This week I did some much-needed reading. I’m almost finished with The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and I finished Room by Emma Donoghue.  I much prefer Room. I finished it in a day and found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it. But I found that after 500 pages of The Fountainhead, I got tired of the characters being caricatures and bored of everything being overstated, ala:

“Just sit there and get used to me. Stop being afraid of me. Forget everything you said yesterday. This wipes it off. We’re starting from the beginning. We’re partners now…..”

 And so on. I know there are a lot of people who loved it, but it’s just not my kind of book (although I still have 100 pages left…it could wow me in the end) and that’s okay. Still, I was impressed with a lot of the content and the general idea behind the book. Room, however, I found riveting in every aspect—the language, the characters, the settings—everything. Kudos, Emma. I resolve to be unafraid to use the world “poo” in my writing. Much better than “traverse.”

I’ve done some editing on A Scribble in the Margins this week. It’s a complex process. I have to weave every change throughout my storyline, but it’s been good for me—nothing like building something and then dissecting it to help you figure out how it really works. I wish I could print the manuscript out each time I want to make a change, lay it all out on the floor and mark it up, but I try to only murder as many rainforests as I absolutely have to. When my novel is published, I will plant a tree to give back what I have taken. If it becomes a bestseller, I’ll plant an orchard with some of the proceeds. Am I counting my chickens before they hatch? Not only that, but I’m also naming them and custom-designing their rooms so their chickenfriends can come over to play.

Blog off.