Sigh.

I have got to stop staying up until 11:00 pm. So, yeah, I'm tired. Let's see... skipped the gym this am because I was too freaking tired. Went to work. Came home from work. Family stuff. Take son to soccer practice. I got some writing done. I wrote my emotional pain chapter last night; that came out good. In the car at practice, I spent some time staring at the laptop, then I realized I needed to move a chapter, so I did that and felt happy about about 20 seconds. Then I started working on the next chapter in which things get worse for my heroine Sophie. I wrote a paragraph, deleted it because it was stupid and boring and started with a different paragraph. I wrote some stuff and left off when I realized I had written mostly narrative and I needed to start putting people in the chapter. Practice was over.

Then we went to the bookstore because, well, my son has never been the world's most avid reader and for quite sometime I despaired. How, I've long worried, was I going to communicate with a boy who doesn't like to read much and who's good at math? Sidebar: Today, he was singing (a nonsense song) as he was doing his math homework and darned if he can't carry a tune! If he can sing, and it appears maybe he can, that's not a talent that comes from my side of the family. Sidebar Over

So, there was these series of books that enthralled him, the first book of which he HAD TO READ to himself for school. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. And he loved it enough to want to read the rest of them. Then came this series based very loosely on Greek mythology only set in modern times which he loved even more. He has a friend he admires very much, and they have quite a book club going between them. Because of all the books I've read to him, he and his friend had an amazing number of book-loves in common, and they recommended books to each other.

At his school, every day from 12:00 to 12:20, EVERYONE spends 20 minutes reading a book; the principal, the janitors, teachers, students, everyone. So, we found a book for him to take (after much complaining from him) and he finished it the other day, and begged to be taken to get the next one. And THEN, this was the most exciting part for me, he started reading it in the store and as we were walking back to the car. I had to hold his hand when we crossed the street because I didn't want him to trip or something. Suddenly, I seem to have reader on my hands, and this delights me even more than his being good at math and soccer. I'm just jealous about the singing thing. Rats. I've always wanted to be able to sing.

What these books have in common is lots of fighting, he says. Makes sense. He's a boy.

All right. I have to go meet my minimum word count. My heroine is about to find herself obliged to write to the hero to beg for assistance. Or something like that, I won't know for sure until I write the scene. Then I'm going to bed.

Labels: reading, Scandal, writing