January is the armpit of winter. I feel January's only redeeming quality is making it easy to count how many days into the new year we are. New Year's Day is nice but it is over in the blink of an eye and usually half the day is spent nursing a sore head from the night before. The rest of the month drags by, storm after storm, until February approaches and the first scents of spring being to flutter by. It is days like these when I understand the desire to live in the south or on the west coast. Then I realize during the summer people are burning alive in Phoenix or Texas and I snap back to reality and my precious four seasons.
But January is not a total loss! There is plenty of opportunity to rummage through old boxes and bins and get rid of stuff that has accumulated over the years. I've also found it is a good time to plan that vacation you've been meaning to take, or to catch up on a novel you put down on the bed stand and left there for dead. Walden has been on my bed stand for a half year, bookmarked about thirty pages in. Sorry H.D.T. but I have too many science fiction anthologies to keep me up at night right now. In fact, Walden made it all the way back to my bookshelf last week. I was tired of seeing it next to my bed. It's a very rare occasion when I give up on a book. I do intend to read it someday but I just can't seem to get into it right now...maybe when I'm older and ready to follow my own damn advice.
I think the old adage that reading helps you as a writer is true. As I'm slowly developing my passion for storytelling I have come to learn that the opposite is true too. As a writer I enjoy reading even more now. This surprises me because I've always been a voracious reader and have always loved to pick up a new book. But that excitement is even greater nowadays. I guess it really shouldn't surprise me though, I can't think of any musician who doesn't love to listen to music.
As a kid I would stay up until three or four in the morning reading Goosebumps, then Star Wars novels, then anything I could get my hands on. I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy (which is primarily what I write), but at times I have abandoned those genres for months at a time. I enjoy the long breaks and I get a chance to catch up on the classics and history or whatever else grabs my attention. I even enjoy biographies and non-fiction as my interests ebb and flow during the year.
But now when I read I'm also thinking about how the authors constructed their stories. I enjoy reading Harry Potter over and over again and identifying the little nuggets of information that Rowling left for you to discover and think about. For instance, in The Philosopher's Stone Harry reads the back of Dumbledore's chocolate frog card on his way to Hogwarts. Do you remember what it says? The card makes an almost nonchalant reference to Grindelwald, the dark wizard Dumbledore defeated in his youth and who ends up playing an important role in the very last book The Deathly Hallows. That took planning. It is those little juicy tidbits like that which keep me up at night as both a reader and writer. The master storytellers out there are inspiring and it makes reading even the smallest of stories that much more interesting to me. The point being: if you like to write, you have to read, read, read.
To me, staying up late and reading, engrossed in some far away world or teetering on the edge of history, is a great joy in life. I find it comforting to wake up suddenly, my book haphazardly laying across my chest, only to realize I've been passed out for hours. Usually I don't remember falling asleep (who does anyway) and inevitably I will need to search for my bookmark in the morning. It will usually be tucked into the sheets somewhere or hiding under the cat.
I'm not sure where all of this is going...just some random thoughts in the middle of winter. But if you are stuck in the dog days of January you should pick up a good book and let the month slip on by. Soon we'll all be in spring's warm embrace. Except Canada...ha!
