Hiatus

I've been really busy lately and realized I haven't really posted anything lately. I feel like I've been swamped with all sorts of real life, non-writing stuff lately. So much that I feel like I'm neglecting my writing, not only here, but actual productive I'm-writing-a-novel type writing. I've been poking but my word count has come to a faltering crawl instead of the steady strides I had been making. *Sigh*

This time of year is hard for me and I've had all sorts of unnecessary stuff piling up on top of it. I lost my Grandfather on April 15, 2005. My family and I lived with my grandparents for 8 years when I was young and after that they lived only two houses down the street. My grandparents helped my parents to raise us. It's not like it was for a lot of people, just some people you didn't really relate to and barely saw. I had problems with them that made the relationship difficult, but they raised me. They helped to shape me into who I am, had a very active role in it. Also it was my first real experience with death. I lost two great grandmothers as I child, but that was different. We knew it was coming, it was strange, but as a child it didn't really phase me. Not like this. Losing my grandfather was hard. Especially after watching him battle lung cancer. When I was in high school one of my closest friends had cancer. Watching some go through it again was REALLY hard. Especially since they took out a lung. He had trouble breathing so often. I won't ever forget the sound of him struggling to breath as he died.

So with all of that having to deal with replacing a roommate or owing an extra share of rent, a job hunt, trying to find a new car, etc. I just feel like everything is piling up on me and that even when I have the time to write I'm so emotionally drained that it wouldn't be any good anyway. Not to mention a crisis of faith in myself and my ability to write anything even remotely close to readable.

So after that lovely tirade I shall now get to my intended point of this post. I found a page that reminded me that I made a commitment to read at least 26 banned books before June 30th, 2007. I haven't read any yet. Well, that's not strictly true. I have read 15 from the 2007 list in the past. I just haven't read any since I signed up for the challenge. I own 21 books from the 2007 list that I haven't read and are on my other reading lists, so I shall start with those and then possibly later, in June, go buy the rest I need. Either way, with feeling drained and having a crisis doing all this reading seems like a good chance to recharge my batteries. It may detract from writing time now, but maybe it will help me overall. I seriously had a breakdown the other day and part of it was I swore I was never going to write again. This didn't last long and my boyfriend yelled at me for it, told me I was good and I would go write. But it happened. I think I need a break. Too much nonwriting stuff is getting in the way of writing.