Maine summer and writing and reading stuff

Not impressed with that title? Well, you can join the club. I had a bunch of great topics, and was going to choose at least one of them to write about today, but I went for a drive instead.

Don’t judge me.

Summer is almost over and I’ve barely noticed it started. I should have been, today, working on my book that’s in major danger of not making my editor’s deadline, working on the many articles I have due before the month is over for my day job, or if not that stuff, at least figuring out what the smell coming from the kitchen sink drain is.

But it is a lovely perfect summer day in Maine — and we don’t get a ton of those — and so around 9 a.m. I got in the car and drove. My drive took me through Waldo County, up to Frankfort, and back home by another route. By the time I stopped at the Hannaford in China to pick up some stuff (I forgot the cat food!), my head was almost clear.

Frankfort, Maine, and the north branch of the Marsh River on a beautiful August day.

When we talk about writing process and all that stuff, one thing we probably don’t talk about enough is giving everything a break once in a while. You often hear that you HAVE TO write every day, you HAVE TO write so many words, you HAVE TO blah blah blah. Well, the biggest HAVE TO is powering down and giving your brain some time off, even if you’re behind on things.

In fact, driving around aimlessly, besides being really enjoyable, also tends to generate ideas and get my book working in my head in a way that’s also much more productive than typing on a keyboard.

By the way, here are some of the things I was going to write about:

I read an op/ed in the Boston Sunday Globe a couple of weeks ago lamenting the fact that if men aren’t reading as much fiction as they used to, it’s because no one is publishing books men want to read. Yes, that’s a huge generalization of the piece, but it’s my overall takeaway. The author seemed to conflate increased marketing of books for and by people of color and women, and about social issues, as meaning there are no books being published for men anymore. He did suggest that you can still read Hemingway or whoever. I was going to write a thoughtful analysis for this post today, but my brain isn’t there and what little I have in it is reserved for the (non-manly) book I am writing. So all I can say about it is:

Are you efffing kidding me? OF COURSE there are books by and for men, and definitely for men who don’t want to read about social issues. The publishing and reviewing industry has notoriously favored male writers and their books, and if the pendulum is swinging the other way, it’s still not quite there yet. If you aren’t being spoon fed information about books by and for men at the rate you’re used to, do what the rest of us have been doing for centuries. Go to the bookstore or library, look at all the books, and when you find one that you like, take it home to read. Problem solved.

Another topic I’d thought of tackling:

I read an article this morning that people in general are reading less for pleasure than they used to. This includes audio books, digital, etc. There were some theories why (people are working too hard because of the economy. Yeah right). My theory is that we have so many options to stream, who the hell wants to sit down with a book? But the study didn’t ask people why, so we’re left to figure it out for ourselves.

Again, I don’t have the mental power to do any kind of thoughtful analysis. I will say that anecdotally, at almost every event where I have an author table, someone has to announce to me that they don’t read. So my bottom line on this topic is what I always say to those people: That’s too bad.

That’s all I can summon today. Summer in Maine is short. Go out and enjoy it.