I've been shifting gears lately, both in my life and in my writing, and I think in my reading as well. I've had an itch to get back to the basics.
Summer is here. Motherhood is bare bones during this time. Back to just being MOM: fun, carefree, spontaneous. Gone is MOTHER who is in a perpetual state of reminding (do your homework, brush your teeth, practice piano, don't wrestle the black dog with the white couch cushions, blah, blah).
In my writing, I've taken a hiatus from the rigid poetry of picture books (and I don't mean rhyme here people...if you've tried to write a picture book you know of what I speak), and I am trying my hand at more, well, novel-ly stuff. It's kind of liberating in a scary, jump-out-of-the-plane kind of way, but for me, it feels like a necessary leap. Right now, I need to write what I know. More on that in a later post.
And for reading, I'm picking up the classics. For some reason that is beyond my understanding I never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Such was my embarrassment, I kept this fact hidden from my more literate friends, but this summer, I took the book by the horns and read it. And wow...I get it! What an amazing book. I'm almost glad I didn't read this book until now. I don't think the high school me would have appreciated in the same way. Plus, I'm notorious for not re-reading books, so I'm not sure I would have picked it up as an adult (bad habit, I know). I was so inspired I moved on to the modern day classic, The Help.
What about you? What classic have you picked up lately?
