So As I Was Saying . . .

Apparently I've read fifty-something books since June 18, in my "spare time". (Three of them at the airport alone). Unfortunately, the side effects of swallowing vast amounts of chick lit are myriad.

First, for me at least, reading large quantities of sometimes mediocre writing always arouses my own competitive instincts. As I read yet another story about a lady named Chloe who works in a hair salon and longs for love, I find myself thinking, "I could do better than this. Why isn't this book better written?" And once again, I am dragged away from my academic writing (Not that 20,000 words on the history of genocide, due by July 15 isn't enthralling and all) as I find myself plotting yet another novel that I will never write. (The latest brainstorm is a series of 'inspirational' novels about military wives, who learn to just give up and trust God as they are dragged from yet once unfathomable hellhole to another, all the while wondering if their marriage, children and sanity will survive.)

Secondly, there's a tendency to become somewhat analytical, the more you read of one genre or another. The thing is, back when I was serious about writing an novel, I devoured vast books about the mechanics of: character development; how to write dialogue; how to plot a novel so that all the loose ends are tied up by the end of the story; how to write a great opening sentence, paragraph or chapter; how to create conflict and drama; how to develop your writer's voice and so forth. As a result, I tend to be really aware of those things now as I read other's writings and find myself thinking things like "Wow. That's an amazing first chapter. She managed to bring us all up to speed on the lives of the characters earlier in this series, so that even a first time reader now knows that Chloe: used to be a nun; is a military child; is thirty-seven years old and longs to be a mother even though she had a hysterectomy for fibroids sometime about ten years ago; etc. etc. etc. " I read a book yesterday (which I haven't yet reviewed because I can't remember the title and I left it at home) where it was really obvious to me that a new character was being introduced on page 150 so that the main character would have someone to lean on by the end when she gave birth. I once described this phenomena to a friend as watching a trapeze act and noticing the wires holding up the artists, and once you notice them, it's as though you become so transfixed by them that you can no longer simply turn your mind off and enjoy the trapeze act. Apparently reading fifty something chick lit novels in something resembling two weeks has the same sort of effect -- unfortunately, now when I read chicklit I can see the wires.

Back to my real job, now. Teaching in five hours and no CLUE what I am going to say. What a shame I can't lecture about chick lit!