Books are awesome. Reading is fun.
As a kid, I wasn’t a reader. My whole life I’ve always rebelled heavily against those things that were FORCED upon me. You know, religion, education, books. As a child I basically remember reading two books by choice (or what I remember being my choice). The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Awesome. Really fun to read. Imagine my delight a couple years ago when the Narnia movie came out. I thought it was great. Can’t wait for this coming next one. The other book I read (over and over and over) was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was in heaven too when I saw the 1970s movie version with Gene Wilder as the title character. Wonder. Delight. Imagine how horrified I was when a few years ago, Tim Burton ruined it for me. I generally like Burton, and I REALLY like Johnny Depp, but that version of the story pissed me off no end.
Part of me always hated that I was forced to not only read certain things, but prove it. Book reports. Essays. It kept me from reading. I missed out on a lot. I have read through the years a little of course, concentrating mainly on non-fiction, but it always made me take note, these people who claim to “curl up with a good book”. I always pictured these people in an arm chair, next to a dim lamp, with the rain pounding their window, while they sat bent-legged with some sort of blanket or shawl covering their lower extremities and sipping their tea. Not my scene.
I don’t know truly why I struggled with this ‘educators who try to force state mandated information on me are really nazis’ mentality, but it took a long time for me to get over it. Now I crave knowledge. In the last few years I have actually become interested in (certain facets) of history. I’ve looked deeper into my religious beliefs (or lack thereof). I have tried to study further the conundrums and paradoxes that are male/female interpersonal relations. I’ve looked more into philosophy. I started writing poetry and lyrics. I’ve revisited my beliefs on many things I choose to classify under “social hypocrisy”. I’m learning more every day about the world and along with that comes more knowledge of people. I find humanity mostly disturbing and disappointing. My defeatist attitude about it mainly stems from experience and my science mentality. You know, kinda the “show me where I’m wrong” deal. I need proof of good.
Well, what do these thoughts have to do with reading and books? I don’t know, but I’ll get to it. I’m just free forming it here. That’s how I write by the way, I free form. I never go back and edit, I never rearrange, I never omit, you get what comes out of my head in the order it comes out. And I write like I speak. All I ever do (to be polite) is spell check. This is how I write everything. Poetry, comedy, these blogs, deeply personal emails that get me into huge amounts of trouble because pressing that send button has no take backs, this is how I write. It’s almost as though it’s all an internal dialogue (diatribe? ha ha) that has no filter. No concern for consequence. On the one hand, it’s very honest and vulnerable. The other side of it is that I have NOT mastered the English language and therefore it is often that I am misunderstood. I really don’t mind being misunderstood if we’re talking about fiction, but if I’m writing about real life, I tend to be either misunderstood, or such a moron that I fuck it up very clearly. Ironic.
My writing hasn’t made me any money yet, and I’ll tell you, although sometimes enjoyably theaputic, it has gotton me into trouble. I hope one day, anywhere from one person to several billion people will see my style and thoughts as genius, or at the very least worth reading. Right now, I don’t care about writing for the world. And I find difficulty in writing true fiction. I can get to 90 or 95 percent, but I can’t cross the barrier to TOTAL true fiction. There’s always some part of me in everything I write. This is why I think now I have a renewed appreciation for reading. It’s making me smart. It’s showing me new worlds. It’s expanding my mental horizon. And, much like movies always have, books are becoming a drug I can use to escape the reality that is my fucked up, horrific life. I could do heroine, but I know myself, one hit and it would never stop. I would chase that pain escape every minute ’til it killed me. So maybe I’ll write about a heroine instead. She might save someone. Hey, maybe save herself. I wonder if anyone’s written a story like that? See? I haven’t read that many books. I need to get on this. I used to not want to watch other comedians perform because I didn’t want to be influenced. I wanted my stand-up comedy to be all mine with no outside influence, conscious or otherwise. This is the only thing that frightens me about reading. I don’t want to be influenced by other writers. But I’ve become pretty proficient in recent times at retaining feelings rather than fact. I have a horrible memory and part of it I’m sure is that I’ve taught myself, perhaps inadvertently, to remember how I felt about an experience rather than the events or facts of that happening. Maybe if I read that way, I can derive inspiration without influence. It’s a scary and empty way to live, but I bet it makes for good writing.
The 750ml of Patrone I have here (wait, let’s call that 700ml) help. Am I drinking at one in the afternoon? Sure. But I think this blog entry is still coherent (well, okay, at least as coherent as I am stone cold sober anyway).
If you think your life is hell and people suck, like I do, there’s one thing you can look forward to. If you’re like me, you can look forward to the day that someone will prove you wrong and hold on to that hope for dear life. You kinda have to. Don’t you? Don’t I?
Meantime… Books and reading right?
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Comments
Don’t be worried about being influenced by other writers. Every writer has been influenced by someone else’s writing. Just like scientific theories. They are always based off of someone else’s work. Y’know, the whole “reinventing the wheel” thing.
Krista - I’ll keep that in mind. ThanX!
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