As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ve been feeling for a while that I’ve lost the skill of writing – writing this blog, primarily – and I wanted to get it back, and in doing so started to realise that it is actually my belief in myself that I’ve lost, not the skill of writing. I think going a while without writing makes you feel like you’re out of the game, you’re away from the conversation and trending topics, even if you don’t concentrate on trending topics. And with fast-moving tech and social media, you kind of are, trend-joiner or not; social media is an intriguing mix of being literally left behind and forgotten if you don’t post and noticeably missing for the same. And certainly my podcast is behind.

But, yes, it’s more my motivation and muse that is lacking. Certainly writing constantly makes you feel current and that is both due to the aforementioned social media and regardless of it – you fall behind if you’re not aware of the trending topic but, equally, if your own ideas and thoughts are not being produced by writing and consuming other people’s writing (that second one’s so important) you kind of fall behind your own self. You create a sort of content gap within yourself, weeks or months between your last and new piece of writing or indeed other content, and you lose your progress. I’d go so far as to say that I’ve fore-fitted a few years of progress in the skill of writing as it concerns my own specific interests, particularly as it took years for me to reach a place where I felt competent in writing about literature.

And – forgive the unorthodox paragraph break – I think that becomes harder to bridge the more often you had been publishing your work – an author can go years without writing and come back like they never left whereas do I notice when my favourite TikTok channel has missed a few days? Yes, yes I do. (Yes, I know part of that is social media algorithms and the push to post more and more for higher numbers and arguably to create money for the company you’re essentially creating for.)

I know that getting back your motivation, when the drive is there but you feel stuck, depends on just doing it, forcing it if you have to. I did that last week and then I let myself retreat into a couple of easy long-templated posts while I took in the fact that I’d broken my silence. And now I’m back here a week later writing a little more properly, even if not on the most interesting subject. And having done that, I’ve better topics in the works because a small piece of me now believes in myself again.

I’m going to keep trying; I posted three days a week consistently for so long and have gone through the worry of being all out of ideas enough to know that while things get harder, there’s always something waiting out there to be found and written about. I’m even here writing this with music in my ears – a first for me.

An oft-used phrase of mine: no big conclusion here, I’m just trying. I will not disparage myself if I miss a day because going back to three times a week all of a sudden is a lot especially if I want to haul my podcast back into the mix too. But I’m trying.

As I try to get myself back into the swing of being myself again following the massive life change I’ve gone through the last several months, I’m feeling ever more drawn to write this blog again. It’s not like I ever stopped feeling that way – I stopped writing because running an indie podcast takes a phenomenal amount of time if you want the content to be snappy – but right now it feels particularly accessible and obviously easier, less daunting, and there’s something about having a place to write, albeit it on a specific subject (which limits you) that podcasting can’t match in the same way, happy though it makes me. I’ve also come to realise that the idea that I’ve lost the skill isn’t correct – it feels that way but actually what I’ve lost is my belief in myself and I could do with getting that back.

I have effectively mostly said goodbye to Austen country to say hello to Robert Burns country; I need to explore his work more as if I do find I like it, there’s a lot more of Burns in Dumfries than there is Austen in Hampshire, even Chawton (yes!). Besides Burns’ house and the mausoleum, there is the Centre, statues of Burns and his wife, Jean Armour (separate statues in different places at that), multiple pubs and shops with imagery or straight-out history, and poetry in various places in town. It took 3 visits for me to realise the pavement around the bandstand at a park boasted a poem, it was so unexpected. And near Dumfries there’s another Burns house. (And all this as well as history that relates to Robert the Bruce and William Wallace and Bonnie Prince Charlie and a Taj Mahal-esque abbey – the town is as run down as the residents will tell you but the history is fantastic.)

Since the latter months of last year my reading has been minimal but I’m starting to get back on track. I finished Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare in May. It took me two months but I got it done. I dabbled in Marian Keyes’ Grown Ups which didn’t stick, Sarah Moss’s Summerwater which is nice but not quite right for me right now – the irony that it’s set in Scotland at solstice isn’t lost on me – but what is sticking is Phoebe McIntosh’s Dominoes. That one was a strange but understandable journey – I saw a McIntosh in a local church’s graveyard (the big, red stone monuments in Scotland are still a novelty to me and very grand) and it reminded me I had never got to Phoebe’s book… which made me get wistful about the hardback I have in my storage unit back home before, a few days later, I remembered I have an ecopy on my reader. Belated thanks again to Andrew Blackman – it’s a good read.

