Category: reading life (Page 9 of 10)

Read while you eat

February 1, 2021 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

This weekend, I decided to stop wasting time on the internet.

I HAD been practicing “digital minimalism” very well until Covid hit, and then suddenly I felt compelled to read more news and consume more media on the internet. After all, I didn’t want to miss important, potentially life-saving information. So I fell back into old habits of reading Twitter threads, Reddit threads, and the like. All in the name of keeping up on Covid stuff (and then eventually the election).

Now that the election is over and we have a normal president again, I feel less inclined to check headlines every five minutes. However, my lunchtime scroll through Twitter is still a thing. Until today.

Today I began the first day of a new habit: Reading a book at lunch.

My lunch break is a “me-time” respite from teaching and being around other people. I am an introvert, so being around people can exhaust me. At lunchtime, my M.O. is to hang out in my classroom, eat lunch, and scroll the internet (mostly Twitter).

The problem was that scrolling Twitter wasn’t making me feel good. It wasn’t enlightening reading; instead, I felt anxious and upset (usually) due to some fresh outrage about MAGA/Qanon insanity or #CatholicTwitter in-fighting. I was only reading these threads because of FOMO (fear of missing out).

This weekend, though, I realized that I wasn’t reading enough books, wasn’t setting aside time to read more books, and wasn’t using my lunch break in a healthy way. I had fallen back into that stupid internet-addicted habit, so it was now time to make a new habit.

My new habit is this: as soon as the lunch bell rings, I close my laptop, take out my lunch, and open my book. Then I read while I eat.

Today I read a chapter in The Golem and the Jinni. It was fantastic. Best lunch break I’ve had all school year. No Twitter-induced anxiety, no dumb outrages, no mindless scrolling. I read a chapter in a book I’m enjoying, ate peacefully, and got some needed “me-time.”

I know it takes several more repetitions before something becomes a habit, but I’m excited to see this one stick. I *want* it to stick.

My lunch-time-book-time plan feels like a game-changer in my reading habits.

Dry Sponge

January 11, 2021 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

I feel like a dry sponge lately. All I want to do is soak up stuff. I want to read, read, read, and watch cool movies, and listen to tons of music. I don’t have any juice to squeeze out onto the page. My blogging has been perfunctory (but I gotta keep the streak going!). My fiction writing is non-existent at the mo’ (no time). The notebook’s doing alright, but the notebook’s always doing alright (my one constant).

Can a person take a reading holiday? Is that allowed? Can I just spend a week doing nothing but soaking up words, and images, and music?

Maybe that wouldn’t help, though. It’s kinda hard to imagine a whole week of just downtime. I’m so used to getting up when the kids get up, making them breakfast, changing the diapers, refereeing the disputes, buzzing from kitchen to living room to bedroom to bathroom to help with whatever “crisis” is at hand. I’m not sure I could handle an entire week of sitting around and reading. I’m too conditioned for controlled chaos after six and a half years of raising children.

Still. It would nice to have a *bit* more time for reading. For getting lost in an album or two. For having a film noir double-feature on a Saturday afternoon.

I need more input time. It’s a constant refrain, I know. I’m always complaining about not getting enough input. But right now, I’m a dry sponge, crumbling into brittle fibers. I need to get dunked in a bucket of input. A good soak. A trip into the imagination.

Starting a new notebook

January 3, 2021 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

My daughter watched as I began a new writer’s notebook today. She wondered if it was a new notebook because it was a new year. I told her it wasn’t; I just happened to finish my old notebook the other day, so now it was time to start a new one. I showed her my “guardian spirit” from the old notebook (I chose J.R.R. Tolkien last time, because I started the old notebook in September and therefore felt very much like an academic who’d rather be niggling around in my imaginary worlds than grading papers), so my daughter decided to make me a guardian spirit for my new notebook.

The first creation was made from recycled paper and was three-dimensional (which wouldn’t quite work on the inside cover of a spiral notebook), so she tried again and made a colorful picture from an old piece of paper towel. I decided it was perfect for reminding me to be playful and use whatever material might be lying around.

After adding the guardian spirit, I copied over my list of “Books to Read” from the previous notebook into the new one. This is a ritual I always do when starting a new writer’s notebook. My list of books to read is LONG, so it takes at least four pages to fit all the books, plus I leave extra room for new books that I’ll add as the weeks go by. I used to use Goodreads to keep track of my books, but when I said goodbye to social media, I also said goodbye to Goodreads.

