I have one completed novel and I’m working on the sequel. I’m currently in the process of looking for either an agent or a publisher which entails a lot of waiting. I am still writing and putting words down – I should crack the 10,000 barrier in the next day or two! But, maintaining a positive frame of mind I know that once I start to get contracts signed, life will get busier and I’ll be less free to pick and choose what I do and what I work on. So at the moment, I am enjoying being a writer.
I’m currently re-reading one of my favourite books, Stephen King’s The Stand. It’s weird because I know it’s not SK’s favourite but popular with his fans. Viewing writing as a craft, I’d like to draw an analogy with carpentry. Before I started studying writing technique, I’d look at a book, like a table or cupboard. I’d know what I liked and what I didn’t – what worked and what didn’t. Then as I learnt, I’d read books, but I’d be looking at the joints, the carving. Whether the angles were true or not, how it was all put together. Even more so when I was watching TV I’d start to see the underlying structure of the plot and character development.
Now, finally I seem to have gone through that and can reread a book (like the Stand) and see how it is put together. I can enjoy reading it but now my enjoyment is deeper because I know why it is good. It’s like seeing a table or cupboard, knowing it to be useful and beautiful. But also going beyond that point to appreciating the choices the craftsman made, and why they made them. Then, wrapping all those feelings up to an overall appreciation of the work.
I’m guessing that this what is meant by reading as a writer. Not just reading to fill the time but reading to see what else is possible, what other people have done – studying the work to learn from it.
The other thing that I love is that books and reading seem to me to be as natural as breathing. But every now and again something happens to open my eyes to the fact that other people are different. I bumped into an acquaintance the other day and she saw that I had a paperback with me as I was intending to eat alone. But instead she started chatting about the Stephen King novel she was reading. So she went from an acquaintance to a friend. In this day of multiple TV channels, online streaming of films, automatic recorders and all the other temptations of the internet, reading is being marginalised. Meeting someone else who chooses to read over any other form of entertainment is meeting a kindred spirit – even more so if you share the same taste in books!
Have any of you met other readers and formed a bond like that? I get perplexed when I meet people who don’t read so it’s lovely to meet those who do! I know I have other writers who read this blog and I wondered what you think? Do you analyse books as you read them and does that make them less or more enjoyable?