The Reading Fast

/3 Comments/in , /by

The Artist’s Way, week four, asks us to give up reading. Julia Cameron promises, “If you feel stuck in your life or in your art, few jump starts are more effective than a week of reading deprivation.” Down the page a bit, I highlighted this passage (yes, we’re still allowed to read The Artist’s Way):

“Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool–and a very frightening one. Even thinking about it can bring up enormous rage. For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” (87)

I’ve done this before, of course, and I knew it was coming. In the abstract, it didn’t sound like that big of a deal. A week! Hah! I can do anything for one week!

And I know that I’m a reading addict. I know that giving up reading has been a powerful experience for me in the past. (Remember the Responsible Living workshop, to which I lugged not one but TWO BAGS of books, only to discover that I wasn’t going to be allowed to read for 3 days? Not even at night before falling asleep! And how powerful was that?)

So why all this reluctance?

I bargained for an extra day, thinking I could finish the Maisie Dobbs mystery at least (then I read 80 pages of an Alice McDermott novel instead; and a chapter from my new Rebecca Solnit collection, a Christmas gift, after all). I bargained with myself about whether or not I could read emails and blogs (emails, okay provisionally, but not blogs, I decided). Could I read my new issue of The Sun? (No.)

Next Tuesday morning, it will all be waiting for me. The last 44 pages of the Maisie Dobbs mystery will still be there and the story will roll on.

Meanwhile, I’m going to spend a little time working on poetry. I’m going to do some decluttering. I’m going to do a jig-saw puzzle.

I’m going to try–over the Christmas holiday–to be present with not only my family but also with my own thoughts and feelings.

Scary.

Happy Valentine’s Day

/0 Comments/in , /by

Apparently there is something afoot on the web, or in the TwitterVerse, called #READWOMEN2014 (look up the Huffington Post article for more information). The idea made its way to me via Kathleen Kirk’s excellent blog, Wait! I Have a Blog?

So, for you, for Valentine’s Day, 14 novels by women, recommended by moi. These are all books I have read, reread, and/or plan to read again. They are not all contemporary novels, though I tried to stick to at least the 20th century. I could have listed LOTS more, and I decided to limit myself to one title per author. That was hard, too.

1. Paradise, Toni Morrison
2. Olive Kitteridge  Elizabeth Strout
3. The Beginning of Spring,  Penelope Fitzgerald
4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,  Rachel Joyce
5. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,  Helen Simonson
6. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,  Anne Tyler
7. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
8. Winter Wheat, Mildred Walker
9. The Moonflower Vine, Jetta Carleton
10. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, Rumor Godden
11. The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty (I’ll have to save Grace Paley for my list of favorite short-fiction writers)
12. The Outlander, Gil Adamson
13. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
14. The Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean

Currently I am reading Elizabeth’s George’s Just One Evil Act. Next up, Cuckoo’s Calling, which (despite the “Robert Galbraith” on the cover) is written by J. K. Rowling. Then, Have His Carcase, which I have read before (by the way), by Dorothy L. Sayers. I am on a mystery binge. 

Now, back to writing. Happy VD!

Don’t Shoot the Dog

/0 Comments/in , /by

As part of my homework for our class project, I have been rereading a book a friend recommended to me when my twins were toddlers. It is Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, and a great teaching manual to have on hand whether you are working with dogs, dolphins, or college students. No, I can’t claim to be much of a trainer, but the message I’ve absorbed from multiple readings is that it isn’t really the animal’s behavior (or the child’s) that you have control over, it’s your own. This book is filled with good humored anecdotes — from her cat’s perspective, Pryor tells us, “she is training me; she has found a way to get me to ‘Come'” — and offer food, besides.

Pryor saved my life when my children were small by showing me that catching them doing something right was a key to the entire process. Okay, so they don’t clean their rooms, and at least two of them are still the slowest girls in the entire world. But they have great hearts, and they care about their parents and each other. That’s a lot.

Here’s an eye-opening passage:

“One of the most useful practical applications of reinforcement is reinforcing yourself. This is something we often neglect to do, partly because it doesn’t occur to us, and partly because we tend to demand a lot more of ourselves than we would of others. …As a result we often go for days at a time without letup, going from task to task to task unnoticed and unthanked even by ourselves. Quite aside from reinforcing oneself for some habit change or new skill, a certain amount of reinforcement is desirable just for surviving daily life; deprivation of reinforcement is one factor, I think, in states of anxiety and depression.”
–Karen Pryor

Writing every day is a big commitment, and achievement.

Oh, and rewards! Having written this blogpost, I now deserve a latte and a few minutes sitting outside in the sunshine. I’ll take Don’t Shoot the Dog with me and read a few pages.