I Don't Even Know

I really want to finish Anna Karenina, but I'm dragging. I haven't picked up the book in a week. The writing has been going phenomenally -- I'm so excited about that! But it's at the expense of my reading time.

For a while, I was reading a little bit every night before I went to bed. I tried to squeeze an hour out of it, but sometimes it didn't hold my interest, and I struggled to stay awake. Now, my nights have consisted of staying awake until the wee hours writing continuously. The results are stupendous!

I feel very conflicted about the whole thing. I don't want to be loser and not read the book ((it really does have its moments where it's wonderful...)), but at this rate, I feel like I'll never get to read anything else from my booklist. I feel like maybe I ought to pick a different book, something a bit more appealing -- something that'll be easier for me to read and enjoy. Maybe then the reading/writing will be easier to balance.

I kind of hate myself right now.

I, Epic Fail

I pretty much suck. I've been reading Anna Karenina for, what?, over two weeks now? I'm not far along, at all. In fact, it's so embarrassing how much I have not been reading, that I refuse to release what page number I am.

I fail at life.

Sort of. I say that because, while I'm still struggling to get through the novel ((it's taken over 60 pages to meet the main character: WTF?)), I have reached my main goal. It's not to read 50 books this year; yes, it's important, but I decided to participate in this challenge because reading encourages me to write. By reading, I'm assaulted by my muse, my inspiration, my what-have-you. And when I haven't been reading, I've been writing. And it feels amazing.

Granted, it hasn't been for my NaNoWriMo novel, but it's still something. I'm supposed to write everyday, yeah? Well, these past two weeks, I have been. It's been awesome.

So, while I fail, I still win!!

I love it.

...Hopefully I'll stop being a chump and actually finish Anna Karenina. Honestly, though it's a tad on the boring side, there are portions that just draw me in. But, like Love in the Time of Cholera, they don't last very long.

Anyway, update. Sucky as it is.

Epic Fail

I still haven't finished Mansfield Park.

It sucks, and so do I.

Spring Break

I am now officially on spring break ((thank God)). In between sleep, sleep and bad television, I plan to:

1. complete Emma
2. complete Mansfield Park
3. begin either The Enchantress of Florence, Anna Karenina or Jane Eyre

Number 3 does not necessarily have to be accompished during spring break, but definitely by it's end. If I wanna even get close to 50 novels, I need to put a dent in the list already.

Big time serious for number 1, though. I'm tired of posts complaining about that novel. I need a new one to complain about.

Blaaaah Emma

I'm having some serious difficulties with reading Emma. It's just not as a great as Pride and Prejudice, which is definitely my favorite. I'm a little worried about reading Mansfield Park, which I need to start in a week.

Obviously, P&P has been a long-running favorite for many Austen fans, but I was expecting a little bit more from her other books. I suppose it's because Emma was written before P&P, and there are styles and themes she definitely changed for future works. But I get hung up easily on...what I want to call errors. 'I don't like when dialogue is placed inside of apostrophe's instead of quotations. It's annoying, especially when one decides to "quote a person within the dialogue, so Austen decides to finally use the quotations correctly." It gets on my ever-living nerves.'

I mean, there are certain aspects of Emma that are enjoyable. I love picking out the bits to the book that were transferred over to the film "Clueless". But other than that...it's kind of boring.

Gah, I have a couple weeks yet to finish it. I feel like I've been reading it for years. I just want to be done already.

Book List

**21 novels read in 2009

I've decided to return to the world of blogging. Though, I should probably use the term loosely. I'm not so much blogging as I'm participating in the 50 Books a Year fun-time madness. And this will be the locale of my success or failure.

So far, I'm not off to a good start, lol.

Here is my list. It's not 50 yet, but I figure I'll add more as I start crossing them off. I'm not reading in any particular order, either.

It'll consist mostly of books recommended to me by others, and almost all of them will be books I would never read under normal circumstances. I do have several "safety" books thrown in, by authors I know and trust to keep me entertained.

K. That's all.

1. Emma by Jane Austen (3.18.09)
2. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
3. A Long Way Home: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
4. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (4.30.09)
7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolskoy
8. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (5.20.09)
9. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (5.6.09)
10. The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger
11. MacKenzie's Magic by Linda Howard
12. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
13. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
14. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
15. Scarlett by Alexandria Ripley
16. The Cutting Edge by Linda Howard
17. Come Lie With Me by Linda Howard
18. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
19. Atonement by Ian McEwan
20. Marley & Me by John Grogan
21. The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle (7.29.09)
22. The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ((I totally cliffnote-ed this baby in HS; I'm for serious this time))
23. Stardust by Niel Gaiman
24. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
25. *The Host by Stephenie Meyer (7.17.09)
26. *Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks (5.4.09)
27. A Northen Light by Jennifer Donnelly
28. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7.21.09)
29. The Story of Edward Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
30. Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue
31. Hands of My Father by Myron Uhlberg
32. Awake by Lisa McMann (10.19.09)
33. Fade by Lisa McMann
34. *I'll Scream Later by Marlee Matlin (8.28.09)
35. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith (5.25.09)
36. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
37. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve
38. The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve
39. *Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (8.23.09)
40. *Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella
41. *Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella
42. *Shopaholic & Sister by Sophie Kinsella
43. *Shopaholic & Baby by Sophie Kinsella
44. Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight
45. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler
46. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Granger
47. Echoes by Maeve Binchy
48. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (9.05.09)
49. Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen (9.15.09)
50. *The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
51. The Light of Day by Graham Swift
52. Pink Slip Party by Cara Lockwood
53. A Perfect Day by Richard Paul Evans
54. Roadside Corsses by Jeffery Deaver
55. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
56. Lolita Vladimir Nabovok
57. Prime Time (Charlie McNally Series) by Hank Phillippi Ryan
58. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (10.08.09)
59. The Sign for Drowning by Rachel Stolzman
60. The Twisted Window by Lois Duncan (10.16.09)
61. The Giver by Lois Lowry (10.31.09)
62. John Dies at the End by David Wong (11-28-09)

*Denotes safety read.
*Red Strike-Thru denotes very slim chances of me picking up the novel again.