Day Two Hundred and Sixty Four
Crime and Punishment Page: 300
I’m a little worried about my teenage self. Why did I enjoy the Russian authors so very much? It’s not that I don’t think Crime and Punishment is a good book or worthy of it’s classic status, it’s just so very sad and depressing. Definitely an interesting book, as fascinating for it’s philosophy as for it’s story.
I’ve been working on writing my book proposal and of course keeping up with all three of my blogs and so I’ve been meditating a bit on the writing process. I keep getting stymied with my 200books blog and with my book proposal while the “fun stuff” I post on my other blogs has just been rolling out my fingertips. Every once in a long while I’ll feel a flash of inspiration but when I sit down to work on the book blood starts oozing out of my pores from the stress. I’m overwhelmed by not knowing exactly what I want it to be, not knowing if it will be “good enough” and not knowing if I’ll ever have the time to get it done. But today I’ve felt a little bit of a mental breakthrough. No, I didn’t dash off 50 pages of brilliant prose before breakfast but I had a new thought about how I’m writing it and why.
I got to thinking about the constraints of the project; the busyness, the distractions, the every-day-ness of it all. And I realized that I ought to be writing the book under those conditions. I should stop pining for peace and quiet, stop wishing that I could retreat to compose my “masterpiece” and just take joy in the struggle and see what happens. I may not be working on the biggest break-through in literary criticism this decade but whatever I produce will be a reflection of my life. So living life well is the best preparation for the book I want to write. I want to write about how literature keeps life interesting, how it destroys pettiness and how it beautifies drudgery but if I’m busy trying to escape life then I won’t be much of an authority on that now will I?