I am still crushing on NaNoWriMo, even after all these years. I have written four terrible, horrible novel drafts and I love every single one. I have learned so many things about the process of fiction and myself as a writer that even if none of the novels end up being finished, I still think it was a useful exercise.

This is why I have taken up the NaPoWriMo challenge – that is, to write a poem a day throughout April. I will be posting them at Fictionaut (at least, until everyone gets sick of them and asks me to stop), so please feel free to comment on my rushed and malformed first drafts.

And of course, join the challenge yourself!

A few weeks ago I went to Amsterdam with my girlfriend for my birthday.

In Amsterdam it is possible to buy Sarah Palin sex dolls and dildos the size of my arm (the whole arm, not just fist to elbow) and DVDs of sex acts performed on dogs and and enough marijuana to make you hallucinate cartoons for days. It is possible to buy women or men or both, for an hour or two hours or a night. It is possible to buy huge bags of magic mushrooms.

We did not buy any of these things. Instead we bought matching toothbrush holders.

I blogged at PANK recently about Meanwhile Reads, ie. things to read while doing other things. Here are some more.

Action: Hiding in the bathroom at a family party because there are no more words to explain why you’re still single or why you don’t have a proper job or why you’ve styled your hair in that funny way.
Do Read: If you like your family then read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre for something interesting to start a debate about; if you don’t like your family then read Maggots, Murder and Men by Dr Zakaria Erzinclioglu for tips on how to dispose of the bodies.
Don’t Read: Sartre, Baudelaire, de Sade, or anything else that will cause you to make grandiose statements or stare numbly at the walls. Families hate that.

Action: Sitting at the train station waiting for a train that is always late (except for the days when you sleep in and arrive late to the station – those days, it’s early).
Do Read: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, or Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith, or Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America by Jenny Diski (my personal favourite), or Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood, or… OK, no more train books.
Don’t Read: 1,000-page hardbacks – you’ll regret it when there are no empty seats on the train and you have to hold that sucker in your arms for the whole journey.

Action: Being bored at the salon because you’re getting your hair cut by a student hairdresser, which is cheap but takes two hours because they’re so nervous about making horrible mistake that they cut each hair individually.
Do Read: The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill to transport you to snowier and more fanciful places; anything from Salt’s poetry collection to get yourself too tangled up in words to care about anything else.
Don’t Read: The History of Lesbian Hair by Mary Dugger – the hairdresser might get confused and give you a mullet.

So, folks: what do you read while doing other things?