I’m not sure how it happened. It was subtle, sneaky. I was reading classical fiction and books about writing for my self-imposed Writing School. East of Eden, Catcher In the Rye, The Writing Life, the reading plan was going so smoothly. Then a book suggestion here and a trip to a used bookstore there, an interest in a book Tony had bought here and an interest in a book my dad was reading there, a book suggestion by a friend here and a book suggestion by an author there. Before I knew it I was down a totally different path then I first intended. The funniest thing? I’m okay with that.
I think reading rabbit trails are quite fun. It’s like a treasure hunt when one book leads you to another book. Just the other night my friend Alison was talking about how she’d quite by accident landed into a new genre of books altogether, called Steampunk, and now she’s off and running reading those. It’s delightful how that happens.
My main purpose with writing school is that I be reading and writing daily. It’s those daily practices that matter. It’s a luxury to do school on my own because I can fluctuate between what I’m reading and what I’m writing.
When you know what you’re wanting out of your reading, you will usually find that theme showing up in everything you select and if you’re really paying attention, one trail will lead you right onto the very trail you need next.
Feel free to share some of your own trails. I’d love to hear them and maybe jump down a few of them myself.
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Mandy, It’s the only way to read! I’ve been doing it a long time and I remember loving an english class in high school where the teacher gave us a paper with a huge list of books categorized by timeframes (the greeks and romans were one timeframe) up to the present day. We were to choose one book from each of the ten timeframes during the year and write a paper on it. It was OK if we had a book not on the list too, but we had to run it by him (probably to make sure it was actually literature!) What I ended up with was mostly women authors and plays, which at the time pointed down two paths my life was starting to take. It’s great how literature can reflect who you are about to become. This teacher understood how important it is to choose your own reading material so you can see who you are and I will always be grateful for that.
It’s good to hear from you! This line is powerful: “It’s great how literature can reflect who you are about to become.” It’s like a book is opening up a world for you to step into. Thanks for the insight.