Too Many Books

My middle is sagging. For all you non-writerly types, I am not referring to my recent affinity for (nor the obvious repercussions of) Panera Bread breakfasts. No, instead (or, in addition) it's the middle of my book that is sagging. (Sadly, it's not even quite the middle. It's chapter four.) I've written subsequent chapters already, because chapter four is a cruel and an unusual beast of a chapter. Nothing very interesting is happening to my main character, Laurel, during her freshman year while she's away at college. She's acting miserably depressed and spending the majority of her time mooning over a boy who still lives in her hometown. I'm just so ready to get through this section -- things pick up when Laurel goes home and her first year of college is behind her. But, I'm frustrated. If I'm picking my way through this part of the story -- bored to tears while writing it -- then how will my readers feel when they are re...

Birches by Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the s...