Personal Blogs

I've been having problems finishing books lately, and I'm confused as to why. For example, I recently began reading The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. It's an interesting book and highly philosophical, but after finishing the first part of the novel, I've now moved on to The Iliad.

Sigh.

Perhaps it's a lack of discipline. Perhaps there's something about the book that's not grasping me. Perhaps I only enjoy the idea of reading something like The Moviegoer but don't actually enjoy reading it.

I'm also indecisive about what I should be writing. I've just had a poetry phase where I've churned out around 40 poems over the past 6 months. But now, suddenly, I want to write a pulp novel. I want to create my own private investigator with a no-nonsense attitude. But I can guarantee within in 3 months I will think, 'No, literary fiction is the way to go instead. Get to it!'

I need to read more pulp literature to be good at writing it, anyway. I think I've only read a handful of stories, with the only one that springs to mind being The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. The Mike Hammer books look good too, so I think I will give them a go after The Iliad. If I can finish it, that is.

I've finally finished note-taking for my EMA. The EMA is due in a week on Thursday, so I better get to writing it. I'm pretty sure I know how I'm going to answer the question, but I think it'll be a struggle to hit the 2,000 words.

I've been reading and writing more poetry lately. The stuff I write isn't great, but I do find it more fun to write than prose. Writing a poem is like doing a puzzle.

I've also written a piece of flash fiction, but I'm not too sure I like it. I think there's too much pointless dialogue. I was thinking about writing stories with minimal dialogue, but I'm not sure readers would like that. For example, in my flash fiction, I have the following dialogue:

   'What's wrong?'
   'Nothing.'
   'Well, something must be wrong, because you're not talking to me.'

I don't know. Sometimes I think it'd be best to skip over this type of dialogue and write instead:

   He asked her what was wrong because she had barely said a word. She said it was nothing.

Personally, I think that's much better. It's crisper and simpler.