Reading

My love for writing comes from a deeper love of reading.

Some of my earliest reading memories include my father reading to my sister and me from books from the The Weekly Reader Children's Book Club that came regularly to our house, the thrill of bringing home a book I could read by myself from the St. Bernard School library, and falling asleep in the middle of Josephine Scribner Bates' The Story of the Live Dolls, one of my favorites that I insisted a babysitter read to me.

I read cereal boxes when I ate breakfast. I spent many hours stretched across the house reading, and I took books to bed with me. My kids grew up doing the same.

In fact, when my teens went through an especially rebellious period, their stepfather grounded them to their rooms, which they did not mind because they could read. So the next time, he grounded them from the library. Oh, the outcry!

Reading for pleasure dropped off a bit in college (although not completely) due to all the reading I did for assignments, especially since I was enrolled in an accelerated program.

But it picked back up when I was expecting my first child, continued through my two decades of homeschooling, and never dropped off again (although, again, not completely) until I began my first novel over ten years ago.

Now that the intense phase of writing the BryonySeries is done (the timing couldn't be better as I've entered a more intense phase at work), I can concentrate on less immersive writing projects (such as the two spin-off children's series) and again sink into reading.

This past Saturday, and eventually this weekend, was extremely busy with work, the monthly Gothic Book Club, and a few unexpected life things.

None of this was true Saturday morning, when I soaked up silence and serenity with dark roast coffee and a good book. Everyone except Timothy had left for work, who was also in his own room reading.

I don't understand literacy or other such programs designed to foster love of reading or encourage people to read. On the other hand, people who love, say golf or baseball, probably don't understand my "meh" attitude to both.

Reading is, and forever will be, one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I approach my writing more as a reader and less as a writer. Getting lose in a story as a writer is the same as getting lost in a story as a reader. I write so others can enjoy the stories, but so that I, as a reader, can also enjoy the stories.

It's a blessing I write for a living, and I have stories clamoring to be written. Otherwise, I could easily never write again in favor of the easier benefits of luxuriating in someone else's words.

This post probably makes no sense at all.

Unless you're a reader or a writer.

Readings

I don't understand when some people say they don't like reading.

I understand the words. I don't understand the concept.

The pleasure of reading is so woven into my life, I can't imagine life without it.

My father used to read to my sister and I when we were very little, and we sat on each side of him on the living room couch. I remember asking babysitters to read to us at night and falling asleep to one such reading, The Story of the Live Dolls by Josephine Scribner Gates, and waking up to the words of it still being read, truly magical.

I remember the joy at bringing home a book from the school library (St. Bernard's in Joliet, a building that is no longer standing), getting off the bus, hurrying down the long sidewalk of Belmont Avenue to show my mother. But she was in the neighbor's driveway talking to Mrs. Madden, and I had to wait. I remember my impatience, of holding the book, eager to share.

I later overheard my mother telling my father as they lingered at the dinner table how impressed my sister's kindergarten teacher was that I'd taught her to read. I don't remember teaching her how to read. But I remember reading books to her that I liked, even chapter books until she was old enough to read them herself. One of those books was Hotel for Dogs by Lois Duncan. My sister now has one room dedicated to books in her house. She majored in English,  worked in bookstores, and she's now a librarian. 

I read myself to sleep at night.

I had severe asthma as a child so I stayed inside and read. This included books from my mother's childhood (The Bobbsey Twins, The Campfire Girls, Honey Bunch, Little Women, An Old-Fashioned Girl).

I wrote short stories as a child and my first (and only) novella at age thirteen, one hundreds and forty-three pages of a handwritten story in a notebook. It was called The Inheritance. It was about a preteen girl living with abusive rich relatives who's taken away by a poor woman to live in the mountains. She's allowed to leave on the condition it doesn't affect the rich people from gaining a certain inheritance. Turns out, she's the inheritance, the real treasure, that the rich people let slip past them.

Pretty sophisticated story for a kid, now that I look back.  I had mentally worked on the story for at least a year, maybe two. When I was done, I left it "accidentally" lying around so family members might get curious and pick it up. My mother did. She verbally destroyed the story, and I physically destroyed it. And I never wrote another.

In early high school, I read a lot of books about witchcraft and vampires as research for a story I wanted to write. I didn't even have a topic, but I knew I wanted to write one in this genre.

Except for bedtime reading, other "fun" reading fell off in late high school and college. But as a young mom expecting her first baby at age twenty, I read scores of books about pregnancy, breastfeeding, and parenting.

In January of 1985, while lying on the couch reading from a book of vintage short vampire stories and trying to appease the severe "morning sickness" that accompanied each pregnancy, the urge to write a vampire book of my own returned. By the time my baby and toddler awakened from their naps, I had a mental skeleton of a story I wished to write.

I read to my babies and toddlers. I read to my children all through high school. When we homeschooled, we read literature together. I read whole books to them, a chapter at time, over lunch. We studied Bible, the saints, and theology over dinner. We read from their "reading" books together, lying down on the floor, alternating paragraphs, so I could hear my children's inflection and comprehension, and so they could understand how reading was supposed to "sound," and so we could enjoy the experience together. We'd even flip ahead to see who was "stuck" with an extra long paragraph. I hand-selected their science and history books so the content, as well as the reading experience, would be superb.

Those were great years, steeped in reading. And I still fall asleep reading.

Next year, I'm going to split my Saturdays, part writing fiction and part reading the books of WriteOn Joliet authors, as well as other titles I've been wanting to explore. I will probably read some of my own titles since my whole first goal in writing a book was to see if I could write one I'd want to read.

 When I wrote Bryony, I had no idea the story would take me on such an adventure; when I began Before the Blood, I had no idea of the complexity (and time suck, if you will) of writing a prequel to my vampire/supernatural/literary series. But now, I'm ready to return to more reading.

The best place to read is lying across a bed or couch. In fact, when I wrote Bryony, and I'd edited it the best I could on my own (first time, anyway), I printed it out, three-hole punched it into a binder, and spent a day on the couch reading it, to see if it held its own.

It did better than I thought. But I knew it wasn't perfect. That was the first time I'd read a book making marks with a red pen. But I'm glad I did.

Next year brings a new reading season. I'm excited!