness with the baby--not that he isn't absolutely the cutest thing already.) Last week he had his first major cold. He's the most photogenic creature in existence, and I wish I could show you proof, but for his privacy we don't post photos online. The latest cannot-believe-how-cute-you-are thing: when he's happy he tilts his head back and forth like the cutest bobble-head ever.

Life

One of the awesome things about being a new mom is that suddenly I have lots of automatic friends--other new moms! I've met some pretty fantastic people that way. Including the mom of my son's best buddy (the boys are three days apart). She's lots of fun to hang with, and she has the awesome job of house-flipping. She recently took me out to see the house she's currently working on. Lots of potential, but it definitely needs her loving touch. Can't wait to see it when it's done!

Reading

I'm continuing my adult fiction streak. Most recently Vicious and now on to Words of Radiance. Can I just say... VE Schwab can write a seriously good everything! Words turn to magic under her pen. Or something. Always very impressed. I will read anything she writes.

Writing

Started querying The Never Silent. Have some other things in the works.

More on the writing font soon though. In the meantime, I'm off to spend some more of my day teaching the little one about colors... or maybe just watching him be a curious little eight month old.

On Reading

Do you ever feel that you can't call a particular activity “working” if it's something you love doing? I certainly think that way most of the time. I have to tell myself not to feel guilty about spending time reading regularly, because it's too much fun for me to believe that it's good for my writing.

But it's not just good for writing, it's necessary. Several things are vital to writing growth. Honest critiques help point writers in a positive direction. Learning the disciplines of dedication and self-motivation keep writers from stagnating. But critiques and discipline on their own don't quite stabilize a writer's progression. Reading is the essential third leg.

When I first started writing I didn't appreciate how much I needed to read, particularly in my genre. Then two years ago at The Virginia Festival of the Book, a panelist made a comment about the necessity of reading that finally clicked. A couple months later at a book signing Melissa Marr reiterated the point, telling those of us listening to read books from every section of the library—books on pottery and poetry, love and lore, architecture and arthropods.

Since then the library has been my best friend. Until two years ago I had purchased nearly all of the books I read, meaning if I didn't want to break the bank, I couldn't read nearly enough. Now library books are the majority of what I read (though not all—the new kindle has quite a few books already). Just today I picked up How to Be Popular by Meg Cabot and How Not to Be Popular by Jennifer Ziegler. (When I saw them both I couldn't resist.)

The best part about reading—aside from getting to do something that is awesome fun—is seeing how much it improves my writing. I can see how much more progress I've made in the past two years than in the years before that. Couldn't ask for more.

And now, a book is calling. Time to go snuggle up and enjoy it.