creativity

A review of my 2020 reading challenge

Our latest foster-cat-turned-foster-fail, Minou, posing among my scattered pile of dystopian fiction. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Our latest foster-cat-turned-foster-fail, Minou, posing among my scattered pile of dystopian fiction. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Oof. Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to stretch my unused and cramping writing muscles before I dive into not only my first post of 2021, but my first writing of any kind in several months.

Like most of the world’s population, I had a pretty awful 2020. And while I would love to be the kind of person who turns to creative outlets in times of intense personal, local, national, global, and existential stress, it turns out I’m mostly the kind of person who engages in unhealthy consuming habits while repressing the urge to scream. What little energy I had over the last year I divided between going to my job, protesting, and finding ways of not taking out my frustration on strangers, coworkers, or loved ones. In those few tasks, I think I was successful. Or, at least, mostly successful.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

I also tried doing a little writing during our brief lockdown in the spring, but everything I put to paper during that time just came out furious and wrong. Surprise, surprise: it’s hard to dig deep when everything under the surface is lava.

I returned to work when my city ended lockdown at the end of April, which at the time meant interacting with an only-occasionally-masked public several days a week. I soon stopped taking editing jobs and trying to work on my novel. Eventually, I stopped working on this website as well.

If there was one good thing to come out of my personal version of 2020 (other than seeing both our fascist-in-chief voted out of office and people of all races coming out to support BLM), it was that I got to read A LOT. This was also the year I started listening to audiobooks, which I did on my commute, while eating lunch in my car, and doing chores at home. Since October, when my employer shifted me into a new position to help an understaffed department during our pandemic-driven hiring freeze, I even got to listen to them during my work day.

So I guess things aren’t so bad after all!

Photo by Nsey Benajah.

Photo by Nsey Benajah.

Ha.

But I was truly grateful for the many great books I came across last year, especially those that either helped me process what was happening or those that offered a temporary escape from it. And I don’t know if I would have focused as much on reading had I not already set the challenge before the pandemic hit.

Dead Astronauts was the most beautifully produced book I read last year, with not only an attractive dust jacket, but also a foil-decorated cover and quirkily illustrated interior. Its size and light weight also made it a pleasure to hold. Photo by …

Dead Astronauts was the most beautifully produced book I read last year, with not only an attractive dust jacket, but also a foil-decorated cover and quirkily illustrated interior. Its size and light weight also made it a pleasure to hold. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

What I changed

That being said, I did give myself a little extra flexibility in how to approach my initial goals. While I completed my general challenge of reading at least five books in at least 20 categories, and at least 20 books in one of those categories, the categories themselves were not always the same ones I had outlined at the start of the year. And the particular titles rarely were the same as those I had initially stacked in my 2020 TBR piles.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

With the exceptions of memoirs, personal essays, and writing books, I ended up avoiding nearly all of the non-fiction I had originally included in my reading plan. This change was partly due to the fact that I had also stopped writing, so the books I had wanted to dive into for research mostly became reminders of what I knew I should be doing but wasn’t. The other reason is that, in a period when I very badly needed either emotional catharsis or escape, the intellectually interesting but emotionally barren just wasn’t cutting it. Besides, as a writer of SFF, it’s all too easy for me to rationalize reading SFF and other fiction as its own kind of necessary research. And really, I’m not a bit sorry.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

In place of the cast-aside non-fiction, I created new categories for the books I was suddenly gravitating toward, including things like feminist fiction, dystopia, and horror. My 20-plus category, which was originally meant to be “Books I Owned Prior to 2020” (final count: 7 complete, 1 DNF) was ultimately swapped for the previously unaccounted for “Library Books” (final count: 58 complete, 6 DNF or finished in 2021). And while “Library Books” made up my largest category, it wasn’t the only one with over 20 titles: “New Releases (2019–20)” also easily hit that goal with 27 completed reads and 3 that were either DNFs or completed this year. “Novellas/short novels” included 20 titles, and “Speculative fiction featuring non-white protagonists” was a significant fourth, with 19 completed reads and three more I started but didn’t finish until 2021.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

The Good

So, if I was willing to drop and add categories, did having categories at all even matter?

