Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. Clock-In

I have awoken The Lump, a.k.a. Pilot the Dog. It took a considerable bit of convincing, but he's now lying at my feet, being the writing dog I've always wanted him to be. So there is no excuse but to write.

What a sluggish week this is. It's my favorite of the year, the week after Christmas. I revel in the quieting of things (the home, the plans, the emotions, the mind), the new-come solitude, just protracted enough for quiet industriousness punctuated by periodic rest to recover from what came before. Up in the Writing Room, it's nearly over-warm, the heater having been left on, per accident, overnight. The Weepies are singing a wistfully happy tune, and there would be no excuse but to write . . . save that there's a reason.

I must read instead. My fingers tingle to be over the keyboard, tickling the keys into creative action, but the Story dictates "Wait." It demands a solid read-through, a serious check on pacing, characterization, consistency. Six months ago, I would have jumped at the chance to take a break from the arduous task of forcing a few good lines, a page, a scene out of my brain and onto the page. The tables are somehow turned, and now, imagination awakened, new writing is - exuberantly, joyfully, thankfully - all that wants to come.

New scenes are banging on the door, wanting to be let in (or out, so to speak). But this week, they're the gravy. I must eat my vegetables and edit, for the good of the Story. So in just a moment, I'll pull myself away from the computer desk (Pandora left a-singin') for the couch, and will read on, make notes, make new connections, remind myself of old ones, adjust dialogue, and rearrange scenes. Maybe delete a chunk or two. Move something around. Probably get frustrated with the way something isn't coming together yet. In the end, the day's success will feel low on the spectrum, but this - back-looking revision to get a better picture, to realign my mind - is a moving forward in its own, necessary way. (I just checked with The Lump. He'd agree, if he could bear to awaken himself.)

But before I depart the desk for the day, I'll indulge the writing itch and type up a quick list, an account of the stories this past year that've impacted me the most. (Thanks to my brother Ross for conversation earlier in the week inspiring thought of what particular books inspire me.) It's been a year of good reading - intentional, thoughtful reading. Most of the tales I've spent any time digesting have had some connection with what I want to do, have crossed over in some way with where I've considered going myself imaginatively. The rest have worked their own magic in a way I can't ignore, even if they're light years from the work of my own fiction. Many of them inspired me in the smaller details - a particular author's stunning manner of joining word to word (oh Marilynne Robinson, Susanna Clarke, and, of course, Dickens), a particularly riveting understanding of a character, a stunning setting, a certain feel. All and each of them are etched on my brain, still, in such a way that I look back at early summer, remember driving to pick up early bags of fresh produce from the CSA table at the North Main Y, and think, "ah, The Sparrow." Or I emote my way back to this-time-last-year, post-Christmas rest leaning into a two-month slow, savoring progress through Bleak House, not minding if it were to last its way into the spring - the words were just too delicious not to savor.

And so, here they are (serendipitously numbering themselves at ten), the top books that creatively shaped this last year of mine that took on its own new shape:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke (read December 08-January 09)

This was a re-read, and since this is my list, re-reads count. JS&MN is quick becoming a winter must-read, even if that means skimming just a few chapters here or there. Clarke's first novel, it's a strikingly hilarious and fascinatingly bizarre ride through the lives of Victorian drawing room magicians. Would that I could manipulate characters the way she does. Her smart and consistent tone, her playful bending of the historically-true, and her vivid settings inspire me most.

Bleak House
by Charles Dickens (read January-March 09)

My first foray-by-choice into Dickens (my other experience being a forced ninth-grade read of Great Expectations), I was blown away. As mentioned above, a slow savor, this one. The words so carefully chosen, his language is so his own, so Dickensian. And his characters do the same as Clarke's scenes: they are vivid, imaginatively-striking landscapes unto themselves. Would that I could paint such pictures in my own characters.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan (read April-May 09)

This item is, probably obviously, the one non-creatively-inspiring read of the year . . . unless you're thinking in terms of cooking, and then I'll feel free to say that my 2009 kitchen time was creatively-revolutionized this year, starting with a slew of cookbooks and magazines come my way the previous Christmas, and soon followed by a move to a small town with a growing community of local growers. Our eating has shifted, and this book came helpfully, informatively, and inspiringly along just at the time Blacksburg was providing us with new options for eating via a fantastic CSA.

