Amanda Frederickson's Blog: Musings - Posts Tagged "reading"

I am a book hoarder.

I still have the first book I ever bought with my own money (The Cloak of Night and Daggers) and my collection of Baby-Sitters Club and Mandie books are boxed in a closet waiting for my nieces to be old enough to read them. Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorite Disney movies because of the epic library. I love the passages in Inkheart that describe Meggie's relationship with books, because that was my childhood. Books were my security blanket.

Yesterday, I cleared three boxes worth of books off my shelves with the intention of taking them in to our local used bookstore. This is a first for me. (I don't count selling back textbooks. Actually, I kept a bunch.) I came away from it feeling unexpectedly accomplished. Most of what I cleared are books that were given to me by well intentioned friends/family who didn't actually know what I read, others are books I've picked up over the years at various bag sales or library fundraisers (Hey, you can't beat ten cents a book!), but all they've done is gather dust.

When I moved into my apartment, I realized just how heavy they all were.

Not only do I have empty spaces on my shelves now, I've realized also just how many of my books I haven't read yet, especially since I picked up tons during Borders' going out of business. My sisters and I literally hunted down every Borders within driving distance and came home with boxes full. I even came away with one of their shopping baskets. It's now a mini bookshelf.

I've decided that the lightening of my shelves deserves an old-fashioned reading binge. And then I'll use the store credit for new books. ^_^

"A catless writer is almost inconceivable." - Barbara Holland

I've missed having my own cat. I just didn't realize it was also affecting my writing.

I've been a voracious reader since I learned how (I mentioned a little of my book obsession in the last post), but in the last few years I've had trouble reading as much as I used to. I thought it was just a factor of life getting more complicated, as it always seems to do, but then life got quieter again and I still had trouble reading. I write more (better?) when I'm reading anything, but even knowing this I've had trouble just sitting still long enough to read (though I've had no trouble sitting still for making chainmail; unfortunately the two don't combine well).

Apparently a content cat in my lap does wonders for my ability to finish a book.

All through middle school and high school my cat was my reading buddy. He was perfectly happy to sit in my lap or on my legs while I devoured books.

Four years ago now, my siblings stopped calling him "fat cat" and started calling him "flat cat" because he lost so much weight. We think he might have developed the feline equivalent of diabetes. In any case, at the ripe old age of seventeen, my tuxedo baby decided to pass away. I lost my best childhood friend.

I posted a few months ago about my family's new kittens. I'm officially stealing one. His name is Pippinpaddle-Opsokopolis the Third, and he's a beautiful, lanky cream tiger. (Ok, you can call him Pippin.) He's Callie's third baby, and already proficient in the Art of Key Slaying and Candy Wrapper Chasing. The other day when I was visiting the House he decided to take a nap in my lap. Of all the kittens, he has the loudest purr.

He's so mine.

It was the first time in a long time that I finished a book (that wasn't a manga) in less than 24 hours.

By the way, on the subject of the kittens: Phineas turned out to be a girl and is already loving her new family, Ferb is a cuddly, fluffy butterball with the same coloring as Pippin (he might come home with me too if I can pull it off, but my youngest sister is begging to keep him), Callie's first baby is also already with her new family and the middle kitten is waiting to be picked up. They got so big so fast!

I can't wait until Pippin is big enough to bring home.

Well, 2013 kinda sucked. Especially toward the end with my landlord raising the rent while refusing to do maintenance, AND roping us into another month because we didn't turn in our notice during Thanksgiving (when they were closed).

It could have been worse. There was no kitchen fire and no incompetent "recovery" company that stole our stuff (2010), and I did get a lot of writing done, but no goals were actually met. It feels like most everyone around me had an overall lousy year too.

