Sorry I’ve been quiet recently. Life has been plodding on, I’ve done my amazing abseilling/caving/gorge walking/canoeing/via ferrata adventure. And I’ve been binge reading.
I was going to talk about the Big Five adventure, but I’m still hoping one of the lovely ladies we did it with will send me some photos (since our group all forgot to take cameras that weren’t attached to our phones) so I’ll save that for another day. Except to say it was awesome, and I didn’t really want to come home.
Aside from that, though, I’ve had my usual April stinking cold and so have been non-stop reading to stay sane.
And, oh my, I’ve read some amazing Middle Grade and Young Adult books. I don’t really go in for book reviews here on the blog, since you can’t do a book justice without giving away the essence of the story. A quick summary will have to suffice:
The Venice books by Holly Webb (MG)
I was so excited, when I was in Brighton, to see that there were three new books by Holly Webb, set in Venice. I bought them all, The Mermaid’s Sister, Maskmaker’s Daughter, and the Girl of Glass, having loved The Water Horse.
I read the first one in a day (nearly missing my train). I loved Maskmaker’s Daughter too, but I’m saving Girl of Glass for a really bad day. Like the last biscuit in the packet, although who am I kidding, I never save that.
If you didn’t know that Holly Webb writes anything other than cutsie animal books, I definitely recommend her magic series for any avid reader over the age of around seven. The Rose and Lily series start it off, but these Venice ones can be read as standalone books (although they do follow on from each other in time).
The Twelve Minutes to Midnight Trilogy (MG)
I picked these up in the library while the kids were playing, and consumed them in about a week. Brilliant historical / fantastical / detective novels which I only chose because I read another great book by the author, Christopher Edge. (The other book was The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, and caused me to swear at my husband for the first time ever, but that’s another story.)
The Twelve Minutes to Midnight Trilogy is published by Nosy Crow (which is another reason I picked them up, since I don’t judge books by their covers anymore but by their publishing house! Namely the ones I’d like to belong to.)
As an aside, these books inspired me to create a male pseudonym. Not because I think Christopher is secretly a girl, but because I wondered if gender bias extends into literary agencies. I’ll keep you posted.
How I Live Now (YA)
This book by Meg Rosoff broke me. Seriously. I’d bought it ages ago and, like scouring the cupboard for forgotten chocolate, I needed to continue my binge and found it lost on a shelf.
It’s an amazing, compelling, shocking, unputdownable book. Although written thirteen years ago, it rings horribly true particularly now.
But the ending sucked big time. I walked around in an angry funk for days, genuinely hurt and hurting. I see they’ve made it into a film. I won’t be watching it.
The Snow Merchant (MG)
This is another random Library pick up. God love libraries. Rather surreal and definitely weird but I still haven’t put it down.
Interestingly I’ve just googled it to put a link here, and I love how the author, Sam Gayton, describes writing it. Read the account here.
Rather brilliantly, that leads me on to the title of my blog post.
This binge reading has been brilliant, but it has had a rather unfortunate side effect. Writer’s block. Again. But this time linked with super-weird creative I-must-write-or-I’ll-go-mad dreams.
I wake up feeling exhausted, but with no idea of a story.
You see, the problem with binge-reading awesome books for me is that I think ‘I can’t ever write something that good, I don’t even know where to start’. So I don’t.
I want to write something new. Something amazing. Something unputdownable. And therein lies the problem. I don’t think you can start writing a book hoping that it will be amazing. I think you write a book because you are driven to write it, by the story or the characters or the theme.
I don’t feel driven, I feel depleted.
And still the words build up inside me. The crazy ideas, the vivid dreams. But I feel like all the good stories have been done, the ideas taken, all fleshed out into brilliance I can’t ever achieve.
They say you have to read to be a writer, and I know that it’s true. But for me, there has to be a long gap between one and the other.
Let’s hope I’m just in the reading phase, and when the kids go back to school next week (month, year) inspiration will strike. Or at least the energy to sit at my computer and write rubbish. Because I know, in my heart of hearts, none of these books started out brilliant. They all took slog and doubt and rewrite upon rewrite. I just need to begin.
But, until then, there are books to read.
If you loved it, tell your friends! :)
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