This Book Is Not For Me (And That's Okay)

What does your DNF list look like?

I didn’t even learn that acronym until I was on Goodreads as an adult, organizing my books into neat little categories. DNF? Did Not Finish? It was startling—and honestly empowering—to see how many Goodreads readers used this handy little acronym.

I guess it’s my rule-following nature to feel that I’m obligated to read every book I start—even if I don’t want to. First page straight through to the last, no skipping, skimming, or quitting allowed.

But in recent years, I’ve gotten better about reading for pleasure in a way that truly is a pleasure. Here’s what I’ve discovered: when I do need to put a book down, it’s rarely an issue with the book itself. I put down books that are beautifully written, far beyond what I can ever hope to achieve in my own writing career. I put down books that I desperately want to read. Books with themes and characters I enjoy. Books I want to talk about with my friends at book club.

It can be as simple as my mood. As much as I love to sink into a long, complex literary novel, sometimes I am just too tired to take on an epic read. If I’m going to be picking up and putting down my reading every twenty minutes while I shuffle my family from one appointment to another, I need a storyline that’s easier to follow.

Sometimes I just need something different. Preparing lessons and teaching takes up a lot of my work time. As much as I love to take a deep dive into history to plan a social studies lesson, I might need a break from research when I finally get a chance to sit and read for myself. So as much as I love historical fiction, I’m not going to pick it up if I’m in the middle of writing a curriculum project.

And, sometimes, it is about content. It’s not graphic description that bothers me so much—it’s actually the gut-wrenching, too-real emotions. I have put down and picked up some books several times before I finally admitted to myself that they hit too close to home. I pass them on to friends or save them for the church’s annual book sale and breathe a sigh of relief.

Drawing boundaries around my reading is a skill I’m still working on, to be honest. This came up for me recently in my teaching life. Sometimes, as teachers or parents, a book we think a child will love is actually a terrible fit. So what do we do?

My gut reaction is to teach the way I was taught. But my reflective reaction is to teach from what I’ve learned.

Teaching children to find and draw their own boundaries is an important reading skill, too. And especially in this post-pandemic era, we need to be sensitive to children that have major trauma and so few ways to express it.

I wrote this social story, This Book Is Not For Me, as a special education resource. I’ve worked with a number of students that had expressive communication delays—but believe me, their receptive language skills were excellent. Imagine how hard it would be for a student to understand a story but not be able to say, “This reminds me of something sad,” or “I had a nightmare about this character,” or even “I’m worried about what’s going to happen next!“

As fast as I will speak out against publicly banning books, I’ll speak up for readers personally setting boundaries. If I’m designing curriculum or reading aloud, I like to offer choices when I can. And it’s my own experience as a reader that shows me how many choices there are.

  • If I’m struggling to pick up this book, can I listen to the audiobook? (Absolutely!)

  • If I can’t keep the characters straight, can I keep out some paper and a pen to sketch the characters? (Yep, that’s literally how I got through a British literature course in college.)

  • If I don’t understand part of the story, can I talk to my friends at book club? (Every month!)

  • If I’m exhausted or too stressed to focus, can I put the book down? (More nights than I care to count…)

  • If I’m scared by a scene, can I flip ahead and read the end to see how the story turns out? (I wouldn’t have finished a few of my favorite books if I hadn’t done this.)

All those options exist for me as an adult and I’m grateful for that. I want to offer students just as many choices. After all, our goal is to raise readers—not robots! And if that means a student needs to put a book on their own DNF list, that’s okay with me.

My special education resource, “This Book Is Not For Me,” is available through my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Favorite Books of 2022

This year, I surprised myself by meeting my Goodreads goal and reading over 25 books!

However, to no one’s surprise, I kept forgetting to track my progress on the Goodreads app. That means I spent the better part of this morning going back through my bookshelves and remembering the books I’ve read in 2022.

Sometimes, my creative (okay, disorganized) thinking has its advantages. Looking back on my year as a reader reminded me how many incredible books I enjoyed in 2022, and how many more are patiently waiting to get off my to-be-read list in 2023. Here were five of my favorite reads this year:

{book links below are affiliate, which means that if you decide to purchase through the link, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. For the record, I use my commissions to fund spontaneous book purchases, cute bookmarks I rarely use, and far too much coffee.}

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I was physically unable to return to my regular life after reading this book. The family wants dinner? The laundry needs to be folded? Too bad, I’m still in the throes of an emotional crisis. Caused by a novel.

