I read three books last weeks- or five- if you also count the novel manuscript I read twice while editing. I wrote three short pieces, a few blog entries, the letter of intent for a workshop I want to attend, four pages and three new sentences to a longer work in progress- of which I kept the three sentences – and a few love letter emails to authors I adore.
My life is in words.

In the shower, I write on the glass door until the steam overtakes the last “e” then I write more. Some days it’s a list, other days a what-if-I had-fifty grand spending plan. I write out my goals, balance my checkbook, try out lines for my characters, then things I wish I’d said last night, or want to say tomorrow– and then, stuff I can never say.

Ideas are everywhere. I speak into a small recorder when I drive, I write notes on a reporter’s pad in the parking lot at dance class, or on my Ipod I-touch in the yellow legal pad section, letters clickfalling into place.

Sometimes I find things I’ve written that I don’t remember composing. I love this. I spent an hour trying to figure out where I had “borrowed” a fantastic story opening, so I could give the author credit- only to figure out- thanks to the Mac file properties system- that I had written it myself one wee morning in August of 2007. That’s what happens when you roll out of bed at 4:30 in the morning, tug on yoga pants and a sweatshirt then wander into your office to write uninterrupted, dreamlike.

I have a pile of twenty pleasure fiction books to read and five educational/learning/writing books to read. I have promised myself I will not buy anymore until these are read and filed in the bookcases. I have a list on my good reads page and my website, though that one does need updating. I’ll have to add that to the to-do list on the shower wall.
Today I’ll finish David Fulmer’s The Blue Door and start Jennifer Egan’s The Keep.
What are you reading?