It can be overwhelming to plan a big trip. Even as one who greatly enjoys the planning process, I can get fatigued from focusing too long on planning for ten days, one-hundred days for now. It is good to have an outlet that is completely different to refresh yourself. I like to use literature, and take at least one day a week off from the normal activities. Because I’ve set the challenge of blogging for the next 100 days, I will still post, but the topic might be different.
I’ve long enjoyed reading Russian literature. Right now I am reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. It can be confusing sometimes, and it isn’t as acclaimed as his other works, but I have greatly enjoyed reading it. Dostoevsky loves to introduce new characters and backstories in almost every chapter. He is able to come up with some of the most interesting people in literature, who are still relevant centuries after he wrote the book. Perhaps because it was published serially, Dostoevsky felt it was important to introduce new people each week. Whatever the reason, it gives the dense novel a fresh feel every chapter.
Below is an example of the manuscript and drawings Dostoevsky submitted for The Idiot. I wonder if authors today have such a precise image of the characters they write.