I have no regrets. 10/10 would read and be traumatized by The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo again. In fact, this is the book I recommended to friends the most in 2022. You know you’ve found your people when you can say, “This story ripped me to shreds! You should read it!” and they take you up on it.

Where The Children Take Us by Zain E. Asher

I read this book in advance of attending a Happy Women Dinner event featuring Zain Asher in Washington, D.C. “So excited I pre-ordered” is an understatement. I tracked the package all the way up to its delivery on my doorstep, ripped open the envelope, and read the first sixteen pages before I even went back in the house.

The rest of the book was just as enthralling. Meeting Zain and discussing her memoir was one of the highlights of 2022 for me — you can read more about the experience here.

Melting the Blues by Tracy Chiles McGhee

The author of this novel, Tracy McGhee, also attended the Happy Women Dinner event for Zain. We were chatting afterwards and that was how I learned she was a DC-area novelist, too. When Tracy told me she wrote historical fiction, I was immediately excited to read her work. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres.

Let me tell you, this book is one of the best I’ve ever read. While I was absorbed in Melting the Blues, I forgot it was fiction, forgot I was just reading, forgot that it isn’t 1957 and I don’t live in Chinaberry, Arkansas. I felt like I was there! Months after reading it, I still think about this story. Don’t miss this, especially if you love historical fiction.

Melting the Blues
By McGhee, Tracy Chiles
Buy on Amazon

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

A good friend recommended this novel to me over a year ago, so I’m kicking myself for taking so long to pluck it from my “to-be-read” list. This was a late night read for me. After everyone else was in bed, I would get my water or sweet tea and curl up in a chair to read more about Ove and his neighbors (or perhaps nemeses?)

I have a soft spot for people with brittle exteriors: “cantankerous” may as well be a synonym for “wounded.” Heartbroken. Not so much lashing out as protecting themselves from more pain. Backman writes this character so well, I felt that I knew Ove — or maybe, perhaps, recognized myself in Ove.

Apparently, we’re only weeks away from the release of a movie adaptation: A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. I’m usually leery of sequels and movie adaptations, but if anyone could play Otto/ Ove and do the character justice, I bet it’s Hanks. Looking forward to checking out the movie, but I know I’ll reread the original book just for fun, too.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford

After reading Ford’s novel A Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, I knew that everything else he ever wrote was going to be an auto-buy for me. When The Many Daughters of Afong Moy released this year, I actually put it on my Christmas wish list.

And then I saw it in the New Release section of the library at the beginning of December. Did I wait to see if I might have my very own copy in just a few weeks? No, I did not. I checked out the book immediately and devoured it.

This story has fantastic writing, of course, but the structure is where the novel really shines. Ford gave Afong Moy and each of her descendants their own unique plot and then delicately wove them together in a heartbreaking story of love and loss that transcends generations.

Now that I’ve read and returned this treasure to the library, I’ll definitely be grabbing my own copy, too.

There is a downside (if you can call it that) of cataloging all my books for the year at once. I realized this morning how many books I’ve been wanting to read and haven’t gotten to yet. That “to-be-read” list of mine is constantly expanding…but truly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s pretty cool to look towards a new year and think of how many future favorite books are waiting to be enjoyed.

Happy New Year. May your 2023 be filled with more amazing books than you can read.

I only listed five of my favorites from this year. There are 21 other books I thoroughly enjoyed in 2022! If you’re a reader too, let’s connect on Goodreads — I’d love to hear about your favorite books!

  • this story was originally published on Medium.com

The Stories We Share

The Gaithersburg Book Festival reminded me why I write. The next day, Zain Asher’s book discussion reminded me why I read.

Many writers are introverts. I am no exception. However, as much as I treasure my quiet time to read and write, some events in the bookish community are just too exciting to pass up. Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend two back to back! After Saturday’s Gaithersburg Book Festival and Sunday’s book discussion with Zain Asher, I’ve never felt more fulfilled as a writer and a reader.