This is draft two of this post. The first yapped on about what I was reading and it didn’t feel right – I’ve left some books out of this draft. I’m also letting this post be easy and mundane, just something with some life, some energy, in it, and a primary purpose of putting a few words on a blank page; I’m going to smile to myself after I publish it. I might dance around the room a bit and get excited when the man that undeniably caused all this comes home and asks me about my day. Whoever first said moving is one of the biggest life stressors was right. So is upending your entire life. I have a feeling that if I’m writing, I’ll get through it.

The good thing is that I’m finding a routine. The bad thing is I’m not yet great at it and so I’m behind on my usual end of year and start of year housekeeping. That said, I have spent enough time thinking about what my goals should be that I’ve come to a firm decision about Vanity Fair, the book that has been languishing on my reading list, moved from year to year with no reading movement.

I suppose the first thing to say, before continuing on my Thackeray decision, is to say that, broadly, I’m going back to a reading goal I had some previous years – I will read as much as I comfortably can. In looking at past goal posts I noticed I haven’t written one since 2021, which makes sense though still surprised me – I think, even now, I’m starting to forget just how stressed I was – and, more of a surprise was the fact I’d actually listed some goals. I thought I’d said ‘read as much as I comfortably can’ more often.

That dealt with, then, Thackeray – I have decided to leave his tome on my 2024 reading list and not carry it forward. I know – unthinkable! But it’s time. I have chosen to deliberately leave it in its unfinished…glory?… on that list instead of removing it as I usually do if I decide I haven’t read enough of a book to carry it over from one year to the next. Let it stand as a testament to my on-off history with it and also, if I do end up reading it some time, I think considering that new time to be a blank slate would be best. This all said, you may be surprised by the following. While I don’t want to make any hard and fast goals, I like the idea of some things I’ll aim to do if I can:

1) Here it goes: I’m going to see if I can read Vanity Fair, as though it’s new to me. I’m going to keep it in mind for when my reading time is not too busy and have a ponder.
2) I would like to finish Drums Of Autumn which I barely started in December. For all my talk of it being a tradition for me, I failed to read Outlander at Christmas.
3) I’d like to go back and finish the Venatrix Chronicles, my favourite fantasy series that I flew through right until the seventh and final book where I stopped because I wasn’t ready for it to end. I do not want to do another The Amber Spyglass and wait for years – that way leads to too much anticipation which will render any successful ending not good enough. (Not that I found the Pullman to be any objective success.)
4) I want to read more fantasy. TikTok and the romantasy trend is helping and I have some very popular books on my shelves waiting to be read.
5) I would like to re-start and read the whole of Burney’s Cecelia. I was very into it, in fact I checked my Kobo and I was 70% through volume one, but, likely, rabbits… Actually, the thing that concerns me most with Burney is that I don’t remember much at all of Evelina even though I found it an okay enough read. Please don’t tell Jane Austen.

And that’s plenty. If I do the above, great, if I don’t, I’ll have read other great things.

What are your reading goals for this year?

I thought I would have a look back at what I’ve written so far in these almost 15 years. I am thrilled that this list has changed from the last time I checked – for a very long time one of my most popular posts was of a very little known book and while I loved the book (I might as well include what it is) I don’t know if my review had any bearing on sales, which was disheartening. It’s also no longer available.

I love that newer posts are on here as well as some of my long-standing favourites and posts I worked hard on. They are in order of view counts and I have chosen to highlight the top 20:

1) What Happened To Faina At The End Of Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child?

I was incredibly happy with this post; I’d found the book compelling. With the book receiving a new edition, I wouldn’t be surprised if this post stays at number one for a while longer.

2) Alice In Wonderland: What Is The Appropriate Age?

This was to answer people who were coming to my site looking for, well, this answer. I found it a fascinating subject to write about because Alice seems younger than the text itself reads. (Though that could of course simply be down the the era.)

3) The Ending Of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

I just had to explore this topic.

4) On The Reasons For Censoring Names And Places In Victorian Literature

In my early days of reading classics, why Victorian literature censored things was a question that took up my time. Me being me, I had to do some research.

5) How To Order Surnames

Still something I’m not perfect on without double checking, I admit to ordering my bookshelves by first name (though that does also help when the author is someone with three names, you can’t find any mention of them online, and you don’t know if the middle one is the first in a double-barrel or a middle name).

6) Did Scarlett Get Rhett Back?

Another question I asked myself that I had to explore. Was this the very early beginnings of my podcast? Quite possibly!

7) Is There Anything In The Fact Tolstoy Calls Both Karenin And Vronsky ‘Alexei’?

Something that definitely helped me get through the to-me slog that was Levin’s portions of Tolstoy’s book – study the parts I enjoyed.

8) Identity In Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca

The first exploratory post I wrote about the book and the first time I studied it.

9) Elizabeth Is Missing: Who Killed Sukey?

This did very well once the TV show started.

10) Frédéric Dard – Bird In A Cage

My review of the English translation of the classic French thriller. I don’t actually know why this has done so well.

