July 2025 Reading and Writing Check-In

This has been a slow reading summer for me. Perhaps, somewhat, a backlash to the fact that I spent all of winter reading and writing without doing much else. Summer has been about the else—work, parties, random fun, swimming. I've read a little. In June, I finished re-reading Conversations with Friends, started re-reading Normal People, and listened to Kate McKean's book, Write Through It. I'd subscribed to her newsletter for a long time, so it was exciting to see the finished project of the book. Since I've spent nearly a decade in the online literary world, I didn't find anything mind-blowing there, but it's a great primer for new writers to condense a lot of good information into one place.

In July, just like I made a concerted effort to start running again, I put thought into reading and writing. In June and early July, I'd been plagued by horrible writer's block. The book that I'd done five drafts of still wasn't working for some inexplicable reason. My rewrite from early June still felt wrong. I couldn't crack it, and my feelings about where I wanted the book to go changed wildly day to day. I couldn't settle on a singular narrative or arc for the characters. Really, it all felt too close to the life I was living. The setting is closely linked to my day job. It's set in the town I've grown up in. I was about to kill the project, and I was telling my friend about it, who's not a writer at all but had the insight that cracked open the project for me. She essentially said it never works out when you try to write yourself a happy ending. And she's right. From there, I started fresh on an outline with the same characters, in the same world, on a much more clarified journey. I'm excited to see where this project lands, and I need to keep up the momentum from the one very productive weekend I had in July as things get busy again.

I also made a more concerted effort to read this month, trying to pick up a book either before or after work, even if I only got in a few pages. I wanted to build the reading habit back into my every day even when I was tired or busy. This didn't result in reading a huge number of books, but I'm proud of what I got through. I finally finished my very extended reread of Normal People, I finished Perfection, one of the first 2025 releases I've picked up in a while, in a day, and finished Beautiful World Where Are You (always a treat). For the last few days of the month, I've been mucking around in the sea that is Intermezzo. I'm enjoying it more this time around, now that I know what to expect, but it can still be a slog at times. So to mix it up, I'm also reading Atavist. I've flown through 60 pages in an evening. I also finished an audiobook this month, You Wanna Be On Top? While I was never a Top Model fan, I do love reality TV, so I found it super interesting. 

To further my reading efforts, I've spent more time lounging at the pool with a book. The photo for this blog came from one of those days where I somewhat intentionally matched my bathing suit to the book cover. It's been so hot that I've been reminded why pools exist. I also have made a few trips to the library, sometimes to write, others to just scour the shelves. I honestly haven't felt the same excitement about 2025 releases as years past, and I keep waiting for things to really grab my attention. The New Releases shelf is great for that, but I'm struggling to find titles that I can hotly anticipate. I guess that's why I've embarked on so much of a summer reread journey. As much as I've enjoyed myself, I would've thought my Rooney reread would be more revelatory. It probably didn't work as well because my reading as been so spread out over the weeks. But I did realize much more how liked BWWAY and Normal People are. Particularly in that Alice feels like a grown-up manifestation of Marianne (I guess if she adopted Connell's interest in writing) in so many ways. Maybe it's why those are my two favorites of her books. But it certainly feels like there were some carry-over themes and ideas between the two even though they're stylistically very different. Let me know if you have thoughts on that. You all know I'm always down to talk about Rooney. 

I leave for Ireland in a little over a month... I'll talk about that more later because it makes me excited and nervous, and it feels too soon to have any real thoughts. But I did just buy two suitcases. So there's that.