These are strong words for a woman who would happily make like Thoreau and hole up at Walden for years on end. But, as I was reminded this weekend, I don’t write or read to escape community. We share stories to engage with each other, to find out who we are and how we can lift each other up.

This is what I was thinking as I loaded up the trunk of my car in preparation for the Gaithersburg Book Festival. My goal as an exhibiting author isn’t necessarily to sell books—although I’m grateful that I did fairly well on that end. My primary goal is to build relationships. I hope to leave book festivals with the names of other local authors who want to collaborate and local readers who want to stay in touch.

Since Gaithersburg was my first in-person book festival since the release of Any Second Chance, I was finally able to share an activity that’s been on my mind since I began drafting the Time Wrecker Trilogy. I invited readers to join me in folding 1,000 origami cranes.

In Any Second Chance, Mara takes on this project herself in an effort to heal and, at the same time, reclaim her identity. Although Mara looks very much like her Japanese-American mother, she knows almost nothing about this part of her heritage. What Mara does know is primarily learned from books and movies, not from her family.

Although Mara’s particular circumstances and her need for healing is a work of fiction, the tradition of senbazuru (folding a thousand paper cranes) is very real. The Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima, Japan welcomes people from around the world to fold and donate cranes to demonstrate a wish for peace. I have set the goal to fold a thousand cranes to donate. As many do (including Mara in my book), I discovered early on that folding so many cranes requires dedication, persistence, and a bit of help along the way. I was so happy to finally experience this first hand at the Gaithersburg Book Festival.

IIt was really exciting to see how many passers-by stopped to fold a crane with me at the festival. Taking on this project gave us a chance to connect and, while we folded, many people shared their own stories. Instead of just talking about my books and trying to make a sale, I got the chance to talk about Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coe and the real Sadako Sasaki, who is represented by a statue on the top of the Peace Monument. I spoke to some people who had visited Hiroshima themselves and some who had never folded origami but always wanted to learn. I met people who wanted to share their experiences looking for books with characters who looked like them and about uncovering their own forgotten stories from family history.

Connections like this are exactly why I became a writer and why I write the stories I do. This is an activity I look forward to doing again at future book festivals, since folding a thousand cranes will be a long-running project!

Normally, an in-person event like the Gaithersburg Book Festival would be enough to tire this introvert out for, oh, a month or two. However, Jill from Happy Women Dinners reached out to me weeks ago to ask if I’d be interested in attending a brunch with Zain Asher to discuss her new memoir, Where the Children Take Us. Forget that the brunch was the very next day after the book festival—there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity like this! I pre-ordered Where the Children Take Us and—I’m not even kidding—when it arrived in the mail, I ripped open the package and read sixteen pages before I realized I was still standing in the doorway!

If the Gaithersburg Book Festival reminded me why I write, then the book discussion with Zain Asher reminded me why I read. Zain is as lovely and genuinely uplifting in person as she is in her memoir. The discussion began with a lovely reading from the first pages of her memoir. I have never lived in the places Zain describes in her memoir—everywhere from a village in Nigeria to a house in South London, from a private all-girls’ school to the CNN studio. I haven’t experienced many of the topics she explores, either. But the stories she shared tapped into the truths that we all hold just under the surface—the way we grieve and fear rejection, the way we hope for our future and draw strength from our families. The fact that we all experience ndi eji amatu, a phrase Zain translated as loosely meaning, “those who set the standard” or uplift those around them.

As the women around the room chatted over brunch and asked Zain questions about her memoir, I was struck by how her book had resonated with each of us. Because Zain shared her family’s story, we were able to share pieces of our own lives with each other. I never would have imagined the life stories that we all carried into that room. That’s why we read, isn’t it? To enter a world of someone else’s experience or creation, only to discover that we have a home there, too. It was an incredible thing to be in this community of readers. We had all entered Zain’s story and left it more connected to ourselves and each other.

Books are so often written alone, read alone, even pondered and reflected on alone. But when readers come together at a book festival or a book discussion, the stories we share draw us to each other, remind us of who we are and all that we can become. When the introverts among us go back to our solitary work, plugging away at our own stories, we get to carry those connections with us. It’s the community we’re writing for, after all.

Remembering 9/11, Twenty Years Later

CW: This post describes my recollection of September 11, 2001. My love, support, and prayers go out to all the survivors of this tragedy, those we lost, and all those left behind.

