struggling...

I really challenged myself during Lent this year.  Aside from the usual sacrifices (chocolate, sodas, coffee, red meat, etc), I gave up leisure reading.

OMGosh, did I really???  What was I thinking?

Surprisingly, this is the one Lenten promise I kept - and it's been a struggle.

My bookshelves are filled with books that I intend to read - books of information on a variety of subjects:  religion, literature, diet, nutrition, exercise, psychology, career development, business...  I promise myself every year I'm going to tackle at least one.  But it never happens.  And this year I decided this would be the year I made changes, cuz if you keep doing the same thing you keep getting the same results, right?  So, in keeping with my mantra (not again in 2010), I decided I truly would read differently this year and I decided I'd start during Lent and I'd start with "Reading Like a Writer." 

Aaarrrgggghhh!!!!  Lent started Ash Wednesday and ended Easter Sunday.  Well, I'm still reading...  cuz I'm really struggling.  I think I'm on Chapter 3. 

This is more a testimony to me and my lack of discipline than it is to Francine Prose.  I'm really forcing myself to trudge thru this.  It's like being in school again, and this is my textbook...  Professor Prose is my teacher and I'm dozing off in class, missing the point, the purpose of her lectures and not going to get the "A" I thought would be so easy to get.  Ha!  College all over again.

One thing that really helped me is skipping ahead to the back... and finding an abundance of information, including a recommended reading list and an interview with the author (my professor!).  Knowing her intention and purpose helped me go back to my stopping point and forge on.  And it's sparking a ton of ideas - lots of dogeared corners and notes in the margins.  But I'm still struggling.

And I'll try to capture all that here when I finish it (if I EVER finish it!) but, for now, I just wanted to stop in and update on where I am and why.  And to try not to think about the fact that I could have been on Grafton's "I" by now! 

~sigh~