Maybe It Will Lead To More Writing

Some of you may have noticed that there's a pattern to the way I post on this blog. Most posts fall into one of four categories -- articles related to writing, my musings on various parts of the craft, book reviews, and miscellanies (quotes, links to contests, stories, etc.). I really try to alternate between these four on a frequent basis, hoping to not bore anyone with the same sort of material. Recently, though, I glanced at the front page of ISLF and noticed that over half of the posts were book reviews.

Yeeps. That troubled me, because I didn't at all intend for that imbalance to arise. After all, it risks boring readers. Plus, it takes such a comparatively long time to write up a book review that it didn't make any sense as to why I was drowning in them. Well, classes in marketing and managerial accounting are squatting in a lot of my mental real estate, so I hadn't mulled over the craft quite as much as I'd like lately. Indeed, I've found it a challenge to jot down more than a couple hundred words a day. So instead I read.

Some talk of writing their way out of a slump, but that rarely works for me. Execrable first drafts prompt more frustration than inspiration. But reading, well, that almost always helps. Bad books remind me that success isn't an impossibility, while good ones call to mind the heights I'd like to reach one day. Right now I'm knee deep in Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, a ridiculously thick fantasy that's as fun to read and excellently written as anything I've picked up in a long time. Though it eats up portions of my schedule I could dedicate to new stories, I'm going to let it keep nibbling away. Who knows? Maybe it will lead to more writing in the end.

(Picture: CC 2007 by Celeste)