Remembering 9/11, Twenty Years Late || from the ellensmithwrites.com blog

I am gazing up at a perfect blue September sky. So many of us remember that detail about this same date twenty years ago. It was such a crisp, cloudless day.

That sky is the only thing I remember clearly from September 11, 2001. I was fifteen years old, home sick from school with a high fever. I had spent the night before and most of the day alternating between feverish dreams and hazy moments awake.

In and out. Awake and asleep. My throat was dry. The phone was ringing. I wanted ginger ale. There were worried voices somewhere outside my room. I woke up again and immediately wanted to go back to sleep. New York City. Washington, D.C. My eyes were watering and I couldn’t remember why. I looked up and out the window at that clear, clear blue sky.

Late that afternoon, my fever broke. I sipped flat ginger ale through a plastic straw and stared at the television, trying to comprehend the shaky home videos that had been submitted to the news. Breaking out in another sweat, either from the dissipating fever or rising fear.

9/11 was the line of demarcation for many in my generation. On September 10, 2001, we were teenagers. After September 11, we were young adults.

Six months later, in the spring of 2002, my high school band traveled to New York City. On the last day of the trip, my friends and I stood shoulder to shoulder on a platform at Ground Zero. All around us, tall buildings stretched up to the sky. In front of us, emptiness. The footprint of where two towers had once stood. Debris and dust and this temporary platform where “normal” used to be.

Over the past twenty years, whenever I think back to 9/11, the memory is always twofold. First it feels not quite real, a hazy fever dream, the way I first experienced it. And then I am immediately back at Ground Zero. My friends and I are leaning against each other, holding each other up. It is the only way we can think of to bear the enormity of loss.

Twenty years later, staring up at another cloudless blue sky, I feel the same desperation to reach out, lean close, connect.

Lean hard, friends. This is how we hold each other up.  

Earth Day

This year, our family’s “big” project has been learning to compost and (hopefully) growing some of our own fruits and veggies. I have tried and failed to start a garden before, but this year I’m excited to see our pea plants shooting up! We have two little tomato plants that are annoyed by the cold nights we’ve had lately (maybe we transplanted too early?) After our first sowing of lettuce didn’t pan out, we tried again, and now we have a few tiny sprouts poking up!

Earth Day || Composting raised bed garden from the Ellen Smith Writes blog



None of this comes naturally to me. I am (aren’t I always?) afraid to fail. But it’s a surprisingly peaceful new practice in our household to sort things for the compost bin (that center basket is a built-in compost area in our @welcometovita raised bed). It’s been really cool to watch nature break down and come to life in the same space.

The bigger change is in my perspective. I’m embarrassed to admit that a lot of the reasons I’ve “gone green” in the past were self-serving.
Reuse (because it saves money).
Recycle (because my county makes it convenient).
Reduce (because it simplifies our lives).
Save the Earth (so it can keep serving us).

Now it’s different. There is so much in this planet that is transformative and life-giving and healing. But not enough. If I care my corner of the Earth the best I can, I can speak up for the rest of her all the better.

What’s in a Meme?

I love memes. Maybe we can blame that on an early love for the Robin Williams movie Flubber (seriously, his robot Weebo totally invented meme and gif culture!) But here I am, ten months or so into quarantine life, and my friends and I communicate almost entirely by sending each other memes. I use this one a lot:

The Bernie Sanders meme took off after Wednesday’s inauguration and it may be my favorite one yet. I love Bernie, I love his awesome upcycled mittens, I love that he dressed for the weather. Seriously, regardless of the event, DC is COLD in January.

Bernie has responded to it pretty well, too. He made his viral meme into a sweatshirt on his website, with 100% of the proceeds going to Meals on Wheels Vermont.

Which made me revisit a question that’s been on my mind ever since “meme culture” took over the Internet…

What if you were made into a meme?

I actually researched this pretty heavily when I was writing Any Second Chance, the second book of the Time Wrecker Trilogy. In the early chapters, a picture of Mara goes viral after she and Will are named in the time wrecker leak. Never mind that Mara herself has just discovered that she was once a time traveler. Now the entire world is sharing an image of her shocked and tear-stained face. One of the most painful moments of her life is now being mocked and endlessly recaptioned. To put it mildly, Mara does not take it well.