It wasn't entirely a loss though. I started this blog, I published some short stories, started a Facebook author page, and even though all three of the manuscripts I wanted to finish... aren't, all of them made significant progress and I have half drafts of Rose and Blood Queen under my belt. Rose gets to wait her turn until the other Gatewalkers are finished, but Blood Queen is still making slow progress. (Though well meaning, I think my ambitious plan to write three manuscripts at once instead of one at a time was ultimately more than I could chew. Lesson learned. One project at a time. Maybe two? Heh.) Oh, and remember that contest I mentioned waaaaaay back at the end of July? Its deadline was December 31st. I got it written, finished, revised, and submitted with time to spare. By time to spare I mean about three hours, but I wanted to give it one last go-over (and still felt crazy nervous hitting the "submit" button). HA! Take that 2013. One mission accomplished.

I did also manage, between the lovely crazy stress that ended up piled on these last two months, to learn some down and dirty tricks for writing around life, which I fully intend to apply in 2014, especially in packing/moving through January.

Oh, and I got a cat. He's an adorable monster. I seriously missed having a cat. ^_^

For 2014, one goal: read more.

You know that book you’ve been thinking about? That book you saw at the store, in the library, online, or the one languishing on your own bookshelf or ereader. The one you’ve been looking at wistfully every time it crosses your path. The one that really intrigued you, that caught your interest, but you put it back. The one you’ve been wanting to read, but there just hasn’t seemed to be enough time.

You keep thinking you'll pick it up, but maybe later. Tomorrow. Next week.

What if you died tomorrow? Wouldn’t you regret not opening those pages?

Read the book.

I think the fact that this year’s best Christmas present was a countertop dishwasher means I’m officially old.

2014 was a real roller coaster year, but it also had some amazing blessings, not the least of which is the roof over my head. This year two siblings got married, a sister engaged, another nephew born, and now there’s another nephew or niece on the way. (Yes, I have a big family.) It also ended up being the first Christmas we didn’t have at my parents’ house. Instead, Christmas morning was at my oldest brother’s house, and dinner was at mine.

Yep, first Christmas dinner at my own place. It was an experience. It also went pretty well, if I do say so myself, though the cats were a little traumatized. Nee-chan cooked the turkey and it came out amazing. We even managed to fit everyone into the library, kids and all.

At the beginning of this year, my only resolution was to read more. Looking over the couple of years I’ve been on Goodreads, this year totaled the second lowest number of books, the one lower being my first on Goodreads (which means there were books I didn’t keep track of that year). So much for reading more. I did notice, however, that the year I read the most was the year I had a functioning Kobo all year (before Nee-chan stepped on it). I’m thinking I need to scrape some pennies together to get a new one.

For writing, in August I started writing down how much I wrote each day (in estimated page numbers). November was the best month, of course, and December was the saddest, averaging .7 pages per day. For the rest of the months it was between 1.4 and 1.7 pages per day.

So. The resolution for 2015 is, first off, to get a handle on setting reasonable goals. Now that I have a bit of a baseline, for January I’m going to aim for an average of two pages flat. Not a big change, granted, but it’s something to start with.

Bring it on, 2015.

I have a new e-reader! Ok, new to me; I picked it up at 2nd and Charles. It's a Sony, a slightly older model, but I'm loving it.

I'm notorious for not getting along with touch screens (ask anyone in my family), but for once I've found one that doesn't hate me. It helps that it's not exclusively touch screen - it has navigation buttons too. The battery power on this thing is awesome. I was eyeing it for several weeks before getting it, and the battery was only at half power. It hasn't run out yet, charging only when I plug it in for transferring books. It also lets you "write" on the screen, which I may or may not have gone a little scribble happy with. (Can you tell I'm in love?)

The thing is, I haven't done as much reading on it as I thought. I've been using it more as a revision tool. It's been surprisingly effective, too. So now my workflow is looking something like this:

Scribble in notebook ->Type into Word and/or Scrivener ->Export to e-reader -> Scribble revisions/corrections in notebook with e-reader in hand ->Type -> Rinse, Repeat.

It's also been helpful in checking for formatting errors as I'm getting ready to publish another short piece. Which one?

You'll see....