Actually, yes. Creating new categories as I read meant looking for patterns in my reading preferences, and that pushed me to think a bit more about why I was gravitating towards some books and not others. Having pre-set categories was also helpful in keeping me on track to pick up those books I wanted to read but might have pushed to the back burner in favor of other titles that were more obviously targeted to me. This doesn’t mean I felt like I was forcing myself to read things I didn’t care about, but rather that, when choosing between books, I was more likely to pick up the one that fit one of my categories. Because I had created categories that were designed to reinforce my desire to read more diversely, I did indeed read more diversely last year than I had before.

Moreover, categories that led me to books I particularly enjoyed are now firmly cemented in my mind as “books I like and will automatically look for” in large part because I read enough in those categories to see a pattern of preference for a certain quality, rather than chalking it up to the work of a certain author (although, of course, I will think of particular authors more as well).

A selection of the many great novellas and short novels I read over the course of the year. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

A selection of the many great novellas and short novels I read over the course of the year. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Having goals also made reading itself feel like something I not only wanted to do, but was a useful and productive thing to do. As a researcher and/or graduate student, it was normal for me to read parts of many, many books, but they were rarely texts I needed to absorb in whole. Not including those partial-reads, then, I can say I got through more books in 2020 than I ever have in a single year since reaching adulthood, with my grand total (not including books I edited or didn’t finish) coming in at 84 volumes. For comparison, in previous years I would have been happy to come in around 30, or even fewer.

The questionable

Only counting books I finished encouraged me to finish what I started and caused any DNFed books to feel like wasted time. Towards the end of the year, though, I found myself casting aside more books in an effort to keep my reading momentum going. In these cases, I made the decision to move on to something else fairly quickly, before I felt I had invested too much time. Most of these DNFs were things I just wasn’t in the mood for at the moment but am open to trying again later.

the bad

I’m still not sure if my increased tendency to DNF either immediately or not at all was a good or bad effect of my reading challenge. There were, however, a few less ambiguous downsides to trying to get through so many books.

The first is simply that I didn’t savor the writing and stories as much as I would have had there been no time pressure. The second is that I actively sought out books I could get through quickly, causing a number of worthy but dense or particularly long possibilities to fall by the wayside. Finally, and perhaps most importantly: I too often let reading fill time that could have gone to other important things, especially writing.

2021 Reading

All of that being said, I’m taking a much looser approach to my reading for 2021. Instead of a bunch of categories, I’ve given myself 20 specific titles I need to read by the end of the year, and have set a general reading goal of at least 60 books (I’m already at 34). For the 60 titles, I’m splitting my focus between just three very broad categories—“new releases,” “should have read by now,” and “reread”—and have jotted down several titles in each, which I plan to use as suggestions should I find myself in a slump. I also hope to do more research reading, but will let my writing guide me on those topics and titles over the course of the year.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

final lists

Concurrent with working on this post, I’m writing up an annotated list of my favorite books of last year. Although I’m trying to limit myself to 20 entries, the truth is that I would recommend almost everything I read to someone, although many were definitely not for everyone (and Flatland, read in its sexist, racist, boring entirety, will be for almost no one).

With that in mind, I am including my final lists of categories and books completed in case anyone is looking for related titles to add to their own TBR piles.

In the first section, books counted for each category are presented roughly in the order I read them. The second section is a simple list of all the completed titles and their authors, alphabetized by author last name.

Reading Categories

Goal: read at least five books in twenty categories and at least twenty books in one category. Books can count for multiple categories.

Result: completed at least five books in twenty-three categories and fifty-seven books in one category. Most books counted for multiple categories.

1. Books I owned prior to 2020

An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor Lavalle

Writing Deep Scenes, Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld

The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

count: 7

2. Non-fiction—memoir/biography/personal essays

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey

Hunger, Roxane Gay

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff

The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe

count: 6

3. Non-fiction—books about writing and writers

The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman

Writing Deep Scenes, Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamont

Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey

Hunger, Roxane Gay

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

count: 8

4. Novellas/short novels

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor Lavalle

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

Prosper’s Demon, K.J. Parker

The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp

The Seep, Chana Porter

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

The Word for World is Forest, Ursula K. Le Guin

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

Queens of Fennbirn, Kendare Blake

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Duchamp Versus Einstein, Christopher Hinz and Etan Ilfeld

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

count: 20

5. Books by Asian and Asian diaspora authors

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

Monstress, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Exhalation, Ted Chiang

