The above drawing could easily represent what I think has taken over inside my head. I woke up Sunday morning with that godawful pounding pain behind my eyes that foretells a few days spent in a fetal position under covers hoping that someone will sneak into my room and end it all with a club to the top of my skull. No such luck. The headache lingered through the remainder of the three-day weekend and didn't start letting up until late last night after I dosed it with some mystery pill offered to me by my pal Lucina.
The pain is what I get for making such ambitious plans for Sunday and Monday. I hoped to get through a good chunk of the overdue reviews. I recounted again on Friday and I'm up to thirty-eight finished books that I've yet to add to my minireview project. I guess it's time to employ drastic measures now that I've let my best chance to play catch up get away without producing anything. First thought: quit reading until I've made a dent that way I won't add to the growing stack. Second thought: don't post anything but reviews for the next few weeks. Third and most reasonable thought: do what I can do. And I forgot to mention that compounding the untenable situation is the fact that the notes that I took for all of the books I read while still living in San Diego seem to be packed away and safely stored in a 11x15 shed in far northeast Raleigh, more than likely under boxes of other items that I wish I hadn't packed away or at least wish I had easier access to them.
Anyway, the image above is actually an illustration by Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) for one of his children's books. Seeing the illustration in this Guardian profile led me to Haddon's site where much more of his artwork can be seen. From the profile:
Haddon has always had butterfly tendencies, but without the superficiality that implies: as a child, he was sure he was going to be a paleontologist and read encyclopedias instead of novels before opting to study English at university. He remains a skilled mathematician, but insists he "drops a lot of zeroes and is then plunged into the abyss". He is considering one day writing a book on the philosophy of consciousness, yet quickly adds it will take him about a decade to figure out how to do that. He mentions three times in one hour that he has written five "unpublished and unpublishable" novels and only learned to draw after "many hours of doodling".
But while this self-deprecation is all very well, one does need a chunk of self-confidence to create anything for public consumption, let alone so many different things. Haddon admits to "a mix of outrageous self-belief and constant self-criticism", but typically manages to play up the latter: "I always thought I'd eventually learn how to draw really well and, despite constant evidence to the contrary, I just kept on trying. If you're too good at anything you don't have to think about the process, whereas I feel like I spend my life with my head under the bonnet, trying to understand how everything works."
Despite all this talk of taking a break from writing, he has just finished a screenplay about a boy plotting to kill his brother, who has Down's syndrome ("It's actually quite uplifting"), and is going to the National Theatre studio in September to write a play, a prospect that excites him because of the potential for disaster.
"Writing's never really good unless you run the risk of making a complete arse out of yourself," he says, letting slip an anticipatory grin. "The reaction to Curious Incident was incredibly benign, so I'm sure there are a few people out there, sharpening their knives, hoping that I make a complete fool out of myself.
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