Not A Blog™

I tried. I really did. Three entries started but I just can’t advance them. Writer’s block is a strange thing, and this is the first severe case I’ve had since I started Not A Blogging™ again back in August.

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My god, I can’t even write about that. I’m distressed.

I got a really neat book today. It’s called The Intellectual Devotional, by David Kidder & Noah Oppenheim. It’s got a short, almost trivia-like entry for one of seven different subjects for each day of the week. (Monday is history, Tuesday is literature, Wednesday is visual arts, etc.) Because simply reading something once is not enough to recall the information (even if you’ve read about it before), I’m doing a system where I reread the previous day’s article, as well as the current day’s article. I might even make it the previous two days’ articles because they’re not very long. It’s a fantastic little tome.

Other good books, let’s see… I recently finished On Writing by Stephen King. This is interesting because I’ve only read two books by King and I didn’t think either were particularly awesome. The first was some fantasy book he wrote—Dark Tower, perhaps?—but I remember absolutely nothing about it. Nothing. I guess it didn’t make much of an impression. The other book I read was an unabridged version of The Stand. It was pretty good, but then again, I think it was abridged originally for a reason. It started too early and took too long to get where it was going.

But his book about writing was recommended to me no less than three times by three different people, so when I had a little extra cash one day, I picked it up. (Note: I never actually have extra cash, but I still buy books all the freakin’ time.) For as much as I don’t read Stephen King, I’m glad I read that book. It seemed very earnest. (Who am I to judge motives? I cannot do this. However, the book had a genuine feel to me, for what it’s worth.) While I cannot recommend the book as an invaluable resource (such as, say, a thesaurus), if you’re a writer, or thinking about becoming a writer, it’s definitely worth the time to read.

Another book I’m reading is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. My friend, Dave, recommended it, and said something along the lines of wanting to know what a modern-day Pullitzer Prize winner was like. Pretty damn good, apparently. What am I saying? This book is like one of the best I’ve ever read. Unbelievable.

I’m also reading-when-I-have-time two other books First is A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths. The title is slightly misleading; it should be A Feminist Look at Time. Despite unrelenting male-bashing it remains interesting. (I’ll bet you didn’t know that linear time = penis.) Second is The Outsider by Colin Wilson. This one was recommened to me by my friend, Kath. The basis for the book is a character—the outsider—who appears quite often as the hero in fiction, despite being the sort of person who is the antithesis of ideal in real life.

So that’s what I’m reading. I wish I had the time and gumption to figure out how to add things to my WordPress layout. I would very much like to bring back the “What I’m Reading” box. If nothing else, it kept me reading, just so I could look forward to updating it. Instead you have to listen to be ramble about books on days when I can think of nothing else.

-Ted