That happens, too. As much as I loved reading the positive stories that come out of some of these suddenly-viral memes, like Bad Luck Brian and Success Kid, there are some really ugly tales of lives turned upside down. I won’t name them here. For those that want to separate themselves from their sudden online stardom, it seems like the kindest thing to do is to…not keep talking about them on the Internet. I would recommend reading Shame Nation by Sue Scheff and Melissa Schorr. It’s a really in-depth look at the effects of “going viral” and what happens when it becomes a tool for cyberbullying and online shaming. Link is here (affiliate):

I grew up with the Internet. Around the same time I was starting to do research reports in middle school, the miracle of dial-up made it possible to find information online… in only twice as much time as it would’ve taken to walk to the library! It did get better, thankfully. By high school, people exchanged email addresses more than phone numbers. By college, the stigma of “meeting someone online” had faded—which is fortunate, because that’s how I met my husband. I know all the weird and wonderful ways the Internet can change our lives (to be clear: the Internet research is weird. The aforementioned husband is wonderful.) Over the past year, we’ve managed to keep some of the isolation at bay by bringing our real-life connections online. Thank goodness for that.

Now that we’ve been basically quarantined for the better part of a year, I’m especially grateful for the sheer variety the Internet has to offer. Livestreamed celebrations. Long video chats. Virtual visits. And hundreds upon hundreds of silly memes.

"Dogs drinking coffee/ Cheezburgers with kittens/ Cute baby Yoda/ And warm woolen mittens/ Fist-pumping babies/ and Lord of the Rings/ These are a few/ Of my favorite memes..." by Ellen Smith || Originally posted on the Ellen Smith Writes blog

Year in Review: 2020 Reading List

Year in Review: 2020 Reading List || from the ellensmithwrites blog 11.31.2020.jpg

Since this blog is (mostly) about books and time travel, let’s take a minute to go back to a simpler time. A more innocent time. A time when I heralded the new year with all the enthusiasm of a woman who loves the roaring (19)20s and really wanted a good excuse to wear a flapper dress.

So, January.

Let’s go back to January.

I started off this year with an ambitious book list that covered 20 books from the Jazz Age. Some were classics I’d read before, some were books I’d been meaning to read for years. Then the pandemic hit, and, well…honestly, the list went out the window. As it should.

Truthfully, I’m grateful for every book I managed to read in 2020 simply because it gave me a chance to get out of my own head for a bit.

That said, I did read four of the twenty books on my list this year. Two were re-reads, two were new to me, and all four of them were fantastic! Let’s start with the re-reads: the classic Cheaper by the Dozen and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes, both by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. I’ve read both books several times before, mostly because I love the shenanigans that the twelve children (and their father) got into. As I read them again this year, I wondered how the Gilbreths might have handled the current COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote about it here: Therbligs in Quarantine.

I also read two classics of the Harlem Renaissance for the first time: Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset and Passing by Nella Larsen. I have yet to write a real review or publish a blog post on either of these books, although the stories have stayed with me and been on my mind quite a bit. Both Plum Bun and Passing featured women in the 1920s who were African-American and could “pass” as white, and the ways that their ability to “pass” affected their relationships, their work, their art…and, truly, every aspect of their lives. For me as a reader, it was a very personal experience to read and ponder these stories—written nearly a hundred years ago—while also listening to and pondering and grieving for the racial injustices that have occurred just this year alone. I have a million thoughts about the books and their writers (I totally went down a rabbit hole researching both Larsen and Fauset, their lives, and their other works). I plan to read more from both authors, probably starting with Quicksand by Nella Larsen.

As a whole, I’ll be glad to see the sun set on the very last day of 2020. It’s purely symbolic, of course—the things that made this year so difficult have nothing to do with the date on the calendar. There will need to be many, many changes in the year ahead: for health, for safety, for justice, for finding our footing after a long and tumultuous time. I hope for the best for all of us in 2021.

Happy New Year, friends.

Are you on Goodreads? Feel free to follow or add me as a friend—I love talking about books!

