Reading Changes Our View of Our Path Taken Throughout Our Life →

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I admire those that can quote favorite thoughts from favorite books, famous people, or scriptures. Even more so, I admire those that can remember most of what they have read. I find myself going back and rereading much of what I have already read, and when I do, it often feels like a whole new experience. Each reading brings something new to us.

Why would going back and re-reading bring new thoughts? This same question could be asked as to why you see things differently when you retell your life story. One answer to this question is a crucial point I used in my book: Why Life Stories Change: As you Look at your Own Life Story, You See Yourself Differently. When you re-read something or retell your life story, you see things through a lens that has added experiences to your view.

Abraham Lincoln said: “What I want to know is in books, and my best friend is the one who will get me a book I haven’t read.”

In Lincoln’s quote, he expresses his interest in finding something new to read, but he often uses the books he has already read to make his points. Throughout his life, he frequently quoted scriptures to make his point. Perhaps he felt people would be less likely to question conclusions drawn from scriptures.

Louis L ’Amour was a prolific writer of Western Novels, but his book “Education of a Wandering Man” was his autobiography. Throughout the book, he talks about his life, and we can see that he had a lifelong habit of reading everything he could, and that, indeed, was his education. He tied the events of his life to the things he was then reading, and they combined to form his memoir.

A story from L’Amour’s book told of his life as a young man jumping on a moving train and living in hobo camps, but as part of the story, he recalled books he read while traveling the rails between cities.

Shakespeare’s writings contained over 500 references to the Bible. We could ask ourselves why he chose to do that. Was it an effort to influence his follower’s feelings, and he needed the authority of the quote? Was that the real reason for Lincoln’s similar use of scripture quotes? In both cases, it may have been that both men were readers and that the things quoted were the things that defined the outlook of these men.

Harold Bloom wrote a book titled “How to Read & Why.” He addresses the meaning of this title in his prologue titled “Why Read.” His answer was clear enough. He said it was because “It Matters.” Understanding if it matters to us can be determined by comparing what we read to our lives.

In the scriptures, Luke 10-26, Jesus Christ asked a profound question: "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? This was addressed to a man seeking direction in his life. “ The man was told to go and love the Lord and his neighbors, but the answer came from reading.

Writing a book requires several steps and the one that can be the hardest is the last one

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With the recent release of my book, “Work Matters Insights and Strategies for Job Seekers in this Rapidly Changing Economy,” I have reflected on the most challenging part of writing and selling a book. I have listed items that qualify for this list.

1. Step one is pulling your thoughts and notes together. Most will find this a time-consuming step. A recent book I wrote at the time of this post was “Work Matters, Insights and Strategies for Job Seekers in this Rapidly Changing Economy,” This first step took over a year.

2. Editing, formatting, finding the right cover design, and production are challenging. Using KDP to produce the books requires learning their system. This is challenging.

3. Learning how to set up a book on Amazon so it has a chance of selling is very challenging, and it will take a long time and trial and error to figure this out.

4. Getting book reviews placed on Amazon is a very challenging process. People read the book and tell you they like it but don’t write a review.

5. Marketing the book, including all efforts to get people to buy the book, is the most important, and it isn’t easy. You can help by purchasing the book and writing a review if you have read this overview.

   A conclusion from this Overview

   The work required to market a book can far exceed all the other items listed in this overview.

Essays are often just story telling, either our own, or our characters stories. →

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No story lives unless someone wants to listen. The advantage of using our own stories or developing the stories from the stories of our characters from our life history is that we have a deep understanding of the character. The disadvantage is that we may take things for granted that could make the characters more interesting if used.

Why Life Stories Change: As You Look At Your Own Life Story, You See Yourself Differently states that who we are in the total of our life events, especially those we connect with. We choose the events that connect each time we tell our life stories. We do that by putting together the narrative of who we are in our life stories.

Fiction introduces you to people you would never meet otherwise →

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Fiction brings the reader experiences that they would have never expected to have. We step into a new reality where all our beliefs can be set aside and meet new people who can inspire or terrify us.

Will these fictional characters and experiences influence your self-identity? I think they will. Do they play a role in the narrative of how you see your life story? Again, I think they do. Does fiction have any redeeming value? Will its influence raise or lower our intelligence? There is plenty of evidence that it increases it.

You can talk to them about a broad range of subjects and new ideas, and different perspectives can be found. It sounds a lot like opening a book of fiction.

The first time I read William Faulkner’s fictional story, As I Lay Dying, it took me by surprise. I expected to enter a unique story line and learn about the people in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, during the 1920s. Yet the conversation's language, tone, and sound were a surprise. The way the characters spoke to each other was different than anything I would ever have expected, and I knew I was in a different place. The way the characters interacted and sounded contributed to letting me see life differently.

