No Reviews Tonight

They may come later on in the week, I don't know. I need to use the blog space to go over some things that's in my head tonight, and honestly, the reviews are one of those things.

My life is hectic, or at least it feels that way. I'm trying to do so much, and with so little clue of what I'm doing or accomplishing. I've been doing the reviews because I like them, and because I like sharing my opinions of what I've read with others. But is that enough? Are they serving a real enough purpose, and most importantly, can the time and effort I spend doing them be better used? I have so much I want to do as a writer, and it looks like there's so much I need to do to improve my craft, that I may not have the luxury of making time for them anymore.

And this leads me into my next big thing. It occurs to me that, in going full-bore story mode, I may be trying to run before I can walk. How much do I really know about structure, theme, character, and dialogue? Should I be trying to hone these things with exercises? And, if that's the case, where does that leave me in terms of making output I can show to the world? Results-oriented little bastard that I am, I feel as though I'm cheating myself if I don't have some form of concrete product when I'm done. It can be a first draft, but it should be a draft,a s opposed to something done for its own sake. And I know this is counterproductive thinking in a lot of ways, but it's such an ingrained pattern at this point, it's hard to change.

I really do wish I could just change my feelings and thinking to be more compatible with the way the world actually works. Consider that a segue.