kitsunemarie

Due to several major conflicts, it has been really hard to find space and time to write lately. Now that I have finally cleared my schedule, however, I am finding it hard to get back into the habit. From May to October, I wrote an average of 7500 words a month, but I have written barely over 2200 words in the last 28 days. I have to remind myself that finishing this book is one of the most important things in the world to me, and that I need make it a priority again. I still have a fighting chance of finishing the draft by February, but I have to keep pushing myself!

Last night, I finished writing my story’s first crisis. So far, everything has been fun building to this point. I feel as if everything has been constantly gaining speed—a rock rolling downhill. Now it is time for this happy Sisyphus to turn around, begin pushing it back up again, and start building for the next climax. It is hard to imagine losing the momentum I have built and the excitement I have for my story, but I worry that I need to keep pushing myself in case finding resolution to this first crisis slows me down.

Also, I need to come up with a title for my story. I have always been bad at this. I have a feeling it won’t come to me until long after the first draft is finished.

Here’s what’s left to read:

1. The Plague Dogs, Richard Adams
2. The Tar Baby, Jerome Charyn
3. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
4. Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
5. Life in the Iron Mills, Rebbecca Harding Davis
6. Captain Macklin, Richard Harding Davis
7. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
8. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
9. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
10. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
11. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
12. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas
13. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
14. King Solomon’s Mines, H. Rider Haggard
15. The Mayor of Castorbridge, Thomas Hardy
16. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
17. The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James (I have tried to read it 3 times… I promise I’ll finish someday)
18. The Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
19. Crown of Thorns, Robert Jordan
20. Winter’s Heart, Robert Jordan
21. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
22. Knife of Dreams, Robert Jordan
23. New Spring, Robert Jordan
24. Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keiller
25. A Separate Peace, John Knowles
26. Le Mort d’Artur, Sir Thomas Malory
27. A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin
28. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
29. Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
30. 1984, George Orwell
31. Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
32. The Red Pony, John Steinbeck
33. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
34. The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan
35. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
36. Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turganev
37. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain
38. The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain
39. The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain
40. The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
41. The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells
42. The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells
43. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells
44. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells
45. Roman Fever, Edith Wharton
46. A Haunted House, Virginia Woolf
47. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
48. The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf

I think I have a book-collecting problem. I really shouldn’t visit a bookstore again before I knock out at least some of these. And this list doesn’t even begin to cover plays, poetry, and memoirs.

I had been putting off finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series because I had forgotten so much that had happened in the earlier books, but I’m getting close to the end, in expectation of the new release this fall.

I’m pretty ashamed at some of these books on this list. I shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate with a B.A. in English without having read Of Mice and Men!