Catching up

I spent a large part of this evening reading some blogs that I normally follow and have gotten way behind on--another symptom of my busy life. I used to read them every night. Some are by friends, some are by writers whose work I enjoy, one is about Chicago (my home town), and others interest me for various reasons. But I came to the conclusion tonight that those I most look forward to are the ones that give me a sense of the person who's writing, the life he or she leads. I'm not drawn to blogs that give me lectures about writing or even, much, to those interviews about "how did you write your first book?" I like the people side of it--like my friend who told her cat's life in a series of imaginative pictures and captions or my neighbor who wrote about efforts to increase sales of the Oxford English Dictionary--and make us all appreciate the beauties of the English language.
Today it's rainy and cold in Texas but I got out for lunch with Jean, then a staff meeting and some work at the office. Finally by 3:30 I slunk home, anxious for my nap--but I had brought chores with me and it was 5 p.m. before I got a nap. Hardly seems worth the trouble!
I am caught up in Christmas--spent last night wrapping packages and tonight have to work on a shopping list for my annual party.
Just finished reading Cleo Coyle's latest Coffeehouse Mystery, Holiday Grind. My reaction to it is similar to my reaction to blogs--I get a strong sense of Claire Cosi, the main character, as a likeable person--adventuresome, risk-taking, but a good mom and a nice friend to have. Coyle has endowed her with sophisticated knowledge about coffee (not a big deal to me, but still it's cooking--and she does cook other thing), and I'm well aware of the ongoing, prolonged tension between Claire, her ex-husband, and her new boyfriend. I always wonder about the pacing of relationships in mysteries--if you keep the lovers apart, are you creating tension? Or frustration about how dumb they are? In this case, I'm surprised they got as close as suddenly as they did, after several novels of distance. Maybe Coyle listened to what her characters were telling her and followed it. I recently read, for the third time, a novel in which I think the author got so wrapped up in reacting to the critiques we'd sent that she forgot to listen to her characters. I always will remember that was one of Elmer Kelton's primary pieces of advice to young writers. Having wandered away from the topic, I do recommend the Cleo Coyle Coffeehouse Mysteries to readers of cozies.