I was thinking earlier today that I should blog about something (feeling the pressure to contribute since it's here - the same kind of pressure you feel when the grout grows around the sink or the bills pile up) but wondered what I could possibly blog about.

I've been reading lots lately - non-fiction and fiction - all stuff that isn't on a reading list and it occurred to me that my own internal critique of a book I just read is a bit more sophisticated than it has ever been for any other book before.

I generally produce different categories of non-academic criticism after reading a book: the one, which I share with others includes an overall analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the book in addition to the general good/bad assessment. The other, my own internal critique, categorizes books simply as: excellent, good, bad. Excellent ones are ones I would read again - if borrowed, I will keep an eye out to buy my own copy; good, I'm glad I read it - it will stay on the bookshelf; and bad, well, sometimes they're salvageable because they've taught me things about bad writing, but mostly I try to forget the details of the story. Before, if I liked a book, I would say to myself, 'good book' and leave it at that, but this time I thought, 'good book, but the ending is disappointing'. And I realized that the qualifier at the end is something new that I felt compelled to add. Not because the book itself required it, but because my own rather simplistic categorization of the book was insufficient. And the sneaking, scary, weird feeling that went with that categorization was the thought 'the ending is disappointing...I could've done better.

It's scary because if I allow myself to start thinking that way, at some point I'm gonna have to belly up to the bar and put my money where my mouth is - I'll have to move from critic to producer. I don't know that I'm ready for that day.