I find it interesting that in the month dedicated to writing, I am struggling to get the words down. A combination of extra shifts at work, interesting work hours and an extra person around the house has meant that my writing time is sporadic at best. This inconsistency means I am constantly trying to remind myself of where I left my characters.

So while the rest of the writing community gets whipped up into a word count frenzy in NaNoWriMo (http://nanowrimo.org/) I have decided to stop. I don’t feel I am letting the team down; the words are still being written, just not by me.

So what do writers do when they are not writing? They read. Here’s what I’ve read recently/ just started reading.

1) John Green’s Paper Towns.  I was reading this to understand more about the young male mind. I have to say that even though I was using this book as a bit of study, I really enjoyed it. I was drawn in right from the start and was constantly amazed by what Green could get away with. For instance, there are two and a half pages dedicated to a discussion about pee and how much one character needed to go. This may not sound like much, but it was well constructed. I was however, disappointed with how the main female ended up. I just didn’t feel it fit her character or made sense. But I’ll let you decide.

2) Virginia Hausseger’s Wonder Woman. A little different, but I’m a complicated person. Wonder Woman is an exploration of the ‘fall-out’ from the second and third waves of feminism. In particular, the book focuses on whether women can ‘have it all’; career and children. I found Virginia’s accounts in this book to contain a magnificent balance of discussions with other people, discussions on societal expectations and just enough of her own experience to make it relevant.

3) J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I only started reading this last night, so can’t say much. However, I was immediately pulled into the writing. Such beautiful words. The descriptions and backstories reveal more about the characters from the way they are told than from the descriptions themselves. It is clear to me why The Hobbit is a classic. It is one that has been sitting on my shelf for far too long but one that will be enjoyed none-the-less.