Thursday, June 9, 2011

Pffft!

Okay, six days ago I marched out my smart self and told you about four books for writers I was going to read my way through.

Yesterday, I parked two of them back on my shelf. Not because they aren't wonderful, but because The Artist's Way was clearly going to demand a little bit more of me than to simply read my way through it. And the third book . . . well, if it doesn't hit the shelf soon, it will at least be read in even smaller bites.

I think I'm going to gain a lot from working through TAW. Of course, at this point, there's a lot of trust involved. And patience. Kind of like when I broke my ankle in two places. I was just this side of surgery. While my head heard what the orthopedic surgeon was telling me, my heart just knew I was gonna set all kinds of healing records. They'd be writing about me for years in JAMA.

Not.

Trust and patience.

Are any of you familiar with TAW? Please someone, say yes. I hate the idea of hanging out there all on my own. It's freaky.



CR: The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

By the way . . . I almost made this a seperate post. If you're looking for a terrific police procedural series, you can't go wrong with L.J. Seller's Detective Jackson. Seriously. I have yet to be disappointed.

It's all better with friends.


12 comments:

  1. Sorry, Peg. I'm not familiar with TAW. :(
    However, I do have the first two of L.J.'s Detective Jackson series. I just have to find the time to get to them. My tbr is overwhelming, but I can't seem to stop adding to it. Maybe because I don't want to stop adding to it.

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  2. It's a sickness, Nissie. I'm the same way. I have a small bookcase in the bedroom that is crammed with TBRs. I also had a TOWERING pile of TBRs on my nightstand. On Monday, I removed 3/4 of them to another room where they wouldn't 'loom.'

    I will never forget the sudden panic I experienced, probably twenty years ago, when my TBR went down to about 2 books. It wasn't pretty. And since then, I haven't had the problem.

    I've traded one issue for another. *sigh*

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  3. But it's not a bad issue. We're not hurting anybody. Right?
    I have literally thousands of books and a good part of them are TBRs. I have this thing, you see. If I read a book and enjoy it, I have to go around and buy up everything that author has ever written. And some of these folks are very prolific!

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  4. Check out Crime Fiction Collective tomorrow. I fell in love with Tim Hallinan when I read A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART. He has become one of those authors that if he has something out, and I have it, everything else gets pushed aside. And if I don't have it? I'm on the hunt. I posted a bit some time ago on his series. . . . Look on the sidebar. Timothy Hallinan's Poke Rafferty Series. Probably my all-time favorite.

    Having said that, I've been disappointed in two of Tim's books (two seperate series), but with L.J.? It hasn't happened.

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  5. I'll definitely check it out. I'll also add Hallinan. Thanks for the recommendation. I love discovering new (to me) authors.

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  6. Peg, I've read THE ARTIST'S WAY several times and worked through the exercises twice, once by myself and once with a small group of friends. I loved it; it was one of those books I immediately wanted to give a copy of to all my friends. I don't "practice" TAW (I have such a limited time to write that what I can steal goes to my book), but working through it was a valuable experience. Unlike many of the writers Cameron references in the book, I don't suffer from writer's block (when I'm struggling with the story, it usually means I haven't done enough research), but I still got a lot out of it.

    I haven't read Tim's other series yet, though I have them all on my Kindle app, but I love his writing. Even his blog posts make me green with envy for his talent.

    Jaden Terrell

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  7. Hello Peg
    If I let drop doing my Morning Pages (TAW) my life descends into chaos. TAW exposed to me my 'inner critic(s)' and how not being aware of them was really crippling my creativity. At some point I think Cameron 'confesses' she believes these to be 'the devil'. TAW is a great journey. I hope you enjoy it. Ann

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  8. Jaden and Ann, thanks for the encouragement. It is a time commitment. I keep telling myself I need to TRUST the process and have PATIENCE.

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  9. Haven't read it, but I will look for it now, Peg! I am with you on LJ, though--have THE BABY THIEF (a standalone) open as. I. type.

    Also, love the new look! Wow, I step away for a little while, and everything changes :)

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  10. I'm still doing my morning papers. And tomorrow, I'm taking myself on a date. It's a little vague as to what we're going to do, but we're going to do something.

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  11. I've never read TAW, but maybe someday I'll get to it. My TBR stack is so big it's going to fall right through the floor to the basement any day now. And it's growing much faster than I can read. If you find a solution, let me know. I can identify with your stacks.

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  12. I'm still full of hope and trust for TAW.

    You have reminded me though, Ellis, of a time many years ago when I had begun to stockpile my Reader's Digests. They weren't particulary time sensitive, so I began piling them under the sink in our main floor powder room. I simply didn't have the time to read them, but knew I would enjoy them at some point.

    The piles grew and grew. One little stack became two became five. I wanted to catch up and read everything, but when?

    Finally, I sucked up some courage and threw every last magazine out. It was like a weight had lifted from my chest.

    Sometimes the stacks need to be culled. It's not a bad thing. It's a survival thing.

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