Books! Books! Batman!
The other day, I had an in-between day, a rarity when I’m up at college. In order not to be bored out of my skull, I did something I haven’t done in a while: I curled up and read.
Reading regularly is one of the things I lost in high school. Something about reading 50-odd pages of this or that classic a night, followed by 45 minutes crammed with tearing it apart didn’t sit well with me, so I just stopped. Between then and now, I’ve only read a few books, which were usually stuff my dad would give me, or that my friend Marina would recommend. After a while, I began to feel like my writing was starting to suffer, so I knuckled down and began picking things up here and there–first, Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, which was fucking hilarious, and then Brave New World by Huxley, which completely changed my perspective on science fiction. Finally, I finally picked up The Fountainhead, which coincidentally, Marina gave me as a birthday present way back in 2007–and read it in about three weeks.
I’m not sure what it was about that book, but it’s since turned me into a voracious reader. At the moment, I’m trying to resist the urge to pick up more than one at a time–which I’ve already failed at by reading Atlas Shrugged and Breakfast of Champions simultaneously. In my defense, Atlas Shrugged is dense and long-winded as fuck, and the sex scenes–of which there have been several–remind me of British tea ceremonies interrupted by violent, individual-crushing, possessive ravaging. From the ceiling in the form of Batman. I’m taking it slowly, in doses, breaking to laughing my ass off at Vonnegut’s drawing of *ahem* beavers in Champions whenever Rand decides to spend 30 pages to detail Dagny Taggart’s quest to find the creator of some random static-powered atmospheric motor.
What? Yeah… pacing fail.
Nonetheless, breaking my reading phobia came at just the right time. This past summer was an absolute slog for writing. It was one of those times where I knew I had to make my process more adaptable, and was fighting tooth and nail to get writing in between that and my job. I think in all my sessions of muse-abuse, I’d completely forgotten the distance you sometimes need to put between yourself and your work, and that time can be just as constructive as the process of creating. That’s what’s always been detrimental to my working–I’m sometimes so fucking desperate to get something down that I’ll go into full tunnel vision and burn myself a new one. Hopefully reading will mean I won’t be so hard on myself, and that I’ll allow myself to do that rather than obliterating my sanity.
Or hang out with friends. I’d forgotten about that.
Thanks for reading!