Not Writing (Enough), Not Sleeping (Enough) Either

Last week was a busy week.

This week is a busy week.

I try very hard to protect my two dedicated mornings a week for writing, but it's not going very well. It seems like there's always something oh-so-important that crops up to cut into both my morning and my evening writing times, slowing - but not stalling - progress.

How does this keep happening?

In the meantime . . .

I finished "knitting" my third hat. The first two were a little smaller than I wanted them to be (one in circumference, the other in length) and the third was much longer than I intended. Perhaps I'll have to start - gasp - counting rows or something. In the meantime, I'm all set for the next time a friend has a baby with a very small head. I intend to try arm warmers next; wish me luck.

I'm reading Brandon Sanderson right now, instead of the TWO books that I haven't read for my TWO book clubs that are meeting this week. (Sorry, book club pals.)

I read an interview with the refreshingly humble and apparently very hard-working Sanderson in which he said that he suspects he'll go down in history as a footnote on Robert Jordan's bio, as the guy who wrote the last book in the Wheel of Time series.

When I first read that, it made me a little sad for Sanderson. Here's a young guy, just starting out in his career, and he catches a big break. But there's a catch. The "big break" is too big; it pigeon-holes and typecasts Sanderson. His own work will never have a chance to be evaluated on its own merit; he'll never have a chance to build his own fan base; he'll always just be that guy who finished A Memory of Light.

The more I read him, though, the less concerned about that I am. Sanderson's writing style is distinct from Jordan's. He's also hard-working, dedicated, and prolific. He keeps publishing his own work while he's working on the Jordan novel, and he has a unique voice. His world building is fabulous. (Oddly, I have a hard time really connecting with and caring about his characters, but the setting and conflict are interesting enough that I'm willing to keep reading to find out what happens. I do, however, find that I put the book down more often than I expected to. I'll sit down with a cup of coffee and the novel, expecting to read a chapter while the children nap, and suddenly find myself in another room, checking my email, wondering what happened.)

But I probably wouldn't have picked up a Sanderson novel if I weren't a Wheel of Time fan trying to find out about the guy who's finishing the series. And now I've bought three of his novels and visited his website several times. I'm a fan of Sanderson's work through his connection to Jordan, and I doubt I'm the only one. I think he'll do very well for himself.

And now I need to go get a little beauty rest; early tomorrow morning Ellie and I are going to make our small-screen debut in a video about families with kids entering Kindergarten next year. I'm off to sleep in curlers.