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak (read May 09)

Read for a book club, this one (for a quick return to my Charlottesville group of reading ladies for a last attendance at their monthly meetings). Though I wouldn't put it on my list of very-favorites or definite-re-reads, it was a challengingly-creative read; the unusual weaving of characters and plot worked together in a way that stuck with me for quite awhile. I still find myself picturing scenes, interactions, from this book's pages . . . and - especially with YA holocaust literature, a category with which, for whatever reason, I've been over-saturated in previous reading years - I consider that the mark of a good read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
by Mark Haddon (read June 09)

Read it. Read this book. For the humor. For the deep, sympathetic-yet-strong-in-its-non-maudlin understanding of a boy with a disability. Read it to understand a glimmer of the mind and difficult moments of autistic folk. Read it with an eye to the things this very insightful author doesn't say, the deeper and harder layer that lies under the quirky words of this unusual (to say the least) teenaged protagonist. Read it to appreciate other people and even yourself a little bit better, and to maybe gain a bit of a broader and deeper sight for the world around you.

Children of God
by Mary Doria Russell (read July 09)

Sequel to Russell's The Sparrow, which I read - painfully - several months earlier. The Sparrow was so dark, so troubling, that I had to put it down for a week mid-read before I could pick it up and finish it again. So Lord knows what moved me to pick up the next book so soon afterward. I'm glad I did, though. Russell takes her story-telling to a higher level in this follow-up story: the spectrum of characters is broader, the plot more complex, the timeline interwoven with character growth in a far more mature way that resulted in my trying to force this book on any and everyone around me, just so I'd have someone to discuss it with. Problem is, you've got to read the first book to appreciate it, and just try pushing two sci-fi novels on your friends: "They're really good! Well the second one is, but read them both, okay? I know it's about Jesuit priests discovering life on another planet, but please?? For me?" Truly, though I felt The Sparrow was driven along by the cheap thrill of pending shock, the characters unindividual in that they all seemed like the same individual, Children of God broke into a new, completely contrasting stratosphere of deepened character development and heightened storytelling. Where I felt Russell was toying with my emotions and responses in the previous book, in this one, she played fair, and played well. I'd like to be able to weave so complex a work just as compellingly, in just as fair a manner, for and to my reader. Not to mention the thought-provoking spiritual and ethical questions she raises for her reader to mull over and discuss . . . if another reader can be found to discuss them with.

People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks (read July 09)

A bit pop-ish and a bit more mainstream than would usually make it onto a top-read list of mine, I didn't prefer the modern-day frame story in this new work of Brooks'. What I did prefer and appreciate was the historical view given of this one particular slice of Jewish history. I'm engaged by stories that tell themselves across years, that follow people - and books! (Have I mentioned yet that when I first heard of this novel, I was worried someone else had written my story before me? Fortunately, upon reading, fear confirmed unfounded.) - across years, through centuries. I like to get the big picture with all the details, and in the historical segments of this story, Brooks gives that, and gives it good.

Davita's Harp
by Chaim Potok (read August 09)

Have I ever mentioned on this blog that I heart Chaim Potok? Yes, I think I have. I didn't think anything he wrote could completely flamboozle me - as a creative person and as a human being - for days more than did My Name is Asher Lev, but I was wrong. Go here and I'll tell you why.

Home
by Marilynne Robinson (read November-December 09)

I read Gilead (sister novel to this one) in the summer in response to high recommendation, and I didn't get it. What was all the hype for? I fell into the camp of "but nothing happens in this book!" Fortunately, back in November, I got the itch for another Marilynne Robinson read on a Sunday afternoon (she does paint a lovely, Sabbath-melancholy picture, after all) - and I'm so glad I heeded. This book is beautiful. Talk about savoring; rarely have I read a book so intentionally, so slowly, re-reading sentences, paragraphs, pages, to absorb the full import of what happens in the lives of these three, four main characters in their overtly-quiet, deeply-turbulent moments. I will go so far as to say that this book, out of all the books I've read this year - and maybe ever - inspired me toward change not as a writer, but as a person, a spiritual person, and the character that most inspired me in faith toward God was the central figure, the problem figure, the aetheist. I don't know what Robinson does, but I think she's doing something new, and, in Home, she does it exceedingly, stunningly, heartbreakingly well.

Gaudy Night 
by Dorothy Sayers (read November-December 09)

Another re-read. Every time I read Gaudy Night (this may be my fourth or fifth time-round), I feel I understand more of the writer's mind, I perceive in the characterizations, the dialogue, and the plot, what Sayers was working out personally about herself as a writer, about her craft. I'll read it again most years, probably, just to hear her tell me again, more and more clearly each time, how it was that she revolutionized her writing to be more honest to her characters and herself, and to develop her take on the murder-mystery novel into such a literary masterpiece as this.

Honorable Mentions of the Year's Reading List:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (stilted telling; creative concept)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin (too-bizzare - for me - concept; deep characterization)

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (a bit too mainstream for me; fun and interesting plot)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (also a bit too mainstream; creative telling and interesting topic)

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (overweighted with historical detail to read smoothly; fascinating historical detail)

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper (sometimes-stilted in language; creative concept, complex connections, especially in the end)