New Schedule and a Book Review

So, I've decided to try something new here on the blog, in the hopes that it will keep me more accountable to posting more than once a month. Following in the title of the blog I'll keep this schedule: Mondays will be for reading, Tuesdays for writing, Wednesday for knitting, Thursday for panicking :), and Friday for whatever else might come up. We'll have to see how this actually goes, but that's the current plan.

And for this Monday, here's what I've been reading.

The Writer's Journey by Chris Vogler
I haven't actually finished this yet, but so far so good. I'm really enjoying it so far. It's an interesting analysis of the structure of the stories that we as a human race love. They all follow the Hero's Journey. It's been recommended to me by a number of other authors and I think that it will be really helpful in the development of my plot. We shall see.



Wonder Boys- Michael Chabon
I'm also in the middle of reading this. I've seen the movie, and loved it, but the book is so much better. I've only recently started reading Chabon, and I'm not quite sure where he's been all my life. His writing is so beautiful and his images so striking that I nearly weep when I read it, seriously. He has such a unique way of putting everything. I only wish that I can someday rise to this level of literature. The story is hilarious. The comedy of errors that ensues from page one is fantastic without being completely improbable and the characters are ridiculously interesting. I'm really excited to finish this one.

The Notebook- Nicholas Sparks
Well, this book was on my Project 100 list and I believe I was one of the last remaining women in the US that hadn't read this novel. I'll preface all of this by saying that I'm not a huge romance reader, but having read and enjoyed Sparks' Three Weeks with my Brother, I was willing to give this a shot.

I'll not give away too much of the plot, but very basically it is about a young man of little means and a young woman of fantastic means who fall in love only to be separated by time and social circumstances.

What made this novel better than the typical love story is the framing of it, as a old man reading the story to an unknown woman. The story is touching and while predictable, still genuinely warm and fuzzy. I did enjoy it. It's a great quick read and especially good when you just want to read and not think too much. Sparks' writing is lovely, clean and concise and his characters are lively and real. While I enjoyed the book in general, I think that I enjoyed it more after reading Three Weeks because I knew how he wrote it and what was happening in his life at the time. Overall, it was worth the hype (and million dollar advance) that it received.