Tempted (front)
Mixed media on scrap wood.
I love book blogs. I really do. I follow them and enjoy them even when I don't agree with everything I'm reading. I like reviews and contests and author interviews... all of it. I even enjoy lusting after the giant stacks of stuff that bloggers get "in their mailboxes."
I thought very seriously about buckling down and changing this blog into a straight up book blog. Very seriously. I even tried to come up with a cat themed rating system for my reviews. I hemmed and hawed. I worked long shifts and neglected to blog about much at all. I fiddled with the template. I told myself that I was going to sit down today, dammit, and start writing reviews.
See, though, this is my brick wall. My brain does not want to write reviews. My brain wants to read books, yes, but it also realizes that what bugs the hell out of me might make someone else slap five blinging stars on a book. My brain does not want to be a critic... though it doesn't seem to mind being a cheerleader now and then.
I've decided to let my brain off the hook. It gets to read what it wants, and maybe sometimes rave about books it likes. If it really needs to point out something critical, it is allowed to do so on Shelfari or Goodreads... If it feels like it.
I'll still read book blogs, and enjoy them and link to them here. I still want to save Amanda Feral. I still want to throw up an occasional contest post, be it my own or a little plug for someone else's. I also want to talk about books... I think I just needed to give myself permission to be more casual about it.
Of course, I'll still be putting up my silly little paintings and projects as they occur. I started this blog to make a place for them. This is where they live.
And I'll still share videos that I love. I tried to talk myself out of that one, but I feel that people just don't get enough exposure to brilliant red heads playing piano. (This does make up about eighty percent of my youtube favorites, I've recently realized. How odd is it, catching yourself in a pattern like that?)
So... I have rambled long enough for one post, I think. Thank you for being there while I justify myself to... myself. And to anyone else who happens to be around.
Tempted (back)
The song for today is Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat. Performed by Tori Amos.
5 comments:
That painting is absolutely amazing!!! Did you have a specific inspiration for it? I think it's beautiful!
Wow. *Blushes like crazy*
Thank you so much, Steph.
This painting is actually about loving a bad habit, and mourning it as you slowly let go of it. Hence the widow's weeds and the carrying of the torch.
It's about that secret place you go when you allow yourself to indulge. That little world where the bad habit is all yours, where its magic is enhanced by the fact that you alone have this moment and place... this thing that everyone wants you to stop even though... you like it.
For me, it's about the internal drama of giving up smoking. I know it's for the best that I do, but I'm still wearing my weeds.
Thanks for asking.
I think it's amazing that people are able to convey that much meaning through a piece of art. I can definitely see that in the painting after reading what you wrote and I think that's so fascinating.
Sadly, I've never been artistic, but I mostly convey my thoughts through my writing, especially poetry, which I used to write a lot of when I was younger.
Anways, bravo on that piece. I think it's completely brilliant. That blue color is also really striking!
I know what you mean about book blogs. I think it's a whole different frame of mind you have to be in to write critically about books, and I always find myself going to a very self-conscious place when I have to try to put together some sort of formal opinion of a book, as if I have to, in some way, justify my opinion. Like you, I think I'd prefer to just discuss (or even debate) books casually. Beautiful artwork, too, I must say. That blue is stunning.
Exactly what I've been thinking. I've always done a short review of everything I read as I list my books on PaperBack Swap after completing them. I enjoyed doing that as it was done off the cuff and as quick as I finished them.I enjoyed convincing someone else to read it or run as fast as they could in the other direction. Since starting a blog about 8 weeks ago I've only managed to read three books(business income tax had to be worked on and sucked every spare minute away, yuck!)and I totally did not want to sit down and do a review on them. Two of the books I'd won in a contest and I promised myself that they would be reviewed in a timely manner. I even went to the trouble to set up a format to do these reviews so that they'd look more polished. But the comfortable feeling that I'd had in the past was gone.
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