Auteur : Marie Alice

Writing away and reading books. Joy! Écrire à tout vent et lire des romans. Joie!

Books to Read, Stories to Write in 2024

When does the morning start?

« It depends », was part of the answer a search engine gave us, dear writers and readers.

On Saturdays, the dog’s morning starts at 4:30am with the visit of newspaper boy… who is an actual grown man driving a car around in this little town nestled by a roaring river, to deliver a real newspaper.

Sometimes, one sleepy « woof » seems to satisfy her sense of hospitality. However, she usually welcomes him with a concert of barking.

Our dog has no taste for people merely dropping stuff on our doorsteps without having the courtesy of coming in to pet her.

Getting her to understand that, in this house, we do not indeed entertain before the crack of dawn will take time.

On the other hand, this lovely furry dog-beast of ours is the perfect can’t-snooze-wake-up-call I needed to get out of bed to start the 2024 New Year a couple of days before the bell strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Books to Read in 2024

I’m very glad to be a libraire again (and for good this time).

Being surrounded by books, from beautiful children’s picture books to intense geopolitics essays, is a blessing in itself.

(Nope. It doesn’t pay well to be a bookseller in a bookshop, and it will never pay well.)

(I made my peace with that.)

It also means making a choice within all the wonderful stories waiting to be read is haaaaard.

When I say waiting to be read, I do mean the majority of the books on my list have been out in the world for a while or might have been forgotten too soon.

Here’s a tiny preview of my list of books I wanna read in 2024, from novels, essays and biography, YA novels, graphic novels, kids novels:

Stories to Write in 2024

To write stories in 2024 is gonna be a real big, humongous challenge for me.

For a long while now, I’ve been struggling through a thick fogginess that left me mostly sad, anxious, empty.

Everything… making lunches, driving to Saturday’s activities, going to a family thing… everything was taller, colder, scarier than the tallest, coldest, scariest gigantic mountains you can imagine.

Every progress made was followed by a long, slow fall down a long, long, looong, sloap.

Sometimes, for a short period, say two-three days, my energy level was good enough to open my notebook, take my pen and write.

And then, craaaaash.

After a particularly dark December, a few days before Christmas, sparkles shined through.

Then grew stronger. Brighter.

Very slowly.

Now, holiday music is playing, kiddo is dancing. People are coming over in a few hours. I’m wearing the softest clothes anyone can imagine. And I’m writing this post without wanting to throw everything in the garbage.

Improvement comes in many kinds of forms and shapes, isn’t it, dear fellow readers and writers?

I wish you a very happy New Year. May 2024 bring you joy and laughter. May you stay safe, and healthy.

May you feel loved, even when the thickest fog comes crawling your way.

Rusty Words

How does writer’s block happen, and how to make it stop?

Writing this post is difficult hard.

The first sentence was erased and rewritten about twenty times. This paragraph went through the same process.

I’ve been trying to write a post about perseverance in writing, or rather, looking for inspiration to get back to writing for a good hour now.

It’s, what, less than 50 words or so?

What happened to the 500 words I could write in an hour?

Where’s the flow, the energy, my ever-so-shy but vital writer’s confidence?

How does writer’s block happen? And when does it stop?

Trigger Moment

It was the second meeting with the psychologist.

« You’re burned out », she said to me with a concerned yet professional voice, « and keeping up with waking up 4 am to write and work all day like you do is not helping you. »

« Well, I guess I need to change things up a little », was my reply. Or something close to that.

When I came back home, I sat down in front of the laptop – after putting on my trusty pj, of course.

Starting therapy was a big thing for me. the work I had to do on myself to even admit I needed professional help… dear oh dear! However, I was then ready to do whatever it took to find myself again.

One, two, three clicks later, all the Word documents were closed. I shut down the computer, put it away. I didn’t touch it again for months.

That was about three years ago.

Never since that very specific moment have I been able to get back into a steady writing routine… despite the numerous posts I wrote about it!

The Science of the Writer’s Block

Every writer goes through a « it’s not happening on the page » phase.

I’ve been there before, but never ever for that long.

Every time it seems to be going well again, guess what? Yep, no, it’s not happening.

Maybe you heard of semantic satiation, where a word loses its meaning because you repeat it too many times in a row.

The theory is, after a while, for writers, every word kind of loses its meaning because, yeah, you’ve been writing too much, for too long.

Since it’s not always the case, I’ve been trying to look for more answers and most essentially, for ways to get past a prolonged writer’s block.

This article by Maya Sapiurka explains a lot but also gives some tips for going through writer’s block.

The « read more » tip particularly caught my attention: I also have been through a reading slump lately. I’ve barely read two novels this month.

One more tip was added to the list of ways to beat writer’s block.

It goes along these ones:

  • Break down the workload into 2 or 3 writing sessions of 20 minutes each, taking a break in between. Taking a walk, which is also a good way to get the writing going, or doing a repetitive house chore may help.
  • Try something new, like a new sport, restaurant, or outdoor activity. It gets the brain pumping and the inspiration going.
  • How are we doing? Fine!
    Reeeallyyy?
    Creativity is directly related to our well-being. Let’s be good to ourselves. Healthy comforting food, 7-8 hours of good sleep (when was the last time I slept even four hours in a row…. hum… euh… arehm…), walks in the woods.

Now, time to get going with those tips!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope this post will help you go through writer’s block.

Wishing you all the good words, fellow writers. Be safe!