Honestly, Goodreads made me anxious. I didn’t like people knowing about my reading habits; it made everything seem very performative, as if I had to play a part (“self-published fantasy author”) instead of just being myself. Not that I read weird books or anything; I have nothing to hide, LOL! But it was just stressful having my books-to-read and my currently-reading books all out in the open. I felt pressure to add books to my lists so I could been seen to have all the same books as everybody else.

(A lot of this was tied to my work as a self-published author. Goodreads was a marketing tool as much as it was a personal one, so all my interactions on the site felt driven by that marketing aspect. I felt compelled to keep up with the latest self-published books as a way to show my support for the community. I’m not opposed to supporting other authors — not by any means! — but my books-to-read list became more about that than about what I really wanted to read.)

Even more stressful was getting updates on other people’s reading progress. I have a bad problem with envy and jealousy, so I would get super envious when I saw other people reading more books than me, or when I saw other self-published authors getting all kinds of good reviews. It was not a healthy way to spend my time, and it wasn’t making me feel good about my reading (or my writing).

When I decided to keep track of my books using my notebook — and keep it private — everything changed. I started reading whatever the heck I wanted, and I let myself go down strange reading paths that had nothing to do with my public persona as a fantasy author. I’ve been much more prolific as a reader since I’ve stopped doing the Goodreads challenge thingy: I don’t set any goals for myself, I just try to read as much as I can. No longer is that little bar graph thing on Goodreads taunting me and reminding me that I’m behind on my goal. Now I can just read and see what happens, and be excited by all the reading I’ve done. After I finish a book, I mark it as “Read” and write the date I finished. It’s my big, beautiful, analog reading list, and I love it.

For the record, I’m not opposed to others using Goodreads or the reading challenge. My husband still uses Goodreads like a boss, and it’s a useful tool for him. I just know that it didn’t work for me.

So now every time I start a new writer’s notebook, I get to use the first few pages for my book list, and it’s a nice little ritual: I write “Welcome to the notebook” and the current month and year on the first page, then I start my “Books to Read” list on the second page. Four or five pages later, I have all these book titles calling out to me, and whenever I’m ready to start a new book, I go to my list and see what stands out. The notebook is no longer blank; it starts off newly-christened with a gloriously long list, and I feel as if I’ve accomplished something (even though all I’ve really accomplished is copying a list).

A new year, a new notebook. I’m ready for 2021.

Further Thoughts on Middle-Earth

January 2, 2021 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

Poul Dohle illustrates Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

I have been thinking about why I love Middle-Earth so much. I know that lots of Tolkien fans have argued that Middle-Earth feels more real than any other secondary world, that it has such depth and detail and history, and that Tolkien wrote about it with so much love for the landscape and languages that it all feels as if Middle-Earth really IS our world, but eons ago, beyond the mists of our own knowledge. I would agree that Tolkien created a hyper-detailed sub-world, and that the history and legends and descriptions are so vivid that Middle-Earth feels REAL.

But is that all? Is this the only thing that makes me love Middle-Earth?

I’m not sure “world-building” is the only thing that elevates Middle-Earth above all other fantasy realms for me. If it were just “world-building,” then Westeros and Essos (from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series) would be just as enticing. I’m sure for some people, Martin’s world IS more enticing. But not for me. The intricacies of Middle-Earth’s history, or its landscape, or the depth of its lore aren’t what make me love it. Otherwise, Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere would be at the top of my list. Sanderson’s created world is arguably more intricate, more detailed than is Middle-Earth. But the Cosmere does not cast the same spell over me.

Tolkien, of course, often writes in a “high style” that feels archaic and shrouded in the long-forgotten mists of time. Is it this tone, perhaps, that makes Middle-Earth weave its spell upon me? I do indeed think that Tolkien’s tone and style are part of the equation.

But I also think it’s more than tone. It’s the particulars of his myth-making: the Trees of Valinor, the Silmarils, the Ents and Balrogs, the Dwarves and dragons and barrow-wights, the Elves, the hidden kingdoms like Gondolin; it’s Gollum and the Nazgul. All of these things — the essence of these imagined things — are what draw me into the world. The simple things too, like the light of the stars or the flowers of Lorien. All of them stir my heart deeply. I do think they beckon to some yearning in my imagination, a desire for the real world to become somehow deeper and more wondrous, to resemble the wonders of Middle-Earth…

Tolkien gets at this idea in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” when he explains that fairy-stories (and all fantasy) help us with “recovery”:

Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining — regaining of a clear view.

