Tuesday, August 17, 2010

here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten

I don't know what is with me, but I am on an absolute binge of reading. I shouldn't have read tonight; I have three more books coming from Amazon tomorrow, including the sequel to THE HUNGER GAMES that I loved so much last week. But, while I had by no means a bad day at work, it was still a Monday after a v. fun weekend, and so I came home in a fairly foul mood. Rather than inflict that foul mood on my poor characters (and perhaps make it worse for myself if the writing wasn't flowing tonight), I wrote in my journal for a bit, and then reread bits of one of my favorite books: SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley. It's one of my go-to favorite comfort reads -- yes, it involves vampires, but it's also a unique and beautiful story written by an author who knocks the wind out of me with the power of her writing. And, the heroine is thrust into some situations well beyond her control or skill-level, feeling like she has to choose between two very different lives for herself, and one of the key messages is "you don't have to choose." And that message is a very good thing for me to remember too, as much as I like to play the all-or-nothing game with my life.

I had a startling realization tonight that all of the romance heroines I've conceived so far are playing some kind of act when they meet their hero. Madeleine is actually an actress, but hiding it from her society life; Amelia pretends to be a shrew to drive her husband away; and Ellie has feigned the life of a v. merry widow for the past decade while her true love wandered around the Orient trying (and failing) to forget her. I'm not quite sure what it is that draws me to heroines who are pretending to be one thing when they're really something else entirely. It kind of reminds me of the visceral reaction I had to the ridiculous shoes that I bought this weekend (which, btw, have 5" heels -- I measured when I got home) -- I wanted to be the woman who could wear those shoes without a second thought. That's probably the connection between me and Madeleine, even though we're quite different in other ways; she knows that her life would have been much more interesting and intriguing if she had debuted in the court at Versailles instead of spending her childhood as the orphaned ward of her English aunt.

Anyway, enough of that -- I'm falling asleep on my laptop, and I had intended to get up and write before work so that I could read with a clear conscience afterward, but maybe now I'm going to have to go to work and leave early to accomplish both writing and reading. Either way, I have to get back into the writing groove again tomorrow, whether the groove wants me or night -- five nights of unproductive behavior is about 3.5 nights too many. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: 0hr
RescueTime productivity rating: -- (global average: 0.34)

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