What I read as an author

I wish I were one of those authors who read incessantly, constantly evaluating the prose of others, and cataloguing every last scene in the long-term wrinkles of my grey matter, but the truth is I don't read very much at all. Does that affect my writing? I'm sure it does, but my hope is that it's for the better...

This is a subhead

One of the things I spend the majority of my minuscule minutes reading are books on writing. I am a nut for non-fiction and nothing fills my neuroses fuller than finding new friends in the non-fiction universe. Okay, that sentence was just playing around with n's and f's, but the heart of it rings true. I enjoy non-fiction far more than I do fiction. But that's not because I don't appreciate a good story--far from it.

I prefer non-fiction mostly because the few hours a week I can devote to a purely indulgent act like reading are rare enough that I think I ought to be getting something out of the transaction more than just, say, a good story. It's kind of like working on vacation; Productive Leisure.

Learning the construction of sentences, for instance, is fascinating as well as productive toward my goal of being an author. Not only that, but I use what I learn to teach classes and make people feel inferior at parties. Well, maybe not that last one; I don't get invited to parties anymore...

It's a hefty investment to read a whole book

The other reason I defer to non as opposed to fiction is that it takes me a long time to read. I mean, a LONG time. she can race through a tome in a weekend, whereas I take near a month to get through 20 chapters. And if I do get sucked in, I lose all touch with reality. The last time I pored through a fiction novel, I didn't eat for two days.

The reason it takes me so long is that I look at every. single. word. I re-read sentences that didn't sound quite right, and I take a minute between lines to imagine the world I'm reading about. This makes reading a massive undertaking. Not only that, but I need to know it's worth diving that deep in to before I can commit to the task.

That novel I missed meals for? Yeah, it threw me into a world ripe with darkness and strange rituals that I now wish I could forget. It's actually one of the reasons I aim to write clean novels now, as a matter-of-fact. I was sideswiped by strange, sensual scenes that were most definitely not PG. That's not what I was looking for, but by the time those scenes started showing up, I'd already committed a good day-and-a-half to the venture, so I muscled through and kind of wish I hadn't.

Ain't nothin' goin' on while I'm thumbin' pages

Remember those posters of the orangutan--with chin in hand--saying "sometimes I sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits."? That's me while reading. I don't evaluate prose. I don't deconstruct sentences. All I do is read and imagine the action and settings as they are presented to me. So, for me, reading fiction and writing fiction are completely separate worlds.

Of course, that's not to say I don't see what the other author is doing--because I do. I notice how they might take three chapters to work out the logic of some scene that undoubtedly came to them in a flash of inspiration and only lasted two paragraphs. Because I've been there. Heck, I'm there in this post!

So that's what I read as an author:
Non-fiction about how to write - so I can get through it fast, stop to have tea with sweetness without losing my place, and apply it to other facets of my professional life
And few-and-far-between fiction - because I can't read quickly, get sucked-in to the detriment of the world around me (what kids?), and have the nagging notion of what the author is trying to do with their craft.

Well, that's the lesson, kids: don't become a writer if you want to enjoy fiction. Aaaand, I'm pretty sure I just got un-invited to your next party...


Pssst! By the way, did you get the irony of the first subhead? It intros the fact that I read books on how to write--which would explain the value of text hierarchy. See? Terribly witty!