Tricked!

My parents tricked me.

They did.

I am a lifelong reader, a lover of words. I don't like books on a laptop screen, or anything other than a BOOK. I love to crack the spine, to CURL up with it. I love everything about it. You all know I don't read fiction, but read memoirs and physics . . . and math biographies, in particular. I am STILL waiting for my dear pal, Stephen Parrish to post the story of his attending a Paul Erdos lecture (Erdos being my favorite mathematician). But anyway, I love books.

How did I get to be such a book lover? Trickery.

My parents used to set a ridiculously early bedtime. I mean, it was still light out. In summer, I could HEAR everyone still playing. But I had bedtime.

EXCEPT . . . "IF you want to read."

If I wanted to read, I could stay up a whole hour later. And considering my parents were so happy I was reading, I also knew I could cajole, "Just one more chapter" out of them and extend it longer. Considering I could NEVER fall asleep when it was still light out, I read every night. Trickery. Because that, obviously, was their evil Machiavellian plan all along.

But there was worse trickery in our house.

Like the books I got to read. I read every, single Nancy Drew ever. But my father was convinced I could read WAY above my grade. So, with a great deal of pomp and circumstance, I received this book in 3rd grade. I recently picked it up again . . . it's HARD. But I managed to get through it. This started a reading list, before age 9, of Pride and Prejudice, an unabridged Sherlock Holmes, A Tale of Two Cities, Robinson Crusoe, and dozens of others. What was especially clever? Making it seem like a big damn deal that I was "smart enough to handle" reading such lofty books.

Trickery.

And finally? I had to read an entire newspaper. Every day. And by 3rd grade, I was told I could read this paper if I wanted to, for fun. But I HAD to read this one. Including the magazine on Sunday.

My parents didn't "edit" the newspaper. There was nothing I couldn't read. Why can I discuss politics and policy? Why do I know a great deal about the world at large? Part of it was that paper growing up. I can't say I loved reading it. It was huge and unwieldy. The ink got on my fingertips. "But that's part of its charm" my dad said, and taught me how NYC commuters properly folded the paper in fours so they could read it on the train.

I was tricked. Simply put. I was tricked into being educated, into being a reader. I was told that reading meant the ENTIRE world was yours. Nothing--no part of education or intelligence could be held back from you if you could read.

Shortly thereafter, they began to encourage me to write. Because the pen is mightier than the sword, I was told. If you can write, my father said, you can do anything.

More trickery.

How about you? Did anyone in your life encourage you to be a reader? A writer?

Writing Changes Everything

Once again this weekend, I got a SPAM-type ad for a new book. The cover was hideous, in my humble opinion, with people who looked rather like avators designed by someone with a sick view of anatomy, and the premise left me cold . . . but still, in the world of books, I will often click on ads just to see who's out there, who's writing what, to look for trends, to I hope have a sense of wonder about something another writer dreamed up, as I did when I read this book.

Truly, I look to be awed by the creativity of others.

Once again, it was a self-pubbed book. And just maybe to prove myself wrong, I clicked on "read an excerpt." Once again, I wanted to scream.

I get that we all read different types of books. What I enjoy isn't what the next person enjoys. Considering THIS is my bedside reading (and it's an AWESOME book, folks), I know I don't read what most people read. But the thing is . . . we can ALL agree that a book needs proper editing. That it not be riddled with mistakes the average copyeditor would pick up inside of five minutes. That is not be so full of cliche that the average high school junior in a creative writing class would give it a D.

There's something to be said--good and bad, I suppose--for thinking outside the box when it comes to publishing. Yes, many great writers languish unpublished and unagented. But many, many more aren't ready and take shortcuts that a professional would just cringe at.

But even more, I suppose, is what it says about me as a reader. Because I am a writer, it changes everything. There are some mainstream-published, commercial fiction writers I used to read that I simply can't anymore. I start many, many more books than I finish. Knowing how to craft a sentence or a plot changes how I read. Maybe others don't see what I see. But I do and it changes my reading habits.

Has writing changed your reading habits? And what are your thoughts on the self-pubbed route?