On the dissipation of cold brain and the art of tai ming

I still have cold brain. Waning, to be sure, but still cold brain. For those who play any of the Sims games, you'll understand an action dropping out of queue. For those who don't, well, we've all started to do something, forget what it is or why we're doing it. That happens a lot with cold brain. When cold brain starts to wane, it's not uncommon to have an action drop out of queue and then pop back in when one has started an entirely different action (Sims games don't do that - yet.)

The plan for this cold was to snuggle under some blankeys and make a dent in my TBR pile. Pause here for wild, demented laughter. Cold-influenced reading was more along the lines of A) carefully pick out book. B) Settle in for good reading session. C) Fall asleep in the middle of first page, or D) Read same page fifteen times and complain about book being repititious already. E) Give up and play Sims. F) Since laptop is on, open WIP and poke with metaphorical stick. G) Open Photoshop Elements and make inspirational graphics, as above (optional.)

All in all, not a lot of reading, when there are a heckuva lot of books. Paperbacks, both mass market and trade sized. Hardcovers. Ebooks. Novels. Research books. Other stuff. Even petted a fanzine in my search for reading material, but brain refused to latch on. Which is okay. It's a new TV season, as recent Saturday at the Movies posts detail. I caught most of Tristan and Isolde yesterday afternoon, which fulfilled some of my romance fiction yearning, but since things don't end exactly well for anybody in the Tristan/Isolde/Mark triangle, no HEA. Utterly gorgeous to watch, though, and atmosphere gets an A+++.

But reading. Yeah. I do have my default reads at the ready; Hannah Howell's Highland historicals this time. I know I'll like those, as I've read some of the earlier ones already, when they were first released, and likely out of order, so they will be like new to me again. Book three is on my desk, awaiting its call to duty, and that may be soon. Still, next to my bed, there is a small stack of started and put aside novels. Nothing wrong with them, only a brain that wouldn't track. I do believe that there is a right time to read a particular book, and something that's a "nice, but not right now" can, days or weeks (or longer) later, become "why did I wait so long to read this?"

Comedian Steve Martin once did a bit on the ancient art of Tai Ming, and I think he was onto something. Like the stack of books by my bed and the computer file of ideas that still need to simmer a while longer because I don't have all the ingredients yet, there is a right time to read or write a particular story, and forcing it isn't going to work. I've learned to embrace the "not right now" and focus on the now. Which is something that isn't that hard to do...and does not mean checking Twitter and Facebook like a maniac every five minutes. Nope, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard gets the job done.