On Reading

Hoorah for continuity!  Day two and, 12:21 in the AM, as my girlfriend sleeps beside me, I have the time to blog.  Go figure.  This is a hard one, the second post, what does one say, what lofty topics does one address?  For such a large audience, it is really hard to please everyone.  The humor is forced, sorry, still getting used to this.  Ahem.

I want my second post not to be about a struggling writer (me), but a flourishing reader (still me)!  They always say the best writers read, and when it comes this very generic rule, I pass.  Flying colors.  The gold star.  I love, love love love, to read.  "It is my favorite past-time."  There are quotes because I said that earlier today, about reading, to my girlfriend, who then raised her eyebrows and said "are you suure it's your favorite past-time?"  I revised my answer to "solo past-time" and then continued to read.  So, seriously, I love to read.  It brings me out of the mundane world, it takes me into a craft that I want to explore, and it stirs all of my creative juices so that the punch night party in my head is awesome.

BUT, most importantly, more importantly than all of those logical reasons, reading is comfy.  It can be done sprawled on a couch, flip-flops thrown to the ground and a pillow under your head.  It can be done late at night in the comfort of comforters and a reading light.  Pillow still under-head.  On a plane or train or, if you are really lucky (I am not) in a car. Pick it up put it down, burn through it like your last cigarette--it's all good. Books don't weigh all that much and are fairly easy to obtain. It is, quite simply, the perfect leisure sport.  And the best part: people respect you for it.  I can lay down-- middle of the day, hour after I woke up, sweatpants, no plans-- and crack open a book and everyone leaves me alone.  These are the reasons reading is great.

For a little more in-depthness, the three examples I listed before my last one, much like a paper in university learnin', contain some main points!  So, to elaborate:

1. Out of the mundane world.  This is key to the craft of writing.  A good book, novel short story memoir whatever, brings the reader out of his head space and into someone else's.  This provides perspective.  While you are in that author's headpsace, or really the character of the author, you get to see the world as they see it.  This allows you, when you come back, to have a least two ways of looking at something.  I am a firm believer that the more you know, the wider your lens, the more interesting your words will be. Sometimes we can get caught up in our present, and reading is an excellent way to step out of that for a moment (or an all-night book finishing session) and step back into your world, ready to create.

2. A craft that I want to explore.  This is pretty simple.  The more we read, the more styles, nuances, characters, worlds, words, etc etc we see.  The more we see, the more we can emulate.  By reading one can almost inherently (and by osmosis I'm told) become a more well-rounded author.  If I had never read anything that broke the fourth wall, aka address YOU, the reader, maybe I would never think to do it.  By exploring a book, we take our writing to a whole new level.

3. Stirs all of my creative juices.  This is the best part of reading (besides all that leisurely stuff I mean...).  When I am engrossed in this awesome, epicly written text I get all goosebumpy, my blood gets warm and I want to go.  A really good book makes me want to write a really good book.  And a really really good books make me wish I had written that book, and so I steal a couple of ideas or concepts or images and do my own thing; the helium balloon reaching the sun with the baboon turns into a spacetime voyage in which Jesus is actually the future savior of humanity and then we realize we are in New York and my character cries. Fin. See?? Seriously though, finding type of book that gets you inspired to write is a wonderful feeling.  It also helps you figure out what it is that you want to write.  Love to read romance?  Write romance. Sci-fi creatures crawling through moons?  Write sci-fi.  Lesbian vampire post-apocolypse?  Get yourself checked out.  Please.

Soo anyway that is the majority of what I have to say on reading.  Another thought just popped into my head--sometimes a book is so good I would rather read than write.  Bum-city.  But hey, at least you find yourself between two excellent pieces of pie and get to choose.  I must be hungry or something food keeps slipping in here.  Happy writing! (and reading.)

p.s. I just finished reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murukami (highly recommended) and have started "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs" by Tobias Wolf.

p.p.s try and name the stories I ripped off in point number three! good luck.