Queens of Fennbirn, Kendare Blake

Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Five Dark Fates, Kendare Blake

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami

Severance, Ling Ma

count: 12

6. Books by African and African diaspora authors [this category ended up being mostly African American authors]

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey

Hunger, Roxane Gay

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin

count: 14

7. Experimental/surreal/“difficult” fiction

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

The Seep, Chana Porter

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

count: 10

8. Classic/BIG NAME/mainstream science fiction titles and authors

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Word for World is Forest, Ursula K. Le Guin

Agency, William Gibson

Dune, Frank Herbert

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

Foundation, Isaac Asimov

count: 15

9. Classic/BIG NAME/mainstream fantasy titles and authors

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan

The Black Prism, Brent Weeks

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin

count: 17

10. Speculative fiction featuring non-white protagonists

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle

Monstress, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

The Seep, Chana Porter

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Severance, Ling Ma

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone [?]

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin

count: 19

11. SF/F featuring LGBT+/gender-nonconforming protagonists/major themes

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

Monstress, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

The Seep, Chana Porter

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

count: 11

12. Short story collections

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

Exhalation, Ted Chiang

Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

count: 5

13. Mythology/fairy tales/folklore/ghost stories and retellings

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Rise of the Halfling King, David Bowles

count: 7

14. Mysteries/suspense/thrillers

Private Paris, James Patterson and Mark Sullivan

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Glass Houses, Louise Penny

You, Caroline Kepnes

The Darwin Affair, Tim Mason

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Farris

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

count: 7

15. New releases (2019–20)

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

Prosper’s Demon, K.J. Parker

The Man Who Came Down the Stairs, Celine Loup

The Seep, Chana Porter

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

Exhalation, Ted Chiang

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

Five Dark Fates, Kendare Blake

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

The Darwin Affair, Tim Mason

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie

The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe

What Cats Want, Dr. Yuki Hattori

Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Rise of the Halfling King, David Bowles

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin

count: 27

16. Books I chose because of their covers

An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

Prosper’s Demon, K.J. Parker

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

The Seep, Chana Porter

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

The Darwin Affair, Tim Mason

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

What Cats Want, Dr. Yuki Hattori

count: 15

17. Next book in series

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson

Queens of Fennbirn, Kendare Blake

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

Five Dark Fates, Kendare Blake

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

count: 9

18. Graphic novels

Sabrina, Nick Drnaso

Monstress, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

The Man Who Came Down the Stairs, Celine Loup

Chronin Vol. 1, Alison Wilgus

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Farris

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Rise of the Halfling King, David Bowles

count: 8

19. Literary and classic fiction

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

count: 8

20. Feminist literature (fiction and non-fiction)

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Power, Naomi Alderman

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

Queens of Fennbirn, Kendare Blake

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

Five Dark Fates, Kendare Blake

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Hunger, Roxane Gay

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone [?]

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

count: 14

21. Horror/supernatural

The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

In the Valley of the Sun, Andy Davidson

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Idle Ingredients, Matt Wallace

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Prosper’s Demon, K.J. Parker

count: 9

22. Library books

In the Valley of the Sun, Andy Davidson

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan

The Black Prism, Brent Weeks

The Man Who Came Down the Stairs, Celine Loup

Sabrina, Nick Drnaso

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

You, Caroline Kepnes

The Deep, Rivers Solomon

Exhalation, Ted Chiang

Glass Houses, Louise Penny

Private Paris, James Patterson and Mark Sullivan

Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill

Agency, William Gibson

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami

The Black Prism, Brent Weeks

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

The Darwin Affair, Tim Mason

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey

Hunger, Roxane Gay

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Farris

Black Belt Librarians, Warren Graham

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff

Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay

Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie

The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Rise of the Halfling King, David Bowles

What Cats Want, Dr. Yuki Hattori

Severance, Ling Ma

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

The Power, Naomi Alderman

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin

count: 58

23. Dystopian

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

Severance, Ling Ma

Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

The Power, Naomi Alderman

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

count: 10

Books finished

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

The Power, Naomi Alderman [audio]

Writing Deep Scenes, Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld

Foundation, Isaac Asimov [audio]

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood [audio]

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood [audio]

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo [audio]

