Buried Under a Bookslide

We don't usually get much seriously cold weather here. In keeping with conventions of the age, however, the upcoming cold snap is being covered as if we were about to suffer a blizzard. As I'm familiar with during hurricane season, weather prep coverage tends to send me into an organizational frenzy.

Today, it was documenting a TBR pile that might actually, if left to itself, collapse into the core of a library. Because linguistic physics.

I'm actually horrified by the books I've been squirreling away--I've been reading plenty, but I've been dealing with...stress?...by making an enormous pile of books bought at library sales and discount stores and Just Not Reading Them. Not to mention the occasional Christmas book request that returns a text that seemed like a good idea but just didn't cut through the static in my head.

2018 is going to be the year of the Everest of TBRs. I'm probably going to conk out in base camp, but I'm going to commit to actually reading and officially DNF'ing books that aren't for me rather than shuffling them further back on the shelf. Also, no more impulse buys at Half Price.

Part of the shock of the TBR is the realization that I really don't want to read most of these books. That I managed to acquire them without any real interest in them. That's fine--there are great discoveries to be made in the random intersection of reader and book. However, I don't think there was any hope of discovery behind them, just a kind of "yeah, I'm a reader, right? and this is a book." Generic, joyless consumption.

Despite that, January's reading list should be interesting. Here is the list and some of the background about why I want to read each book:

1. The January Dancer -- Whenever I dip into this, the writing intrigues me and the story promises a good mystery but I haven't slowed down to follow it, yet.
2. The Time of the Transference -- This was a gift from my dad and is the kind of adventure story that first appealed to me in fantasy. Interesting magic system.
3. Jhereg -- I saw the author at a convention years ago and realized that the covers that had been putting me off shouldn't have. This has been in the stack ever since (guilt, guilt, guilt).
4. The Lesser Kindred -- The blurb sounded interesting.
5. Make Way for Dragons -- Um...yeah. Cover nostalgia buy.
6. Rosalind Franklin - This was a gift (guilt, guilt, guilt) and I wanted to read about Rosalind Franklin.
7. Moonwise -- I LOVE the writing in this book. So I keep swooning and shoving it back on the shelf because I'll only get the one time to discover the story.
8. Parzival -- Isn't January the perfect time for a cozy read about the search for the Holy Grail? Yes, yes it is.
9. The Rediscovery of Meaning -- January is also the perfect time for contemplation.
10. Transformations -- Because why have I never read Anne Sexton?
11. The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night -- Because it's beautiful and it's on my desk for continuous inspiration.
12. The Little Book of Hidden People -- This was a gift from my brother and, again, it was put on the stack for a time when it could be savored. Freeze-mergency, anyone? (it is not an emergency because it might be below freezing for a few days, except, well, coastal Texas)
13. The Silver Bough -- Cover buy. Will the story live up to the lovely cover? We'll see.
14. Little, Big -- I should love this. I don't. But I will finish it. Perhaps a transformation along the way?
15. The Practice of Writing --  This is the shortest writing book in the stack but, again, it seemed like it might be a good January companion.

Just a day to go until January starts. Think I'll indulge in another story from The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night and look forward to January reading.

Janus and the Coming Freeze

It is that middle stretch, the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, the lame duck period of 2017, last-minute week of goal setting or goal rushing-to-completion, week of laundry and cleaning preparatory to the new year (if you're into that), week of staring at the sky and glancing backwards and forwards.

For me, it began with a scramble and then an obsession with mini Christmas scrapbooks, as I realized that I'd begun several and just not finished them. These aren't massive projects, just 4x6 brag books stuffed with pictures and a minimum of text, but it takes time to arrange and print and cut the pages to size and explain why all of a sudden our ink surplus has turned into a severe shortage. Also, memory albums are sticky--you look at one picture, then you've looked at eighty, then you're sinking into those snows of yesteryear, the ones that are supposedly vanished but are piling up over you nonetheless. It takes time to dig out of the past.

That project was kicked off in anticipation of a visit by our in-laws that, thanks to a random hard freeze over the New Year's holiday, won't be happening right now. So I've had the chance to dive into the other memory books that I've started and not completed, all the birthday albums, Diva Night reminiscences, The Year The Yard Was All Morning Glories, 4th of July celebrations followed by bubbles and fireworks...wherever the images happen to accumulate. A project that was a single book catching up with photos that I didn't want to lose has become a potential year-long nostalgia fest. If I actually finish these, there will be pics of The Year That Was All Memory Books.

Perhaps you have projects that get out of hand, too.

Which brings me to the other projects. The writing ones that also found themselves well begun but abandoned. Here is the backward glance:  the 2016 election was a sharp shock to me. But it wasn't the first. There have been the difficulty of finding a job and assorted concerns that finally coalesced into a single decision:  I'm not writing for anyone else. I've been a member of writing groups for years and I used to be better about submissions. Now, though, I realize that I want to make art that speaks to the people closest to me--to my family, to a few friends--and the memory books speak to that, as does the few writing projects that I'm keeping for this year. Here is the glance forward:  2018 is the year that I want to be able to return gifts I received with interest, novellas for reaching out, flash collections for the peace that I received from the parks before Harvey washed them away.

This year, I want to work through from the beginning to the end and I want to be able to reach this in-between, lame duck week of 2018 with memories of connection rather than endless, mouse-wheel project anxiety. I am thankful, grateful, every day for the people who gave my writing their time and attention and it may be that this is a slow turn back toward a more familiar track. For now, I am thinking about blankets and hot cocoa and a hard freeze that breaks one year from another. About looking forward and glancing back. And about whether or not any of this can be captured in a photo, embellished with stickers, and placed in a memory book for 2018.

Good wishes and tamable projects,
Chrissa