Books I Read and Loved in 2014, Part 1

Hello wonderful readers, I'm on the cusp of the second half of the year, and I realise I haven't posted in months (I am pretty active on Instagram if anyone wants to follow me in my day to day life. Lots of pictures of my fur babies). So, I thought I'd talk about the books that I've read and loved in the first half of 2014. Currently, I'm sitting at 77 books read, but quite a few of them didn't really move me all that much.

On Poetry, or, Jess Fears Taking a Leap of Faith.

In the last month or so, I've found myself increasingly unable to think of any story ideas, and unable to write a single decent line in any of my novels. Instead, I've found my mind wandering towards poetry.

I find this odd, considering I've never really written much poetry before. In fact, I sort of think that I don't really get poetry. I mean, it has something to do with rhythm and words and... stuff, I guess? I don't know.

And the more poetry I've written, the more I've been thinking of trying to incorporate my newfound poetic style into a novel, like some of my favourite writers: Catherynne M. Valente, Markus Zusak, my friend Nafiza ;). But do people really want to read a whole novel of poetic beauty, where words flow like water? I mean, I do. Those are my favourite kinds of novels. I'm worried about the marketability of such work.

Another concern is that I may overdo the poetic prose, and it'll turn out like Taherah Mafi's Shatter Me. Now, I know a lot of people just absolutely love that book, but seriously, most of those metaphors don't even make sense. At times, you can see potential shining through, but it's mostly bogged down by prose that needs to be cut, reworded, and basically edited within an inch of its life.

So yeah, that's my conundrum. I want to write a novel with lush prose, but I'm scared to do it. (also, I don't really have much of an idea, which I suppose is my biggest problem, haha.)

It's a big step, a giant leap, and it's going to take a lot of self-prodding to do so. But something in my soul is yearning to come out, and one day, I'm going to have to comply.

One of my poems. Click to enlarge.