I have been out-procrastinated. In fact, while my own tendencies to put off writing have been waning recently – I actually seem to get my fingers on the keyboard more often than I used to – Anna from the Zwei Sprachen blog has been busily writing lists about why she’s not writing. Which in itself is, actually, writing, but not the kind she wants to do, I guess.
Zwei Sprachen is German for “two languages” and I’ve been following the blog because it has interesting posts in both these languages – Anna is a native German speaker who’s now lived in New York for almost 30 years, and also writes in English, and teaches writing. Sometimes I wonder if my German would ever be good enough to “really” write (we usually speak German at home – but my grammar is shocking), and I absolutely admire anybody who can creatively write in something other than their mother tongue.
However, Anna’s most recent post is a list of 99 reasons not to write. Some are very creative: she has the wrong pen, or thinking of past boyfriends. Some I can totally relate to: it’s sunny outside, or she’s hungry or tired. But the fact that she wrote enough to create 99 reasons really proves that she is writing. So I guess my point is that when I feel like I can’t write or don’t want to write, it is definitely the case that I just need to start writing. Even if it’s a list of reasons not to write – perhaps I can aim for 199 reasons – there’s always something waiting to be written, and often that will turn into something I could call “real” writing.
I’m planning to keep this in mind over the weekend when I want to get some fiction writing done – I’ve got most of the weekend to myself and hope to plan my next novel, and hopefully draft the first chapter. This is a novel that’s been swimming around in my head for about four years, and I haven’t yet sat down to really think about it in a nuts and bolts fashion, so I’m really interested to see what my subconscious has been doing with the idea. Hopefully I can report back with 99 sentences I’ve written rather than 99 reasons not to write.
. What’s more, the minister responsible announced that prize money for all the NSW literary awards is being doubled. There should be more of it – but I’m glad there’s an upward trend, at least.
, which I have been dying to read for several years, ever since I saw my friend Zitka reading it – since she was reading the Czech translation, she didn’t offer to lend it to me. Not only is the title fantastic, the story sounds a little bit unusual and it has a few odd picture and diagrams. Curious, indeed.
, written by Markus Zusak, who’s just a year older than me. This was part of the Perth Festival’s “One Book” program, where they have a billion copies of the same book available so heaps of festival-goers have something in common to discuss, which explains why there were dozens of copies of this book at the sale – not because it’s a bad book. I’m sure it’s not. It’s big, though.
, by Ahdaf Soueif – a novel I heard or read something about long ago but it’s stuck in my mind, somehow. It was also shortlisted for the Booker (in 1999) and I’m a fairly trusting reader and for $1, I’ll read any novel that someone thought worthy of a Booker nomination.