Ellen's bookshelf

14 Fantastic Frederick County Writing Spots
The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder: Mary Toft and Eighteenth-Century England
Any Second Chance
Missing Colors
The Magician's Nephew
Passing
Brain Trouble
The Silver Chair
The Cure for Modern Life
Montessori Parent Coronavirus Survival Guide: Thriving in an era of extended school closures
Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Prince Caspian
The Princess and the Ruby: An Autism Fairy Tale
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Mudhouse Sabbath
Publishable By Death
Belles on Their Toes
Happily Ever After
Cheaper by the Dozen


Ellen Smith's favorite books »

#TimeTravelStories: A Christmas Carol

Does A Christmas Carol count as a time travel story? I can pretty much guarantee Charles Dickens didn’t intend it to be, but for my purposes, it totally counts. What can I say? There’s something about a story where a man confronts his past and decides to change his future that just really appeals to me.

#timetravelstories: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens || book (and movie) review on www.ellensmithwrites.com

Now, 99% of the time, if there’s a movie adaptation of a book, I will say that I liked the book more. As in, sometimes I will stuff my mouth full of popcorn just to stop myself from saying “That’s not how it was in the book!” throughout the movie.

However.

There have been hundreds of movie, tv, and theater adaptations of Dickens’ novella in the ~180 years since it was published. Out of all of these, I am hands-down a lifetime fan of A Muppet Christmas Carol. I’m especially fond of Statler and Waldorf as Marley & Marley:

Not sure if Charles Dickens would be delighted or horrified to see his Christmas story acted out by Muppets, but I like to think he’d be pleased. Particularly because the movie is just so much fun.

This year, I was more invested than ever while I watched Scrooge visit his past, present, and future. Undeniably, Michael Caine does a masterful job playing the lead role. But what stood out to me when I watched the movie this year was that Scrooge’s life had never been perfect. Choosing joy and celebration would have been hard for him, even as a little boy. It’s no wonder he chose to bury himself in hard work year after year. Sometimes being a scrooge isn’t just the easier choice—it’s the safer choice. After all, if you go ahead and remove yourself from community, you don’t have to risk being rejected.

And speaking of safe choices…

How ironic is it that in a season of togetherness and spreading good will toward men, the safest choice in 2020 has been staying apart? As the months of the pandemic have worn on, it’s especially bittersweet to try connecting virtually when we just miss being with our loved ones in person. On Easter—was that really eight months ago?—attending church services online and doing egg hunts over Facetime was a novelty. There was still a feeling of we’re-all-in-this-together, a sense that “soon” our lives would go back to normal. The Christmas holiday season has been different. Exhaustion is setting in and optimism is running out. We haven’t been able to gather with our community for almost a year, and Zoom is a poor substitute for hugs. There were times this month when it seemed easier to wait “until the world goes back to normal” to try and celebrate anything.

For Scrooge—and for all of us—it’s a risk to continue seeking out light and joy in a world that feels overwhelmingly dark. Never mind the comparisons to Christmas(es) Past. Facing down the 2020 holiday season invited a visit from the specter of Christmas Future. That was the ghost that scared Scrooge the most, wasn’t it? Me too. I’ve kept myself afloat for much of this year by convincing myself that I just have to make it through until next year, when the pandemic would end and everything would be better. Denial is a powerful tool. But at night, when the rest of my family was asleep, I was haunted by my fears for the future. We are grateful that our little family stayed healthy this year and devastated by the illness and loss that continues all around us. When we can safely gather again, some people will be missing. Next year is not promised for anyone.

Those dark thoughts, in a strange way, cleared the way for me to wake up choosing light. I did put up the Christmas trees this year (and yes, we have more than one…) We made a lot of homemade ornaments. We lit candles and sang Silent Night while watching a virtual Christmas Eve service. Taking the risk and choosing joy made for a lovely Christmas Present.

I hope that’s what we’ll remember about Christmas this year: that in the midst of so much darkness, there was still joy. And I hope that in the future, we’ll keep taking risks and looking for light and community, however they appear.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me." --Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens || from #TimeTra…

Release Day! Any Second Chance, Book 2 of the Time Wrecker Trilogy, is Available Now!