This regaining allows us to see the natural, physical world with fresh eyes. Things like rocks and leaves and flowers are renewed in our imagination because fantasy stories have helped us recover this “clear view” of them:

Fantasy is made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material, and has a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone and wood which only the art of making can give. By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed; by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the Trees of the Sun and Moon root and rock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory.

This is why Middle-Earth works so strongly on my own imagination. It recovers for me that clear view of the world, of nature, and even of abstract things like goodness, evil, courage, honor, envy, friendship, longing, love. As Tolkien puts it, the particulars of Middle-Earth — the Silmarils, the Ents, the Elves, the Misty Mountains, the Shire — all of it helps renew in me a love for stars, and trees, and songs, and mountains, and green hills and summertime. I return to Middle-Earth again and again, loving it more and more each time, because it helps me regain something I’m always on the verge of losing: my wonder and joy for our world, for the world of God’s creation. Tolkien helps me recover this wonder and joy; his Middle-Earth is “made out of the Primary World,” and in being so made, manifests the real world’s glory.

That is why I love Middle-Earth so much.

Input Update 12/28/2020

December 28, 2020 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

Reading: Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Reading: Atomic Habits by James Clear (This one was a Christmas present.)

Reading: The Golem and Jinni by Helene Wecker

Listening to: Alice Coltrane, Reflection on Creation and Space (A Five Year View)

Listening to: Brian Eno, Thursday Afternoon

Drinking: Diet Pepsi (and too much caffeine)

Thinking about: My dream of working from home.

Today gave me a little foretaste of it. My husband watched the kids from about 11:30 to 4:00, with an hour-long lunch break in between (where I made the boys their sandwiches and cut up fruit), and I spent those three-and-a-half hours editing, listening to ambient music by Brian Eno, and drinking tea. I never felt overwhelmed by my work or unqualified or anxious or anything. I knew what to do, I knew I was good at what I was doing, and I knew that I could solve problems if I needed to. I was enjoying my work.

It was a much better feeling than the one I have when I’m teaching. When I’m teaching, I’m always second-guessing myself. I’m constantly anxious that I’m not doing a good job. I have a wicked case of imposter syndrome with teaching, and that leads to tons of stress and sadness. In theory, I *like* being a teacher. I like sharing my ideas about the world, about literature, writing, art, rhetoric. I like helping students discover their own ideas about these things. I like mentoring others, especially in their writing. But in actual practice, I find teaching — in schools, in the way we’ve structured secondary education — to be burdensome. I feel like it’s not the best environment for my talents. Managing and instructing lots of students all at the same time is an ill fit for me. I’m much better as a one-on-one teacher, or someone who works with small groups.

That’s why editing feels so natural and enlivening. It’s a lot like teaching — but it’s one-on-one, and it gives me space to really use my knowledge of language, grammar, and craft in a way that’s useful. I’m not a master of the writing craft (far from it!), but I have something to offer other writers, not least of which is my attention to detail. It’s always nice to have another pair of eyes catch typos, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies. I don’t feel like an imposter when I’m editing someone’s manuscript.

But with classroom teaching, I can’t spend my time just sharing my knowledge or mentoring students to improve their writing. Oh no. There’s the curriculum and the units and the lesson plans and the standards and all the stuff that has to be covered or else the students won’t do well on the SAT or AP exam or whatever. I’m much more of a “teaching is an art not a science” kinda person, but most secondary and elementary school administrators these days are convinced “teaching is a science,” and if we just have enough data and enough standards and benchmarks and evidence of growth, then we’re doing alright and kids are learning.

But this approach doesn’t gel with my instincts and personality as a teacher. I’m not particularly interested in benchmarks or even a curriculum. I’m interested in my students and their needs, and I know what knowledge and skills I can share with them, but for education to really happen, I need to be flexible and meet my students where they are, not where the curriculum says they need to be. I once told a colleague that my approach to teaching shares a lot in common with jazz. It’s improvisational. There’s a starting melody, a core theme, but around that theme, we might go off in various and digressive directions. I don’t like being wedded to “learning goals” or whatever because that doesn’t account for “X-quantities.”

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of saying that being an editor feels more like being an “educator” than my current job as a teacher does. Most likely, my failures as a classroom teacher are my own fault, but whatever the reasons may be, I know that I’m starting to feel much more comfortable in the editor’s chair. I liked working from home today. I liked reading a manuscript and writing down my notes and suggestions. I liked thinking of ways to help the writer’s prose sound clearer, more vivid, punchier. And I liked being able to do it all from home.