I need to just create a category for my blog called “adult ADD.” The things (mostly technology things) I complain about that have messed with my ability to think creatively and write and be a better reader have also affected my enjoyment of music. (And now that I’m writing this I feel like I have pondered this on my blog before, so maybe my memory is going, too.) I used to listen to albums. In the olden days, you more or less had to listen to things linearly. Especially in my olden days, when cassette tapes reigned, because it was harder to fast forward and rewind than just pick up and drop the needle where you wanted it. But even when CDs came along and dominated and you could easily skip back and forth, I still loved bringing home a new CD and putting it on. G. and I spent many an hour on the couch listening to something new all the way through, interjecting little comments…”Oh, I really liked that one,” or “That reminds me of…” Now with 8 days worth of music on my iPod there’s this weird thing that happens—even if a song I love has come up on shuffle, I listen to the beginning and then hit the little forward arrow to see what’s next. (Something better? Something perfect?) And I download a lot of music, and pick and choose songs out of albums. Does anyone do the ritual anymore of putting on something new and stretching out with the liner notes and not multi-tasking all the while?

Today my friend James Dashner posted some Led Zeppelin lyrics on his blog and that inspired me to put on Led Zeppelin II, and listen to it through twice. It’s such an album album, and it’s just the same if it’s all jumbled up on your iPod and one minute you’ve got “What Is and What Should Never Be” and right after that some Beyonce comes up or a song from the Godspell soundtrack. Do you iPod people listen to albums? Or do you skip all around? Or focus on playlists? Do you think you enjoy music more that way, or less? I’m curious.

In addition to LZ II, off the top of my head a few of my favorites for whole-album listening are: Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy; Crowded House, Together Alone; Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville; Better Than Ezra: Friction, Baby; Guster: Keep It Together; Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair; Richard Thompson: Mock Tudor; Counting Crows: Recovering the Satellites; Violent Femmes: Violent Femmes; Elvis Costello: Trust… Okay, there are way too many to list. Really, I could put any Elton John album from the 1970-1980 decade on this list, and in fact maybe every album in my collection from that decade, any artist, because that’s how people made records then. In fact, I’m realizing I haven’t even put most of these on my iPod, maybe because I think of them as whole things. Not only whole things but physical objects. Do music fans still feel this way about new music, or am I just old? (I realize that both could be true.)

now playing: live* - pillar of davidson

(*Throwing Copper, by the way, is also a good whole-album listen.)

One thing to love about this city is The King’s English, where several of my friends work, including the lovely Jenn (who may not have won the cookie throwdown, but was sooo close). If you live in town, you should subscribe to the store blog so you can know about events before, during, and after, and in case they don’t make it into the Inkslinger. Here is Jenn’s post about how the store celebrated National Poetry Month. Maybe it could be an episode of The Wire.

I just saw Married Life. I’m not sure what I think yet. Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson were great, as always. To achieve the kind of retro-noir Preminger-esque thing I think it was going for, the pace could have been picked up just a hair. Also? Pretty sad. I seem to remember one review quote including the words “darkly comic,” and the preview made it look a bit that way, as well, but in truth I just found it more…darkly dark. (Speaking of previews, the more times I see the preview for Under the Same Moon, the less I want to see the movie. Which makes me feel kind of heartless, because, you know, it’s about a cute little immigrant boy looking for his mommy!)

The weather today is simply gorgeous.

now playing: guster - happier

Whatever this breakthrough is that I’ve had is kind of a big deal. I’m feeling so good and confident now that it’s scaring me a little. The little Scaredy Sara in me is shouting: Never trust the happy smooth sailing! Never trust the happy smooth sailing! Aiyyeee! I mean, not that it’s been easy. Writing is always hard work. But the obstacles that I’ve always had in terms of it all feeling impossible and frightening and overwhelming seem to have been lifted for the time being. I could get use to this. But should I? Time will tell!

If you’re in Utah, particularly the Provo area, don’t forget that this Saturday is the big exciting mass signing extravaganza in Orem.

Oh, back to writing. I want to make a little writing book recommendation. I’ve never been a huge fan of craft/method books because everyone has a different process and I think what works for you works, and you don’t want to get into a stall by reading about how someone else does things and then shoulding all over yourself, as Stuart Smalley would say. However, there’s this one book I have in my library that I think is actually helpful without being at all dictatorial. I read through it during a major revision of what would become Story of a Girl, and I’ve been reviewing it lately: Plot (Elements of Fiction Writing). It’s way less overwhelming than McKee’s Story, and written in a very direct, common sense kind of way that makes you go, oh yeah, duh, I already sort of do that, while helping you understand why you do it and how to do it in a more intentional way to the benefit of your story. I also appreciate that the author specifically addresses some plot issues that come up in short stories as well as in novel-length fiction that is more “literary” and less “genre” (if you subscribe to those labels…).