I read Lia Genova’s book, Still Alice, because I wanted to learn more about what it was like to have Alzheimer’s disease. I hoped never to experience this for myself and saw this story as a way to understand the condition further. The story did much more than I expected, as I learned, but I also felt the impact of the disease. When Alice, a linguistics expert, began to lose her words and thoughts, I felt how hard it was for her.

Einstein suggested, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

Neil Gaiman is a writer of fantasy and fiction, and in his book The View from the Cheap Seats, he wrote about attending a meeting for fiction writers in China. In previous years, China didn’t allow fairy tales and fiction in their schools, so he was surprised to learn of this invitation. He asked an official what had changed and was told, off the record, that they had toured all the big companies they did outsourcing work for in the United States and asked those they met what they read. The resounding answer was science fiction. The officials then began to understand the connection of invention with creativity. (I guess it took a random event for them to figure this out.)

Einstein also said that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist and that fairy tales are the childhood stimuli to this quality. I guess the Chinese officials didn’t read that before their trip.

There are good and bad guys in fiction, fairy tales, and horror stories. For some, the “Force” in Star Wars might represent the goodness in the universe, but what about that goodness? Will it reaffirm our beliefs while seeing our beliefs as an element of a fictional plot; does it make the fiction more believable? The bigger question is, can we really step out of our world, or are we just going always to view things through the lens of our experience?

Random events in books free me and leave me thinking I have escaped concluding outcomes from my lens of experience.

Thoughts about the "Author's Note" in a Book →

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A book’s “Author’s Note'“ shares additional information about how the author got the idea for the story or some other historical information about the story if it’s based on fact. It is an opportunity for the author to speak directly to the readers.

In Stephen King’s, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, he puts his “Author’s Note” before the Contents page right at the front of the book. The message may have been inspired by the fact that this book is a collection of short stories, which is not the norm for Stephen King, but the news is a lesson in writing worth rereading and pondering. The entire message is below.

Author’s Note

“Some of these stories have been previously published, but that doesn’t mean they were done, or even now. The work is not finished until the writer either retires or dies; it can always use another polish and a few more revisions. There are also a bunch of new ones. Something else I want you to know: how glad I am, Constant Reader, that we’re both still here. Cool, isn’t it?

The Book

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King complies with 20 short stories. The review of this book can be found by clicking the link above. I had read some of these stories before but enjoyed them again. I admit some; I wasn’t sure if I had read them until I had almost finished.

All of Stephen King’s books can teach us something about writing well if we look for them.

—SK

"You must not come lightly to the blank page" →

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Stephen King is the master craftsman of writing and tells us a lot about himself in his book, "Stephen King On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft.”

Early in the book, he offers some insightful advice to writers:

"You must not come lightly to the blank page.”  

The irony of this quote is that this book was completed after his severe accident. He was hit head-on while walking along the gravel shoulder of Maine State Road Route 5. It was his habit to walk along this same road in the country near his house. It was June 19, 1999, at about 4:30 PM, when a van coming towards him hit him; he flipped and flew through the air, landing 14 feet from the road.  

When this terrible accident happened, this book was about halfway through the first draft. He offers a lot of detail on the event and his recovery. You see that he did not indeed re-approach his writing lightly.

The process of writing is tedious and often requires coming back day after day to try to produce value. Sometimes the more you come back, the harder it gets, and you reach a point where you just bore down and try to choose your words without fear and make demands on yourself that you should have started with. It would have been better not to come lightly to the project initially.

Stephen King’s book, On Writing: a memoir of the craft, in addition to being a writing guide, is an autobiography, and the part of King’s life it tells includes an incident that he would have been required not to treat lightly, and as in much of the book, he showed us what he meant by the advice to writers that he presented.

Writing Quote

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair–the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart… but you must not come lightly to the blank page.” – Stephen King, On Writing.

Short Stories vs's Novels: Thoughts from Stephen King →

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Stephen King’s book, Bazaar of Bad Dreams, is a collection of short stories. He says in the introduction about the stories, “You’d be surprised- at least, I think you would be at how many people ask me why I still write short stories. The reason is pretty simple; writing them makes me happy because I was built to entertain.”

He refers to the short story as a more intense experience. He adds, “short stories require a kind of acrobatic skill that takes a lot of or tiresome practice.” Short stories are not forgiving. Your mistakes are just right there in your face. In a novel, you work past them.

 Stephanie Valente, in October 2018, wrote an article in Melville House * titled “Stephen King on why writing short stories is important” and said, The author argues a solid point for short fiction writing: it’s excellent practice and endurance for more extended form writing.  King feels that more writers should be working on short fiction instead of only penning novels.

