I've been away from blogging for a while and spent much needed time writing. I was in "the zone" during the Christmas holidays and found it hard to resurface in January to do normal things like go to work or comb my hair. At times, I felt a ping of guilt about not updating my blog but I find it difficult to listen to both the public voices in the media and to the voices of my fictional characters. My characters won, they always do. I wanted to blog most following the earthquake in Haiti but following the story as it developed has been instructive to me about our media and celebrity culture, how at times it thrives on tragedy to have a headline. I think the most useful narratives will come later after some time has passed, when we hear from those who lived through the earthquake. I cannot imagine living beneath rubble for 7 to 10 days and living to tell that story.
Books that I read over the holidays: The Book of Night Women by Marlon James; A Question of Freedom by R. Dwayne Betts; the beginning of The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (had to get it back to the library); Arc and Hue by Tara Betts; Psalm of the Sunflower by Antoinette Brim; Pulling Scabs by Curtis L. Crisler. I loved each one of these books and will write more on this later.
Yep, it was a good holiday full of reading and writing, which means that today I am feeling optimistic and ready to move onward.
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