If you’ve been patiently waiting to find out what happened to Will and Mara after Book 1: Every Last Minute, I have good news! The release day for Any Second Chance, Book 2 of the Time Wrecker Trilogy, is finally here! Any Second Chance is available in paperback and e-book through Amazon:

If you prefer shopping for books at Barnes and Noble and Books a Million, keep an eye out for Any Second Chance in the next few days. (Since the paperback was officially released today, it may take a few days for the ISBN to show up in the catalog!)

For those in the US, I’ve also made an (affiliate) account on Bookshop to help you shop indie while staying safe at home. I like Bookshop because it’s a convenient online bookstore—and let’s be honest, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, I did a lot of my shopping online. The exception for me was popping into my local independent bookstore. I really miss being able to chat with the store owners about their favorite books, ask for recommendations, and peruse the shelves on my own. I’m really looking forward to the day I can safely be back in-store, and until then, this solution helps me support my beloved local bookstores while shopping online. You can read more here about Bookshop’s mission to financially support indie bookstores. Here is a link to my affiliate account: Ellen Smith Writes Bookshop. I’ve done some of my Christmas shopping for friends and family already through this site and I love it!

Thank you for reading! I am so excited to share the next part of Will and Mara’s story with you!

Finding Godot

Why am I still waiting for this play to make sense?

I have read Waiting for Godot twice. The first time was over fifteen years ago, when Samuel Beckett’s play was required reading for literature class. I remember that it was the shortest assignment and the one I spent the most time on. I read it again a year later, when I ran across it in another literature textbook. I hadn’t understood a word of this play the first time around and yet I couldn’t stop myself from reading it again.

This play bothers me in the good way that literature is supposed to bother me. I still don’t quite understand Beckett’s work, but I want to. I find myself thinking of his hapless characters, Didi and Gogo, at the oddest times. When I’m folding laundry. Waiting for an oil change at the dealership. When I wake up for the third time in one night and automatically reach for my phone to check the election results. The results are still too close to call.

“Godot is not God,” I recall my professor saying. My diploma has been framed and dusty for over a decade now and I’m still thinking about this class discussion. The play is not a theatrical crisis of faith, it’s a statement about existentialism. No wonder it pops into my mind when I’m folding laundry. How very 21st century of me: a work-at-home mother having an existential crisis over housework. Didn’t I just wash this load of towels?

“We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

It is now three days after the 2020 election. I’m trying to cut down on how often I check my phone for updates. The same six states are hanging in the balance. They will be for days, I tell myself. Weeks. It’s so close, there’s definitely going to be a recount. Probably several.

I check my phone again anyway.

In March, I refreshed the website that tracked coronavirus cases on the hour. I don’t know when I stopped. June, maybe? Whenever it was that I stopped comparing our locked-down life to normal life. When I pulled my trusty daily organizer out of my purse and realized that I hadn’t even looked at it for weeks. After I stopped telling myself that this was temporary, that soon things would be back to the way they were.

Godot is not hope, I tell myself. That feels right. Didi and Gogo, these two foolish characters that have bothered me for years, must have had hope already to be able to wait and wait and wait by the tree for the Godot that never came. Hope makes people do a lot of stupid things.

Back to the election. The numbers are so, so close. It feels almost reassuring, like the election results must be accurate since the votes are so evenly split. The electoral map is a red and blue rebuke for how divided our United States have become.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Godot is peace. I like that, but I feel like I’m still missing something. Why did Didi and Gogo need peace in their lives so badly? Did they want to accept the strange reality they found themselves in? Or were they just worn down from trying to understand, ready to accept anything if it meant an end to their everlasting waiting?

I don’t want that to be my life. If this ever-present anxiety is the price of counting every vote, of treasuring every life and every healthcare worker risking theirs, then I can wait. Was that what Beckett meant? Is there a purpose to waiting beyond the hoped-for reward — a way of honoring the bizarre world we find ourselves in by trying to understand instead of giving in to acceptance?

The list of what I don’t know looms large and grows larger every day. I don’t know when the pandemic will end or when the votes will be counted or how many times they’ll be recounted before a president is declared. I don’t know what Samuel Beckett’s play means or why I can’t stop thinking about it years later. I don’t know why I’m still waiting for Godot. I only know that I am.

Originally published on Medium.com on November 6, 2020. Follow me on Medium: https://ellensmithwrite.medium.com/