Reading to Write-- Blank stares are good

I've taken control of my Sims 2 addiction, I think. I've pulled the CD out of the computer. And the last couple times I started up the game, I managed to restrain myself to just a couple hours before shutting it down.

I'm reading more now. I have so many books on writing that I've never read--I don't even know which ones have merit and which don't. Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write s quite good. She becomes fond of showing the work of her students and telling us why the passage is good or why it sucks. Her basic criteria seems to be whether or not the writing is true, and if the writer is forcing it & trying too hard to sound uber-literate. She places a lot of emphasis on finding one's true voice and warns against writing for the sake of making a buck. She argues that writing a story based merely on its salability ruins the quality of the story.-- That you can't write a good story unless you're in your own true voice. Something like that. She also urges that the writer be willing to stare at the blank page for at least half an hour. The longer the better. Which flusters me. Staring at a blank page is the one thing about writing that drives me nuts.

I've worked out a system to try and keep myself disceplined and get much work done:

If I get stumped on Aztec, I turn to the revisions of Lunatic Lounge. Unless I'm divinely inspired, the revisions should be my focus. Also, I've got a couple short stories I'm trying to finish so that I'll have some lures out in the water while working on the novels. Sounds like a plan, eh?

As long as I don't blow an entire day with the Treacle Family.(Sims 2)