I Love Books!!!

Hello fellow readers and writers. Just thought I would write a quick blurb about the books that I am presently reading, writing and about the books that I am eagerly waiting to hit the shelves.

This is such an exciting time for me because two of my favorite authors have new books coming out in March. Anne Easter-Smith’s book The King’s Grace and Vanora Bennett’s Figures in Silk are hitting the shelves mid March and are at the top of my reading list. I simply cannot wait!

Presently, I am reading Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats – introduction by Edward Hirsch. I have also been hitting the English History Website and reading Keats’ letters to Fanny Brawne. They really give a lot of insight into the poet’s psyche. His love for Fanny borders on obsessive but there is something about it that shows such a naiveté when it comes to matters of the heart. Fanny, on the other hand, is quite the tease, even though I think she does return his affections in the end. I really can’t wait to delve into writing this book that I want to write about Keats and Brawne; however, as I was doing research I found out that there is a movie that is in pre-production about them. Just my luck…even though I believe that historical figures are fair game as long as your work is original. I mean, how many people have written books about Henry VIII? I rest my case.

Last but not least, I am reading Jeff Hermann’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents, 2009 ed. I think the most fascinating read in that book was Deborah Hermann’s essay about spiritual writing. It really hit home for me. In fact, I saved my current novel on my computer as “bless this book and its writer with words that touch people’s lives and hearts.” Chills! So, fellow writers, check this book out next time you are at B & N.

This week in writing…I am heading to finish line with The Heart is Lonely Still. I suppose that title has kind of stuck. It comes from one of Byron’s poems:

I Would I Were a Careless Child

I WOULD I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.

Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around.
Place me among the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;
I ask but this -- again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.

Few are my years, and yet I feel
The world was ne'er designed for me:
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth! -- wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?

I loved -- but those I loved are gone;
Had friends -- my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart -- the heart -- is lonely still.

How dull! to hear the voice of those
Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power,
Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist'rous joy is but a name.

And woman, lovely woman! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh I would resign
This busy scene of splendid woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which virtue knows, or seems to know.

Fain would I fly the haunts of men--
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
To flee away and be at rest.

Lord Byron, (George Gordon)

Sigh! I love the Romantic poets. My book was born from this poem. Anyhow, it’s coming to an end. I am working hard on the ending, which has proved to be a little difficult to write. Hopefully, I will work it all out by this weekend and the editing process may begin. Gulp.