Queens of Fennbirn, Kendare Blake

Five Dark Fates, Kendare Blake

Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Rise of the Halfling King, David Bowles

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler [audio]

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler [audio]

Exhalation, Ted Chiang [audio]

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins [audio]

Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey [audio]

In the Valley of the Sun, Andy Davidson

Sabrina, Nick Drnaso

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone [audio]

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Farris

The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman

Coraline, Neil Gaiman [audio]

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman [audio]

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay [book/audio]

Hunger, Roxane Gay [audio]

Agency, William Gibson [audio]

Fierce Fairytales, Nikita Gill

Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi (2020) [audio]

The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff [audio]

What Cats Want, Dr. Yuki Hattori

Dune, Frank Herbert [audio]

Duchamp Versus Einstein, Christopher Hinz and Etan Ilfeld

Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb [audio]

An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro [audio]

Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James [audio]

Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin [audio]

The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan [audio]

You, Caroline Kepnes [audio]

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamont

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle

The Word for World is Forest, Ursula K. Le Guin

Monstress, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

The Man Who Came Down the Stairs, Celine Loup

Severance, Ling Ma [audio]

Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin [audio]

The Darwin Affair, Tim Mason [audio]

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire [audio]

The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe [audio]

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami [audio]

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami [audio]

The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

Prosper’s Demon, K.J. Parker

Private Paris, James Patterson and Mark Sullivan [audio]

Glass Houses, Louise Penny

The Seep, Chana Porter

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson [audio]

Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson [audio]

Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson [audio]

The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp

The Deep, Rivers Solomon [audio]

The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie

Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey [audio]

Dead Astronauts, Jeff Vandermeer

Idle Ingredients, Matt Wallace

The Black Prism, Brent Weeks [audio]

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead [audio]

The Beauty/Peace, Pipe, Aliya Whiteley

Chronin Vol. 1, Alison Wilgus

The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang

 

Total: 84

Working out a creative charley horse

Karen the cat hiding from her responsibilities. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Karen the cat hiding from her responsibilities. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

As of yesterday, I’ve finally wrapped up my recent editing projects, (mostly) recovered from my cold, and am waiting on feedback for my query and synopsis. In other words, all the things that have been keeping me from my next writing project—and this blog—are off my plate.

And yet, when I sat down last night to the work that I actually love, that I have missed and looked forward to, I completely seized up. I had no idea how to get back into my book, and instead kept banging my shins against conflicting ideas of who I want the characters to be and where I want the plot to go. Looking at my outline was like watching the worst part of a horror movie; all I wanted to do was cover my eyes and turn away. Just the idea of coming up with the most basic Visual Writer post sent walls up inside my brain.

I’m friends with enough artists and writers to know this is not an uncommon experience for creatives, and there is plenty of online click-bait that tries to tell us why this happens. According to many such articles, it’s about ego and/or fear, especially the conflicting fears of failure and success (try googling “writer’s block fear” or “writer’s block ego” if you don’t already know what I mean).

In my experience, however, these moments strike when I’ve simply been away from a project for too long. Although I’ve been *thinking* about my story daily and occasionally opened a document to jot down notes for later, I no longer have a clear entry point into the work, and currently have more questions about how to proceed than answers.

This creative cramping always takes me back to my childhood memories of being grounded until I cleaned my very messy room. Even though I knew the best way forward was simply to pick a corner and start tidying, the sheer number of tasks facing me always caused me to freeze. I could easily spend a half hour just standing silently, eyes wide in a kind of panicked meditation, until, finally, the building internal pressure pushed me into action.

Karen the cat on a pile of unfolded laundry. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Karen the cat on a pile of unfolded laundry. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

I eventually learned the best way to avoid such distress was simply to not let my room get so messy in the first place. In the same way, I know the best way to avoid writer’s block is to write (almost) daily, or at least not let more than a couple days pass before I put fingers to keyboard again. Simply doing the writing equivalent of throwing my socks in the hamper can make all the difference.

But, of course, I’ve now been putting my creative work off for a couple of months, and my metaphorical piles of clothes are stacked so high they’re in danger of toppling over and crushing me beneath their weight. It’s a situation that causes some fear, but isn’t caused by fear.

So this post is my attempt to start in one corner and start tidying. As for the rest … I guess I’m grounded until I’m done.