heart

i tend to alternate between reading fiction and nonfiction in phases. when i'm introspective and analytic, it's non-fiction. when i'm creative and dreamy and escapist, it's fiction. (yes, i read a lot more of the latter.)

it works in reverse too. so it makes sense that i'm absorbed into fiction these days, stimulating my creativity. so absorbed that i have to put my current novel in the trunk of my car to resist reading while driving. so absorbed that i'm a little bit sad because the end of the book is nearing. so absorbed that i'm planning waiting time into my day so that i can fit in a few pages.

i have a shelf of books in my library that i haven't read. books that are on my list to read and lie in waiting. but i'm being very selective about my reading time right now. the minutes i can read are often the same minutes i can write and if i'm not writing, i want to be soaking up the words of authors i admire and want to learn from.

which leads me to the book i am now reading. i gave this book to my mom last christmas. it was a book christmas for me, all the gifts i gave were books. a book, or stack of books, selected for each person and a letter that told them why.

most of the books were books i'd read before. i very rarely gift a book i don't know myself. but this one, i took a chance on. it was an author that my mom and i both love and the story sounded intriguing. mom read it and regifted it back to me on my birthday. she said it was terribly depressing (i love depressing books) and though beautifully written, not one of her favorites. now i'm enduring the misery myself and my heart is breaking. and i can't put it down.

but ironically i find that although the story is hopeless, it's given me hope. the language and the characters and the emotion are simply enough to carry a story that doesn't really do much carrying.

tonight while spinning, i was running through story details of my unwritten book and starting to panic. i was getting caught up in minutiae rather than the heart. and now, a rather depressing, but totally absorbing character study has reminded me that the heart of the book is really just touching the heart of the reader.

and that's something i think i can do.

d: heart touching
b: lesson learned
g: regifted mis-gift