Sometimes It's Your Job To Be The Bad Example

Lately I have found myself reading things that I do not enjoy.

I'm not a masochist, I didn't buy/borrow/check out the book because I expected to hate it. I might have heard good things. Or I might have been doing research. Or it might have simply struck my fancy. But then I start reading it and it's terrible. Or at least does things terribly.

This is when normal humans would stop reading. But I can't. I can't because I'm a writer.

Netflix Set Me Free

This finishing things that I'm not enjoying is a really foreign concept to me these days. Once upon a time, it was typical. Take movies. I had to drive somewhere to spend six bucks on a movie. I don't care if it's the worst thing I've ever seen, I am finishing that sucka.

Then Netflix came along. They were going to send movies to my mailbox,man! If I watched enough movies, then they basically cost me pennies apiece! If watched something that was crap, I stopped it, boxed it up, and mailed it back hoping to get lucky on the next pull of the movie lottery I made for myself.

Then streaming happened. Holy cats, I did't even have to wait on the US Postal Service.

I'd always been a bit like this with books, anyway. But Netflix reprogrammed my brain to consider my entertainment time to be a premium. Add kids to the mix, and entertainment time actually does become a premium.

But now I finish the books that I don't like. They just take me twice as long.

Being A Writer Is Like Giving Yourself Homework Every Night for the Rest of Your Life

I've seen the above quote often, and it's really true. I expect this to be true to some extent even after I'm being paid to write for eight hours a day. After all, I can't stop thinking, now can I?

But this thing with reading books you aren't enjoying is even worse.

I mean, look, if the book is just terrible then I can stop reading it. If it's amateur mistakes I don't make anymore, then I don't need to be reminded of them like this. But lately it seems like I'm finding things that would be good if only they'd stop doing this one stupid thing or get to the damn point faster. Or they're doing something similar to my own idea but in such a way that it ruins the idea (at least in my estimation) and I want to make sure I don't blunder into those mistakes.

My One Ray of Hope

I guess as I get continually better as a writer then more and more of those mistakes will be obvious to me. Which means if the book sucks in those particular ways then I can stop reading it.

I think I may have traded homework I really hate for homework that I enjoy doing...more or less. This might inspire me to write more words than anything else ever.