There’s little to report on either the “reading” or “writing” fronts this week, and that was almost enough to make me consider skipping this post entirely. But since I’m not sure I’ll be getting much more done on those fronts during the next few days either, I decided I didn’t want to do a complete disappearing act today. And so–here I am, with bullet points and a few questions.
- I finished listening to The Teacher Wars toward the end of the week, but I’m still sorting out my thoughts on it and haven’t settled into writing them yet. It wasn’t entirely what I expected, but it was almost entirely interesting.
- On a related note, my audiobook habits are making me confront my relationship with Amazon. I have not bought print books from Amazon for several years. Although I have the Kindle app on my iPad, I’ve been buying ebooks in other formats unless they’re not available any other way. On the other hand, I buy my audiobooks through an Audible membership and have no interest in changing that, despite the fact they are an Amazon company. And their new “ebook companions” arrangement, which lets you pay a reduced price if you buy both the Audible and Kindle versions of a title and keeps both synced up perfectly, is extremely helpful for reference during the review-writing process, especially with nonfiction. I’m not entirely comfortable with how much I like this. Have you tried it? What do you think of it?
- Do you think writers need to be readers? As I said in this space just about a year ago, I absolutely do, and this piece by Dana Staves at Book Riot had my head nodding:
“Because the thing is, I do believe that in order to be a writer – to grow and learn and create art – one must read. Read widely. Read whatever makes your heart sing. Learn to be a watchful reader. And in the moments when you need reading for the pure pleasure of it, seek out pleasure the way I seek out doughnuts when I’m having a bad day. (Which is to say, with unwavering determination.)
“For writers, books are the ultimate Jessica Seinfeld vegetables-in-your-brownies trick: even when we think we’re reading for fun, for escape, for pure pleasure and to hide from our own work, we’re having the fun, yes, but we’re getting the education, the practice, the instinct, too. We’re getting stronger. Half the calories and twice the fun.”
And so, do you find that if your reading is slacking, your writing does too? I feel like that’s the space I’ve been in this week.
- I’ve noticed that quite a few of my online friends have been doing these 100-day projects this year. Last weekend I ran the numbers and realized that there were just over 100 days left in 2014. That made me think it might be a good time to start one of those projects myself–after all, I’d know exactly when my 100 days would be up! I decided that mine would be a re-commitment to a project from earlier this year: I’m doing “100 Days of DayOne,” journaling in my app. Some days I write, some days I save a quote, some days I add a photo, and some days I mix it up, but I’m seven days in and haven’t missed one yet. I hope it sticks! Have you done any 100-day projects? How did it work out for you?
- I may join a 31-day project for the next month, too: Jessica at Quirky Bookworm is looking for company for 31 Days of Book Pics. If you want to play along, check out the list of daily prompts at that link.
- Links to all sorts of other things are in Becca’s mega shout-outs at I’m Lost in Books.
- As a warmup for #31bookpics, today’s Gratuitous Photo is a variation on my last Wordless Wednesday post, featuring the stacks of books in the halfway house known as my garage. I’ve either read them and decided not to keep them, or received them for review consideration and decided not to review them; in either case, they’re looking for a new home. Holler if you want to come by and pick them over!
