Reading In the New Year

Though we're days into the new year, I am still thinking about my last year in books and how I plan to move forward in this one. I have never felt right creating a best-of list because books touch me in such a deep, personal way.  I take the time to reflect on certain books on this blog and still feel that I can not express what they mean to me.  Others I prefer to keep only in my heart. I could never pit them against one another, arrange them before or after or in between. So, I'm not reflecting in that way.  But I do want to learn from my reading habits and move ahead.

Last year, I made the decision to leave many books unfinished. I don't know whether this is good or bad.  I used to push myself through a book until I came out the other side.  Sometimes, I'd be truly grateful I did.  Last year, I didn't leave that option.

Still, I've decided to carry this habit forward with me in 2013.  It sounds like such a minor allowance but, for someone who often creates obligations where they don't exist, it actually provides relief. Oh, I don't like this book?  I don't have to read it!  Such a simple thing...but you can't imagine how long it took for me to get to that place.

Last year, I read just seven non-fiction books (all but one was memoir.)  I've decided to change that this year.  I'm dreaming a new novel and I'm just not smart enough to write it.  It's going to require a lot of research and I hope to find the right kind of narrative to take me away.  First up: The Big Oyster: History On the Half Shell.    

I also took a bit of a drastic step in my reading life this year.  I deleted my to-read list.  It had become too overwhelming and, last year, I spent a lot of time reading books and feeling as if the pleasure was not in the read but the fact that I had simply checked it off.  It just didn't feel right.  I'm starting new.

My final thought is about books and this blog.  I have struggled to understand how I want to write about books in this space.  Since I don't consider this a book review blog, I made the decision last year to write only about books I, didn't merely like, but, loved.  (It should be noted that I don't write about every book I love because of my inability to express that love.) Sometimes I highlighted books I didn't love but appreciated for a certain style or structure or theme.  I plan to continue that way this year.  And I hope to make a proper distinction between the head-over-heels kind of books and those that impressed me for other reasons.

Do you have any reading goals for the new year?

Happy reading!

Tall Dreams, Trees and the New Year

I think it's impossible to capture the grandeur of an oak tree in a photograph.  You'll have to trust me. These tangled branches of the Cummer Oak in Jacksonville, Florida are far-reaching.  They extend towards blue and they plunge back into the earth, root themselves where they began. 

Trees are my favorite, favorite. I love them.  The way they reach, it's like racing towards a dream.  A kind of restless hunger.  I have it too.  

It's a new year and, like the goddess statue below, my hunt points toward the moon.  I've never been good at resolutions so I make only one each year.  Some years I meet the goal.  Some years I don't. But, each year, January comes and I make it mine again:

Write a book.

It's my forever-goal. It's my version of dreaming.  

Happy New Year to all my friends here.  Keep your dreams tall.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: A New Year

For weeks all my photos have been trapped in the camera. I lost my memory card reader.  In other words, it was sitting quietly with all the other gadgets, right in front of my face. But it was not until I gave in and purchased another one that Tyler looked over and said, 'Hey, look. It's right there.'

So, I had been wanting to share my New Year's day in Prospect Park.  For you to know me, really know me, you must know I am obsessed with trees.  To spend the first day of a new year with them (oh and Tyler) was, in my mind, perfection.

Because the access to the pictures didn't quite match up with the day I say Happy New Year, again (waves).

And you have no idea, how much I wanted to join that boy in a tree. 

Bring It On

I'm back from my blogging hiatus, where I fell out of reality for a few days, eating my way through the holidays, reading two books for two new book clubs, sleeping well, and napping, which is something I haven't done in quite some time.

The New Year begins and so begins the idea that we can begin a-new. I have many resolutions swimming around inside a still sleepy mind. I make resolutions a lot, not just at the beginning of a new year. Time has a knack for beginnings and endings. It's very good at closing doors and opening windows. There are falling leaves and grey days and spring flowers and anniversaries and the reminder of all the tomorrows that allow you to put today and yesterday to rest.

This year, I plan to write a new novel and I'm very excited about it. I am entering a story I don't yet fully understand, a world I am fascinated by, and this book is bringing out things I have always wanted to write about: forgotten amusement parks and a network of underground canals. Musicals and singing and the beautiful stars of old films I once loved.

I'm excited to nestle inside of this world for a while but there is a little bit of trepidation. This is my 'second' novel and I realize how wonderful it was to go into the first one blindly. This time around, I am carrying a lot of fears with me and a lot of feelings of inadequacy. You would think it would be the opposite, now that I have one under my belt (ha!), but it's not shaping up that way. There was a bold arrogance when I began writing Spared that I am not experiencing this time around. But there is a lot of excitement about this new place, these characters. I am hanging on to that joy for now.

Obviously, I don't yet know what the year will bring. But there are things I can bring to it and I very much want to bring this new book into the 'world'. I don't expect it to fall into so many hands, but I'll be happy enough to just let it be.

What do you plan to bring to the new year?