"This is my new life: I push pain away all day, and the moment I put my arms down it walks into me and has a seat."
- Open House by Elizabeth Berg

I started out slow with this book about two months ago, and eventually got bored with it and picked something else up, which is a very bad habit I have. A bad habit of buying more books and more books and never finishing the ones I start. But now I have gone back to it, and have read almost all of it in about three days. It's actually a really good book, with sudden insights that knock you off your feet. Like that quote. That line reminded me of Keltie's book and what she was going through when she started writing it. And I was right, I did hear about this one from her, somewhere along the way. That is one of the trends in things I read: so many of the books I've read in the last year or so, I heard about from her. The other trend is that I unintentionally end up reading a lot of books and memoirs about divorce, marriages falling apart, infidelity. I'm not really sure why.

As an English major/Creative Writing minor, I think one of my options as a thesis project to try and achieve Honors in my major, is to write a novel. Instead of a disgustingly long research paper that would probably make me pull all of my hair out in frustration. And I love my hair. But I am very interested in the idea of trying to write a significant portion of a novel, or a memoir of some sort. It would take a lot of serious dedication. I am not usually that driven while writing; it's a bad habit to have when I want to be a writer. Cause I know that being a writer -- and doing something like a novel as my thesis -- is the kind of thing where you have to MAKE yourself sit down and write every morning, whether you're feeling the inspiration or not. And I have the bad habit of not writing unless I am feeling inspired enough. And again, I have difficulties finishing things I start. I am going to have to overcome these weaknesses and force myself to write. I am getting a feel for what kind of novels I want to be writing when I am older, but I need to take all the necessary steps and do the hard work to get to that level of proficiency. Last summer I read Anthropology of An American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann (after reading about it in O Magazine), and realized that is the sort of novel I aspire to write. A few steps about Sarah Dessen's books. Less Young Adult and more Adult.