So, I’m working on the next Black Sheep book, which is going along well, but alternately like pulling teeth and having the best day ever. Lately, I’m losing teeth, if you know what I mean. So I decide I need a break. All work and no play is making me nutty. (Hey, I heard that!) Anyway, I have this fantabulous pile of books beckoning me, so what to take my break with is obvious. But I find I can’t read them. Not because they’re not fantabulous books by even more fantabulous authors, they are. Maybe too much so. I just find I can’t sink into a good story and clutter my head with someone else’s people when I’m trying to evolve and create my own people. It’s very annoying actually.

This is where my magazine addiction comes in handy. Magazines are like fast food, and about as nutritious, (well, the ones I read anyway…) but they tide you over in times of need. Do I really care that Britney is finally divorcing her scum of a husband? No. Do I need to know that Justin Timberlake is working with Duran Duran? Not really. (But, Simon LeBon and JT? Squee!) Ahem. Would I lose sleep if I didn’t know the burning reason behind why Cameron Diaz really wants a nose job? Well…only if she dishes about what it’s like to date Justin Timberlake, but I digress.

The main ingredient here is short articles about non-fictional people, with pretty, splashy photos to keep me entertained (ooooh, bright shiny object!) that don’t clutter up the fictional side of my brain. And in that way, they’re very good at what they do and I thank them.

And yet…there sits those lovely books. Books calling me to pick them up, prop them open and dive in. Dive in to something substantial, something transporting, something that will linger with me longer than Reese Witherspoon’s marriage. So, like Charlie Brown and the football, I keep trying. And one of the things I discovered was that, if I read outside my genre then I have better luck with the non-cluttering thing. So I reluctantly put aside Some Nerve by Jane Heller (and stepped away from the latest issue of US Weekly) and picked up one of my favorite authors, Brad Meltzer’s latest intrigue, Book of Fate. And ahhhhhh…….I can read again! So much better to have steak instead of a fast food burger. (Although, have no fear burgers…you’ll never be entirely replaced. I’m weak like that.)

What’s diverting you these days?

Tags: Writing //