Friday Forays in Fiction: Reading

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I'm sure that any wannabe writer serious about their craft has heard of the importance of reading to the learning of it. I sure have. And yet every once in a while I find that I have been neglecting that aspect of things. I get so caught up in the research for my stories or in the other prepwork for them or in the writing that reading other writer's stories get push aside into the crevices of my days--snatched minutes usually when I'm distracted or tired, seldom when I feel free to get lost in the story or read for the simply joy of it.

I'v been making a conscious effort the last several months to tip the balance back to giving reading for pure pleasure more of my best--energy, time, focus. In fact I've been doing so in spurts off and on the last two years and I credit Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, which I'm about to participate in again tomorrow for the fifth time since its bi-annual events began in 2007, with having given back to me the unfettered joy of reading for pleasure. Somehow, some two decades ago or so, I had given it the status of dessert--a guilty pleasure you earned by assiduous attention to the duties of the 'real' or 'healthy' or 'responsible' or...well, you get the picture.

The read-a-thon is starting in about nine hours now and I'm raring to go. I've got dozens and dozens of books lined up as possibles. I'm not fencing myself in by saying any one of them are musts nor any one I start must be finished before I start another. I'm not setting any rules for myself as to how much fiction or how much NF either. And though many of the books I happen to have out of the library right now were checked out because of some relevance to the NaNoWriMo prepwork I've been engaged in for two months now, when/if I select any of them to give time to tomorrow their relevance to my NaNo project won't be any part of the reason--the only relevant reason tomorrow is what draws me in and keeps me engaged.

For a good part of 24 hours I will be reading for joy. And that is the best thing I can give to my own stories.

But first I need to get a good sleep.....