Reading for Writing

I've become a person who avoids reading books like reading is housework or jogging. I bought a Kindle thinking that maybe the weight of books in my tired hands was the issue, but all I do on the Kindle is crosswords and Solitaire. Then Wendy pre-ordered Theft by Finding, by David Sedaris, his diaries from 1977-2002. It's a hardback and somehow she wound up with two copies, so one of them sat on my nightstand like a 2-inch coaster for a while. Then one day I opened it and started reading and it felt like coming up for air after nearly drowning.

On July 19 I started writing again after not writing since July 2016. All my excuses are boring. Last winter I began transcribing my journals. I put them in chronological order on a bookshelf next to my bed and began typing from the first, dated 1989. I was so embarrassingly pedantic and boring - was I trying to sound like D.H. Lawrence? I hoped the two-and-a-half people I'd bragged to about this project would forget and then I set it aside.

Recently, Wendy brought it up, and I'm pretty sure I blushed when I reported the whole D.H. Lawrence, god I was such a phony thing. She said I could look at it as an opportunity to see how much I've grown. But what if I haven't grown?

Meanwhile I'll keep reading David Sedaris and making daily diary entries. Maybe if I call it a diary I'll sound less tragic and melodramatic. I'm studying his style and I think it's keeping me from using too many big words and adjectives. Adjectives and adverbs can be deadly to decent writing, I'm pretty sure about that.

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