Writing and Reading are Good for the Soul

"Love is easy, and I love writing. You can't resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you're in love." ~ Ray Bradbury 

I love this quote. It speaks to me on a spiritual level. I'm currently a Journalism major and I plan on spending the rest of my life writing. Hopefully about sports, but it's also been a dream of mine to publish a novel someday. I love writing. I also love reading. I find them both to be therapeutic. There's just something about writing down your feelings or a scene you imagine in your head and making them come to life. I have this problem where I write random paragraphs about random things. And I have to edit and perfect them. Then I feel like they go to waste because I never add anything else to them. They're just lonesome paragraphs on random pieces of paper, strewn about my desk. But writing is extremely therapeutic. I find that I get lost while typing and realize that hours will go by and all I've done is just write. 

The same goes for reading. If I find a really good book, and I mean a truly spectacular book, I can read it in two days tops. It's just a passion of mine. Throughout my time spent in public education i.e. kindergarten through high school, I always excelled in reading tests. I always had an above average score, which I do like to brag about because like I said, reading is a passion of mine. I can always find comfort in a book or relate to a certain character. I agonize and sympathize with them, even though Nabokov stated that one should never connect with book characters. But books are just amazing. There's so many out there, it actually depresses me that I will never read every published book. Yes I know that's nerdy, but I like books. They get me, and I get them. I can get lost in books. 

A few posts ago, I mentioned one of my favorite books, Life's That Way, by Jim Beaver. Jim is a well known actor. You may not notice his name, but I'm sure if you saw a picture of him, you'd recognize him. He was in the TV series Deadwood and has guest starred in various shows i.e. NCIS, Major Crimes, Justified, etc. But I know him as Bobby Singer from Supernatural (one of my favorite TV shows). Anyways, Life's That Way, is a memoir on his wife Cecily Adams diagnosis with cancer and the struggles and what not. I mentioned in that post that y'all should read this book. I do highly recommend it. And I don't recommend books often. Strange I know seeing as how I love books, but this one hit home. I read it right after my grandpa passed away from cancer and I found solace in reading it. I could relate to Jim's emotions and struggles. This book truly affected me in such a profound way. It's been almost 10 months since I read it, in two days nonetheless, and I still think of it often. I don't know how to describe it, but I think it says a lot about the book and author if said book stays with you. I don't really know why I'm sharing this really. It may be due to my sleep deprivation and the urge to blog, but really if you get the chance, read Life's That Way. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll hold on to those you love a lil' more tightly.  

Back to writing though. There's another quote about writing that I simply adore, mainly due to it's truthfulness. "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people," ~ Thomas Mann. I've struggled with my writing. I always thought that I was a good writer, until I took AP Lang my junior year of high school. My teacher, Mr. Turnbaugh was a tough grader. But it pushed me to try harder and go outside of my comfort zone. I worked really hard that year, and my writing improved tremendously. Fast forward to senior year when I took AP Literature. I thought Lang was hard, it has nothing on Lit. I was pushed WAY beyond my limits in that class. At the time, I hated it. My papers were always returned with a lower than expected grade and there were times where yes, I cried. At home of course because I was so stressed. But then I began to realize that Captain Oz was helping me and pushing me to succeed. And succeed I did. My writing keeps improving and I'm really proud of that. 

Currently I am in the process of writing a FanFic. For those of you who have no idea what that is, Urban Dictionary defines fan fiction as: when someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, tv show, movie, etc, and create their own story based on it. And that's a pretty accurate definition. Most people write fanfics for their own pleasure...if you catch my drift. Mine's not like that. It's based on Sons of Anarchy and inspiration I had for an actual book. I'll tell you the story of how it all came to be a fanfic. For my first year writing class, we have 10-minute free writes about random words, quotes, etc. So one day the topic was anything. So I wrote a few paragraphs and got inspired to write a novel of sorts based on them. I was actually re-watching Sons while typing away, and decided to turn it into a fanfic based on Tig. He's my favorite, even though he's messed up, those of you who watch it know what I'm talking about. But it all just came together so I've been writing it as a fanfic ever since. I'm 22 pages in, the longest of anything I have ever written, besides that 16 page paper on stem cell research junior year of high school. If I ever want to publish it, I'll have to change the names and locations, but it's always a possibility. Y'all can ask to read it, but you'll be denied. For now that is. I'll admit there are parts that are not appropriate, but you Sons fans know how inappropriate that show is. 

I really don't know why I shared this knowledge with you all. Probably because I'm tired and felt the urge to write, and maybe brag a little. But I wanted to use an example of how I get lost in writing and reading. I literally go back and read it from the beginning and get lost in the imagery and raw, physical emotion. Even while writing, I'll get lost and realize that I spent hours just typing away and editing parts of it until I think it's perfect. It's a newfound love of mine. 

This post has nothing really to do with college, so sorry if you were expecting a post on school or something of that nature. But I just wanted to talk to y'all about something not related to college. I want y'all to know the real me. That's another reason I started this blog. I want everyone to see the real me. The me at random hours of the day. The me who can ramble on about books and writing. The me who gets distracted and rambled throughout this post. The loud, lovable, (full-on) crazy me. I will be honest in my posts, and if you can't handle that, well then I'm sure there's other blogs out there that cater to your desires. Because this blog is all truth and crazy. Peace out y'all.