Reading Log: 6/2020
Well, Covid-19 has affected many parts of the civilized world and forced changes to the way many of us live our lives and interact with one another. You might be asking what does that have to do with reading? Well, for me, quite lot actually. You see, where Corona virus has affect many people’s lives and social interactions, for me, it has greatly affected my reading life and the ways in which I read.
No (Physical) Library Spring/Summer 2020
Obviously, I’m a huge proponent of libraries in general, and my own in particular, having worked as a Library Assistant for 17 years and being an Language Arts Teacher (maintaining my own classroom library) for 3 years, including purchasing books with my own (limited) funds. Obviously, due to the pandemic, my local library has been closed (rightly so) to help prevent the spread of the virus. However, this has had the knock-on effect of curtailing my intention of renting more books from the library and purchasing less. I’d planned to get back to my monthly visits of the library as well, but alas, this won’t happen for a while.
Reading Took a Hit
Add to that the fact that I’ve been rereading books on my shelf and I hit Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings at that time. Now, I love Tolkien’s work, but it is dense. His writing style is not something that is made for light reading to escape–which is what I wanted right at the pandemic’s height. It took me a while of procrastinating, but I finally had to put this particular book aside and start on another one in order to get back into the reading life.
All that to say that my reading life, which you would think would have increased with the pandemic, actually was affected by it because the book I’d queued up to read wasn’t the one best suited for the time.
Mage: The Hero Discovered (Volume 3)
About the only (non-school) related book that I got through since the last reading log was the 3rd volume in the Mage: The Hero Discovered trilogy by Matt Wagner. This is probably my least favorite of the trilogy because 1) there’s quite a bit more dialogue in which the protagonist is having his “origin” explained to him rather than us seeing it organically, and 2) the protagonist goes from stubborn to obstinate, which requires the dialogue to get him to “move on.” Basically, it is the exposition of the story, just shifted to the end rather than coming at the beginning. A good story, but one that is dialogue heavy.
Lone Wolf & Choose Your Own Adventure
The only other things that I’ve gone through was to skim through all my old Lone Wolf books by Joe Deaver and Gary Chalk, and later with Ian Page and Joe Deaver, and other Choose Your Own Adventure books that I own. If I’m honest, I was mostly skimming them, looking for inspiration for new short stories, but I had so many that I have already on my “backlog” to get to that it seemed foolish to look for more. I may revisit this activity next summer if my well of stories begins to run dry, but right now, I have enough to work on for the next year or so (and that’s not even counting school-related writing), so I think for now, I’ll just make sure they’re reflected in my online catalogs (Goodreads & LibraryThing) and place them back on my bookshelf.
Well, that’s all I have for today–have a great weekend everyone!
Sidney
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Currently Working On (6/2020):
The Independent (Sci-Fi Short-Story)–
Finished: Revision 1“Project Arizona” (Weird Western Story)
Drafting: First DraftShip of Shadows Graphic Novel
Finished: Script, Issue #1
Next: Script, Issue #2“Project Wall” (Science Fiction Story)
Finished: Rough Draft
