Nanowrimo is over. How’d you do? I wrote 28,000 words, which is not an entire book, but it’s more than half a book and I’m going to keep writing until I create something I don’t hate.

Fiction is hard.

Papillon by Henri Charriere

Autobiography of a French guy sent to prison on the northern coast of South America in the 1930s. He tries to escape many, many times and more than 500 pages later, he finally does. Meh. His writing is scattered and hard to follow and I suspect he lies at times. A pig that can sniff quicksand? Yeah, right. There’s a movie or two of this guy that’s probably pretty good.

The Tent by Margaret Atwood

I’m on a Margaret Atwood kick. I’m trying to find a short story I read before called Weight or Work or something. It ends with something like “it’s all beginning to feel like too much work” and “some days I think I’m not going to make it. I’ll throw myself out a window.” These are two phrases I read decades ago and say in my head fairly regularly.

It wasn’t in this book of short stories, but this was a fast, enjoyable read. I love the way she writes. So clever.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman

This is a fascinating book that I highly recommend along with How to Change Your Mind to understand the science of the brain.

We instinctively think that the I, the voice inside one’s head, the ego, is the center and controller of the brain. But it’s not. It’s actually just a tiny blip on the edge of the brain that has no idea what’s going on. It’s the storyteller, chattering away trying to make sense of the inputs it receives from neurons and the senses.

The brain also has these zombie processes that the storyteller has no access to.

The central nervous system (the ego, the I) and the automatic nervous system (the zombie processes) work together, but the zombies do most of it. The ego only thinks it’s in charge because it has the loudest voice in a room full of mutes.

Most of the time, the ego is not consciously deciding anything. The zombie circuits ask the ego for advice only when it encounters something it doesn’t understand or when things conflict.  Your mind seeks “patternicity — the attempt to find structure in meaningless data” and you tell yourself a story and the rest of your body agrees and goes on with its day.

Your senses are taking in as much information about the world as it can, but your brain wants to be efficient and conserve energy. That is its number one goal. Er, goal one and goal two. Co-goals. The brain wants to keep you alive and to be as efficient as possible about it.

So, for example, your brain will tell you to stop planking before your body gives out. The body has no idea what it’s capable of.

You learn what your limits are by you telling yourself what your limits are. 

If you tell yourself to hold the pose for two more seconds and then focus, concentrate and push, you probably can hold on for two more seconds. If someone is holding a gun to your favorite person’s head and ordering you to hold the pose for two more seconds, you most definitely can.

Those last four paragraphs weren’t really taken from the book, but me rambling and reading this post from Mark’s Daily Apple and extrapolating from the book.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Dystopian future about the horrors of genetic engineering. It’s the first in a trilogy. I love Margaret. Ms. Atwood.

There will never be another caterpillar just like this one. There will never be another such moment of time, another such cojunction.

These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It’s probably a vitamin deficiency.

Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood

I found the passage I was looking for and, interestingly enough, it was how the story started and not ended like I remembered. Or maybe that factoid isn’t interesting.

I am gaining weight. I’m not getting bigger, only heavier. This doesn’t show up on the scales: technically, I’m the same. My clothes still fit, so it isn’t size, what they tell you about fat taking up more space than muscle. The heaviness I feel is in the energy I burn getting myself around: along the sidewalk, up the stairs, through the day. It’s the pressure on my feet. It’s a density of the cells, as if I’ve been drinking heavy metals. Nothing you can measure, although there are the usual nubbins of flesh that must be firmed, roped in, worked off, Worked. It’s all getting to be too much work.

Some days I think I’m not going to make it. I will have a hot flash, a car crash. I will have a heart attack. I will jump out the window.

Do you see why I love her?

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood

I went on a Margaret Atwood kick because I’m writing a novel for NaNoWriMo and I want to be Margaret Atwood. I love everything she’s done. The Handmaid’s Tale was my favorite book from the age of sixteen through the realization that favorite books are way too hard to list.

This book is comprised of nine short stories, but they all weave together.

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

Chilling tale of the serial killer, Ted Bundy. It’s long (more than 600 pages), brutal, and made me too afraid to sleep, so I ended up reading it in two days. That’s enough serial killer genre for a while.