*Melville House Publishing is an American independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Do Authors reflect their way of thinking and reading to their own readers? →

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Do authors reflect their way of thinking and reading? It seems apparent that they would, and for that matter, that anyone would, but is a person who calls himself an author any different?

It becomes more apparent how much influence a person’s reading can create when we learn about their reading habits and books. I can see the results from my reading and past writing and the changes that have taken place in my writing. For example, I have often been asked if I have read all of the books in our house, which is about 2000, or if I have read all of those on the shelves in the library room, which is about 1500. I may have read nearly 1000 of them and some of them several times.

The alphabetical listing of books reviewed on this blog, “Brent M.. Jones - Connected Events Matter”, is around 400. I have tried not to include political books, books on religion, and many that I had read before 1998 on this site. I thought it best not to list books that might label me too close.

So yes, I have read many books, but compared to many people, maybe not so many. Stephen King said in an article that he had about 17,000 books in his library, and I’d bet he has read many of them.

My frequency of reading each year went up in 1998 when a friend told me the best book he had read was Louis L’Amour's "Education of a Wandering Man.” Before that, I had never read any of L’Amour’s books and had looked down on Western novels.

I read that book and was surprised at how much I learned from it. It was his autobiography and told of his travels as a young man and all the books he had read during that time. Wow! He read the most profound texts, and it just really surprised me. It inspired me. From that day forward, I kept closer tabs on what I was reading and started a list. Since then, I have read and liked some of Lamour’s Western novels.

When I consider the authors I admire, I can only guess what is in their libraries and how and why their reading habits have changed.

Einstein said that if you want your kids to be smart when they grow up, read them fairy tales. Pondering that opened another door in reading for me. I had yet to read a lot of fantasy or fiction.

I have to admit I now love reading Stephen King. He scares me at times, but I keep going back.  With all of the fiction he has written, it is a little surprising that his book, "On Writing," is one of the best I have read on that subject. This book changed the way I saw his books. The writing skill of this author jumps out at you in all his books.

Can I remember what is in all of the books in that section? No, but I find that they come back just looking at them, and thinking about one, brings several others back.

Some authors are so familiar that they become labels for us. For example: Darwinian, Shakespearean, or Orwellian imply things that most understand. Harold Bloom is a literary critic that knows all the older authors very well and likely could indicate labels of influence for them all. My goal is to be able to do the same and, in that way, have them come alive and even talk to me. 

C.S. Lewis said, “The good of literature is that we want to become more than ourselves; we want to see with others’ eyes, to imagine with others’ imaginations, to feel with others’ hearts, as well as our own.”

He also said we become a thousand men and yet remain ourselves. When it happens, you will feel renewed and reinvented.

What does seem clear is that reading opens our eyes, and we see ourselves and others more clearly.

 

Thoughts on Writing in The Moment and Questions about Whose Moment →

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What does saying you are “writing in the moment” mean? Sometimes, it means that what you are writing about is something you can observe happening around you at the very moment you are writing. This makes it easier to capture details, as a slow-motion camera’s input gives focus, and the writing is actual to life and a reflection of the “here and now.”

In addition to your particular moment, you can capture a moment in time for the characters in the plot.

What is happening around you now involves many things, and a choice has to be made as to what to include and what not to include. Some events stand out in the moment; you can sense them, almost breathing them in. Then, you capture the moment by using the reasons to direct your thoughts to the details.

A life story can be a series of chosen references to past moments. As you tell or write the story, you choose the particular moments and interpret them differently than when they happened. Seldom do you hear a person tell their own life story the same way each time they mean it unless they are reading it because, in a different moment, more experiences filter the memories and conclusions?

The more life teaches us and the more experiences we have, the more we find that past events seem different when re-examined.

The conclusions we draw from past events, and in those cases where those events strongly influence our self-image, re-examining events can change parts or all of our self-image and lead to reinventing our self-image.

You can write at the moment when the subject of your story is happening, or you can reach back for specific moments, but those moments change each time you reach back for them.

Quotes

“Given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it, look at it and see it- try it on- live it - exhaust it- and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it."—Erma Bombeck.

Don’t Let Yesterday Take Up Too Much Of Today.”–Will Rogers

Four Good Books on Writing

Stephen King on Writing. George Orwell, Why I Write. Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir. Making A Literary Life, Carolyn See.

Click the books to link to the Reviews.

#StephenKing #GeorgeOrwell #Writing #Memoir #WorkMatters #theHumanTouch #EmbraceLife’sRandomness #BrentMJones