IWSG: Re-reads, brain candy, and other forms of restful reading

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! If it links to Google+, be sure your blog is listed there. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

 
 This month's fantastic co-hosts:

Raimey Gallant, Natalie Aguirre, CV Grehan, and Michelle Wallace!

And the optional question, which I'm not answering but you are welcome to: 

Besides writing what other creative outlets do you have?

I'm not really here to talk about writing this month. We just spent the month of January hiking our backsides off (kind of literally—my pants do fit better now than they did right after Christmas), so it should come as no surprise that I haven’t been writing. Nor have I been reading much, at least not much with substance. A kind of goofy children’s book. A couple of re-reads of light mysteries, and, heaven help me, a Louis L’Amour western (these have special nostalgic significance for me, as when I was in Jr. High and high school I read them like candy, buying far more of them than I should have from the paperback rack at the local grocery store because the library’s didn’t keep up). I am currently working on a rather massive Kim Stanley Robinson alternative future.

One nice thing about all that: with the exception of one or two of the children's books, I'm not reviewing these books. That means I can really relax and just read for fun, which is part of why I love re-reading.

Here’s my excuse: sometimes your brain needs a vacation. Sometimes you are just too tired to do anything that requires real thought, including reading. Sometimes, when you feel that way, you watch TV. I don’t, for two reasons. For one, I don’t really like TV that much (this is related to my issues with prosopagnosia, in part, since I can’t keep track of characters well). For another, most of my reading was in back-country huts and motor camps around New Zealand, so TV wasn’t really an option. But give me a half hour with WiFi every week or two or three, and I can keep my e-reader loaded with the most amazing stuff (and nonsense).

So here’s a shout-out for reading junk, and here’s a promise that I’ll be writing this month (I’ve already gotten back to work, though we’re headed into the wilds again for a few days tomorrow). I have three things I want to do this month: finish and post my WEP story, which I did manage to draft while swatting sandflies in a hut on the Routeburn Track; finish a short story using my Pismawallops PTA characters and see if it's usable anywhere; and start revisions on the novel I drafted in November and December. I may even drop the short story to start this, since I'm not sure that story is going anywhere--maybe the right way out will come to me if I leave it alone for a while.

So--tell me about your creative outlets, or confess your literary guilty secrets!