Music and Memories

I've been writing about my late teens and early 20s, and I've found music that reminds me of that time is really helpful in evoking memories. While I've been listening to the same self-indulgent Morrissey songs I loved when I was a mopey teenager, my current favorite is Kate Nash's album Made of Bricks. It's frightening how well some of the songs capture my college relationship, the first of my relationships that went on too long. Rather than making me remember those wasted years, the songs make me want to revel; I even smile and bop my head around if I'm listening to them while washing the dishes. Perhaps this response is my expression of happiness at our breakup. I think I'll figure it out if I keep listening. Listening is the key.

Mental Writing

Most of my writing is done in my head. That's where I tinker with ideas and refine structure until I'm ready to set it on paper. Last night, I did a lot of that sort of writing; consequently, I'm close to being able to finish one of the stories that keeps whispering to me. It's about making mistakes, a loss that follows, and trying to accept it all (a running theme in my stories, actually).

Daily Reading and Writing Promise

I've been rearranging my books the last few days and realized that I have books to part with, books I'm never going to read or that are unreasonably duplicative (two translations of The Odyssey are acceptable, three are excessive). I also realized I have a lot of books I want to read but haven't made time for, so I lazily decided I'd start reading and writing every single day starting tomorrow.

I realized I needed to start today, so I chose a book, one I was excited to read when I first picked it up a couple months ago, but I haven't touched since: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. One of my fellow students in a creative writing course has the same name, and I thought the book might be her first novel. After turning the book over, the writer photo proved me wrong, but once I read the description, I decided to buy the book.

The plot focuses on Rose, a nine-year-old who is able to taste her mother's emotions in the food she (Rose's mother) prepares. Rose slowly learns that her happy family is not as happy as she believes. In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie explored the idea of food being used to transmit emotion as well as historical knowledge and it's one of my favorite aspects of the novel, so I think that's what drew me to The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

I read a couple chapters, which is okay. I figure that any reading, even if only a page or two, fulfills the reading requirement. As for writing, posting here may be all I do, but I am going to try to structure my posts so they're about something, likely books, music, or the process of writing. Some days I may work on a different project (I've been promising a couple stories I'd get back to them), so I might not do much other than check in.