It is raining. I like it.

now playing: fleetwood mac - silver springs

…sometimes it takes 40,000 words. Getting grounded in a project, finding the voice, having a breakthrough, whatever you want to call it. All I know is I’ve been fumbling around in the dark for the last 30,000 and I think the lights finally came on. I think. Which means going back to the start, but now that I can see it’s not so frightening.

What helped me, I think? Was spending a total of about seven hours in airports and on planes over the weekend. I’m one of those weirdies that likes airports. They are neither here nor there. While you’re in them, your life as you know it sort of ceases to be. You hardly exist at all. It’s like  A.A. Milne’s poem “Halfway Down.” It isn’t really anywhere! It’s somewhere else instead! I get a lot of thinking done - the kind of random, flee-floating thinking that’s very good for writers. Also, my airport read was Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years which happens to be about a woman who isn’t really anywhere. She lives out that fantasy of EXIT STAGE LEFT, right out of life, just completely abandoning everything and everyone, doing her best not to form any attachments, not have any expectations put upon her, not need anyone. Between you and me and the Internets, that’s one of my personal favorite things to dream about: walking away from everything. Is there anyone who hasn’t longed for this, even for a second? Mmmm sweet autonomy. Only, that’s not really possible if you are human, as Tyler’s character is finding out. (I haven’t finished it yet, so don’t tell me how it ends!)

now playing: Aimee Mann - Deathly

I’m back from my weekend away. I snuck to SF for some quality sister-and-sister-only time. I traveled with one pair of jeans, three shirts, related underpinnings, and my toothbrush - I didn’t even take my purse, because I wasn’t going to shop or anything. But then…I shopped. And the first thing I bought was a purse, so I could carry my wallet and thereby shop more efficiently. Ah well, I tried.

Story of a Girl made the Kentucky Bluegrass Award list. This master list comes about through nominations made by adults, culled down by committee, and then the final winner is voted on by students. Story is on the 2009 master list, and if I’m understanding it all correctly it’s something that Kentucky high school students could actually vote on now. Maybe. There are lots of great books on the list, so I may need the help of superdelegates for this one.

Speaking of great books, my friend Tara Altebrando’s latest YA, What Happens Here, officially comes out tomorrow! I enjoyed this book so much that I blurbed it, and if you read my recent comments on blurbing you know I’m not afraid to say no, even to friends, so I’m a genuine fan. Tara is going to be visiting with us on the blog here when I can get my questions together. I loved her first YA, The Pursuit of Happiness, but I think I like What Happens Here even more just because the setting and subject are not your standard fare. There’s Europe, there’s Vegas (a.k.a. the anti-Europe), there’s mystery, and there is also romance. And Tara’s prose really moves. For a reluctant reader like me, that’s important. Here’s what I wrote:

“A compulsively readable tale of complicated friendships, life-changing loss, and the search for authentic experience in a world full of artifice. It’s a story of coming to terms with the fragility of life as well as its mettle, and with the failures of those we love along with our own…in other words, growing up.”

Awwyeah! (By the way, it’s my first blurb actually printed on a book, and it feels very strange - like a mini version of having a novel out. I’m already editing the blurb in my head and thinking I could have done better. “Compulsively readable”? I couldn’t come up with something more original than that? I mean, Tara wrote a whole awesome book and that’s the best way I could describe it? Maybe some day I won’t be so neurotic. But then, I wouldn’t be me!)

It is May 1. It is snowing. My tulips are craning their little necks, looking for the sun, only to be snowed upon.

(Okay, I know it doesn’t look that drastic, but trust me - big flakes are falling from the sky! They just aren’t really sticking.)

I took a little trip to the King’s English yesterday and picked up my shiny, shiny copy of The Adoration of Jenna Fox. I can’t wait! I also got Sarah Dessen’s Lock and Key, and The Collected Stories of Carson McCullers. Though The Member of the Wedding is one of my favorites, and I love The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, I’ve somehow never read any of her shorter stories. My friend Dawn has ordered me to read “The Sojourner,” and so I will. I always do what Dawn tells me to.

I’m headed out of Utah tomorrow morning for the weekend, without my laptop or any other real technology, so I’ll see you back here on Monday or possibly Tuesday. I’ll miss you!