Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

I feel like I've really lost the knack for writing blog posts. I wrote some good ones in my head last month, but they never made it to the page:

Life at 58 Degrees (pre-woodstove)

Life at 72 Degrees (post-woodstove)

Don't Cut Holes in Your Roof as Winter Approaches, and Other Life Lessons

Serious Books by Funny Guys

Home is Where the Art Is

The titles will have to suffice. Instead of blogging, I'm spending time dealing with unfinished creative projects. Such as my bookshop memoir (which I thought was finished, until I, you know, closed the bookshop - and now I think I can write the real ending). Of course I say I am finishing my memoir, when what I really seem to be doing is utilizing that age-old distraction: reading. Reading other people's memoirs. I'm even reading books about how to write memoirs, instead of finishing my memoir. (I just read The Autobiographer's Handbook: the 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir, Holt 2008 - it's very, very good! I recommend it!)

In the Serious Books by Funny Guys category, I recently read Born Standing Up (Scribner 2007 - hey, a memoir!), in which Steve Martin offers the following advice:

"Through the years I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration." (p.80)

We need those delusions, don't we, if we undertake creative projects of any stripe. Otherwise, we can quickly come down with a bad case of what I call The Why-Bothers. I'm doing my best to fight them off.