11) The Reception Of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland From Contemporary Reviewers

A study I decided to do whilst enjoying a week or so of reading The Athenaeum.

12) Lisa See – Lady Tan’s Circle Of Women

My review of See’s still-currently-latest book. I’m thrilled this is on there; our podcast episode together has done very well, too.

13) The Symbolism Of The Sphinx In H G Wells’ The Time Machine

Not much to say about this one other than it interested me.

14) Looking At The Theme Of Love In Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca

Last night I had to write about Rebecca again.

15) On The Maude And Pevear & Volokhonsky Translations Of Anna Karenina

I remember well spending a good amount of time trying to read the Maude translation. I hated it and actually later found out – if I recall correctly – that the Maudes did not like the book. I think Pevear & Volokhonsky did, though, and thanks to them I finished the book.

16) Tender Is The Night And Do You Mind If I Pull Back The Curtain?

Why did this line get repeated so much? It annoyed me enough that I wrote about it.

17) The Character Progression Of Far From The Madding Crowd’s Gabriel Oak

She said she’d never read that book. She read that book. She loved that book. She let herself do a tiny bit of study of that book.

18) Jealousy In Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca

There I went again.

19) Dolly Alderton – Everything I Know About Love

My review of Alderton’s memoir. I’ve been surprised to see this one on the list but it did prove to be a popular book.

20) Zelda Fitzgerald In Midnight In Paris

I really liked the character.

Compiling this post – a kind of tertiary source, I suppose – was both nostalgic and intriguing. I’m still struggling to write to the perfectionist standards I can’t quite shake away, but I’ve done it once, I should be able to do it again. It also illustrates how my reading has changed over the years – my original progression to adult literature, to my minor focus on classics, and now on genre fiction.

Episode 114: Edward Carey (Edith Holler)

Charlie and Edward Carey talk at length about the arts and the theatre in the context of his book and in general. They also talk about Norwich as Edward’s book is his love letter to the city.

Please note there is a mild swear word in this episode.

If you’re unable to use the media player above, this page has various other options for listening as well as the transcript.

I mentioned in my last reading life post that I was working on the idea of soon adding to my reading list books I’d let fall by the way side; I think it would be a bit silly to focus too much on new books and not use the list as an opportunity to read some books I really should have already read.

I know I’m not the only one to have this happen – you acquire a book in whatever way, are very excited about it, and then all often have other books to read first or you decide to wait a bit before reading it, and then because you haven’t capitalised on that initial excitement you lose at least some measure of interest in the idea of reading it. The book is no longer new and shiny. The honeymoon period is over.

(It was quite damning writing that because it made me think of the times I have read a book when it was still exciting and how – as long as the book is at least an average read – it categorically is a better experience to read when the iron is hot.)

So I guess my main question was, can that excitement be regained, reconstructed?

I think it depends on seeing it as a new start, effectively wiping the excitement slate clean, or perhaps alternatively, leaning in to why you were excited originally… so long as your excitement extended beyond ‘new book!’ Certainly you have to let go of any guilt or feelings of burden you might have over not having read the book already. I think the only big issue with achieving this would be if you received the book with an effectively time-limited period in which to read it – say a review copy you didn’t get to (I used to get a fair number of unsolicited books). But it’s not impossible even then.

I’ve a particular book in mind as I write this: N M Kelby’s White Truffles In Winter. I acquired it so long ago I had to check my archives to find out whether I’d bought it or been sent it for review… I got it in August 2013 only three years into blogging and when I was yet to always declare whether I’d purchased or received a book. So I haven’t a clue.

It was so long ago I had it on my (albeit later abandoned) Long Awaited list… in 2019. It was so long ago the author isn’t on social media or to be found online at all – for whatever reason she hasn’t published anything since. (I will avoid making any theories here!)

I remember being taken by the title, cover, and the thought that it might be a perfect choice for Christmas, which I think is understandable. I left it for longer than I’d planned and then found out the title didn’t much reflect the contents; it was simply one of the first of those books with a title that worked as a marketing tactic – oh it did indeed!

I think of it now and then but the magic of before is gone; I wonder if I have to do something else in regards to that loss, perhaps just accept that it’s long gone and just read the book regardless.

I’d like to know from you all: what do you do about books you’ve left unread for too long? Do you get to reading many of them later? If so, how has the experience of reading them been?

Episode 111: Elaine Chiew (The Light Between Us)

Charlie and Elaine Chiew discuss early 20th century Singaporean photography and its influences on Elaine’s novel in depth, which involves looking at social issues and the history of the qipao. We also dive into the time travel aspects and the use of Chinese spirit-mediums.

If you’re unable to use the media player above, this page has various other options for listening as well as the transcript.