Damn Good Book!

I'm reading a really great book. But, damn it -- it's not one that I wrote! My motivation is still lacking, despite a genuine effort last night to write until I started falling asleep at the computer.

For my book club, I'm reading "Once Upon a River" by Bonnie Jo Campbell. At first, the writing was so descriptive, but walking that fine line between "show don't tell," that I was torn about how I felt about the story. It was a lot of: "She got out of bed. She walked across the room. She looked out into the kitchen and saw him cooking bacon. She went to the bathroom ..."

Now, almost halfway through the book, the character is more developed, she's seeing things more vividly -- a beautiful blue heron, a pregnant doe -- and the story is getting richer. I've got to know what's going to happen to this girl next and how she's going to get through it, learn from it and move on. I'm itching to read some more after I fold a load of laundry, and then maybe I'll do some writing, maybe ...

I'm still disappointed that my motivation to work on my own books has been waning this past week since the writing conference. Part of me is tired, because of some things going on in my life, and part of me is daunted by the amount of work I still need to do to whip my books into shape.

And, damn it, when I read good writing like Bonnie Jo Campbell's it doesn't help, because I know my work isn't anywhere near that good. And then there's the fact that this particular book makes me want to revisit a character I created in a story that I put on hold a while back. But part of me knows I need to focus on my two finished books and make them stronger first.

*sigh* And yet, the laundry beckons.