Ten weeks and five days

I'm really struggling to read novels at the moment. It used to be that I'd go to the library, take out five or six books (all fiction) and read them all within a few weeks. And I never stopped reading half way through, even if the book was a bit crap. But since Alice was born I find that pretty much every other book I borrow is incapable of holding my attention and I've given up on half of them, while the ones I do persist with take me ages to finish. (I've also run up £16 of library fines but that's another story.) Partly I suppose it's the nature of looking after a baby - what I have heard described as the endless 'interruptibility' of motherhood which means it's rare that I can settle down with a book for any stretch of time. And then because time is so precious I'm unwilling to waste it on mediocre novels any more.

Not that I'm on a diet of high literature either - fiction generally isn't floating my boat the way it used to. I can handle humourous or genre type novels if well written, but anything purporting to emotional/social realism may as well stay on the shelf. I suppose it's fairly obvious why - my own life is quite emotionally real enough just now without seeking out vicarious experiences as well.

Character in search of an author

I have come to the sad conclusion that much of my neurosis is due to the large quantities of fiction I read. I get through up to 100 books in a year, almost all of them middle-brow, not too experimental, escapist novels (I wonder how much my reliance on the public library has helped determine this...) But ever since I was a child I have seen my own life on some level as a narrative, myself as a protagonist. The older I got the less like a tragic heroine I imagined myself to be, but I never stopped looking for tidy conclusions, meaningful circumstances and universal insights like the ones to be found in my books. That's why I feel like a failure if I don't know where I'm going - ok so the women in the books may not know where they're going either, but there is always the guiding hand of the author to lead them toward their destiny on the final page.

I don't think I've ever properly accepted that I'm the author of my own life, not a character in it. Being the author should give you MORE control, I suppose, but being a character gives you security. And your every action is loaded with import and 'rightness' simply because there are no other choices you can make, only what has been written for you. All the books I've been reading lately have had happy endings, and all the female protagonists have 'followed a dream' in some dramatic way, 'just knowing' what the right thing to do would be. I guess I need to accept that I won't ever 'just know'. That nobody has a grand design for me. So I'm going on a diet of non-fiction and keeping my eyes on the road instead of on the page.

How silly to be having an existential crisis at the age of 28 - didn't I go through all that when I was 18? And why can't I get this down in poetry instead of going all emoblog?

Weeks: 13