I want to read more. One of my goals this year is to read at least one book a month. That book for January was supposed to be Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. But look at January, it just went and flew by. In three days it\u2019s going to be February and I don\u2019t so much as have a copy of Song of Solomon in my possession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe I\u2019ll just bump it to February. Like I said, I haven\u2019t read that book, but I know it\u2019s one I want to buy. Towards the beginning of this month, I actually Googled the book for purchase. I want the one with the yellow cover, and hardback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s that book\u2019s title that introduced me to its author Toni Morrison vis a vis the Oprah Winfrey show when she was doing her book club. I remember she chose it as a selection. That was back when I was trying to read all the books in Oprah\u2019s Book Club. I bought the first one, The Deep End of the Ocean, and read it. I don\u2019t remember if I read all of it, but I do remember that I wasn\u2019t really into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But back to Toni Morrison. If memory serves me correctly, Oprah used to say that Toni Morrison (why do I keep using her first and last name?) was the greatest writer ever. And there was this one episode where a lady in the audience challenged her and said it\u2019s actually Zora Neale Hurston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever heard of Zora Neale Hurston before that, now oh how I love her writing \u2013 let me count the ways. I don\u2019t necessarily like her stories \u2013 the stories she tells with her writing \u2013 but oh how I love her writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, this woman in the audience was saying how Zora Neale Hurston is the best writer, and I think Oprah went to break or something then came back reading a passage out of Song of Solomon, and I was wowed. I was like I gotta get my hands on that book. I have to read that book<\/em>. Over two decades later, I still haven\u2019t read it. But I will. I will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I actually haven\u2019t read any books this month\u2026well, a bit of the Bible, but that doesn\u2019t count. That\u2019s for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But yeah, I definitely want to step it up this year. I am, after all, a writer. And they say in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. I don\u2019t know how much truth to that there is. I\u2019ve never been a reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used to watch this book show on PBS and the host said that she loved reading so much that should would read the writing on a tube of toothpaste to get her kicks in. I cannot relate. I was more of a TV watcher when I was a child\u2026and teen\u2026and young adult, hell even now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I prefer a movie to a book, or even a TV show. When MTV used to do marathons of The Real World? Oh, that was bliss. But not only that, reading has never been my strong suit. I was always better in math. I did better in math on my SAT and my GRE than I did in reading and writing even. I think doing math on a regular basis made me a better writer, not reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All that logical reasoning involved in math just made me a problem solver. It\u2019s like it almost eliminated writer\u2019s block, because my mind was already teed up to find solutions, create solutions. When I stopped doing math on a regular basis, writing became harder. At least that\u2019s what it seems like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may also have gotten harder because there is a burden that comes along with knowing you\u2019re good at something, or being told you\u2019re good at something. With that comes the pressure of wanting to always be good at it. It\u2019s like now that you told me I\u2019m good, I want everything I write to elicit that same reaction<\/em>. And when inevitably it doesn\u2019t, that\u2019s when anxiety sets in. That\u2019s when writer\u2019s block is born. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d pinpoint my writing genesis back to when I was in the fourth grade. It all started haphazardly. I was going to a new school, a mixed school, the first time I went to a school where most of the students weren\u2019t black. I remember the popular girls there having diaries, so of course, I wanted one too. And that\u2019s how I began writing on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wasn\u2019t writing with any particular intention \u2013 just writing about my feelings, writing about the day. It became a thing, it became an inconsistent friend or maybe I it\u2019s in consistent friend. But oddly enough, I was never really fond of writing, especially not in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then fast forward to the 11th<\/sup> grade. The first day of English class. The teacher passes out the syllabus and on it it says every six weeks a paper will be due. I cringed at the thought of writing a paper that often. Then as we\u2019re going over the syllabus she makes a correction. \u201cScratch out the every six weeks part, \u201c she said. That\u2019s more like it I thought. \u201cA paper will be due every three weeks,\u201d she concluded. I was horrified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know when my procrastination started, but by the 11th<\/sup> grade, it was already in full force. I hated writing papers so bad that I literally couldn\u2019t write them until the last-minute, when I knew it was do or die, then all of a sudden a burst of competency would come over me and enable me to write the paper. So I would write my paper the night before, sometimes even in my second period computer class and turn it in in my fourth period English class. I did that every three weeks, and every three weeks I would always get an A. I was shocked, especially since this was the hardest English teacher there, and nobody else except for one other girl (who was a reader by the way \u2013 she used to read Stephen King books in high school. I don\u2019t know how hard his books are, as I\u2019ve never read him, but I just thought that was advanced).<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, I couldn\u2019t help but think I was good. That is, until I got to college, and my journalism professor practically excoriated everything I wrote. Then later I worked for a newspaper and the same articles, that my journalism professor tore apart helped me to get the job (I was an obits clerk), and I was told how well I wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I said all that to say\u2026actually, now I don\u2019t even know where I was going with that. Oh yes, now I remember, I think. I said all that to say, I\u2019m a writer who\u2019s not a reader. Reading\u2019s never really been my thing. Over the past, maybe 10 years or so, I\u2019ve gotten into non-fiction, just because I marvel at the thought that they are true stories. But there is something about a good fiction book that hits like no other\u2014the only problem is, well, at least for me, it\u2019s hard to come by a good fiction book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the good ones are such that it\u2019s worth it to keep trying. So, Song of Solomon, I\u2019m coming for ya\u2026eventually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want to read more. One of my goals this year is to read at least one book a month. That book for January was supposed to be Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. But look at January, it just…<\/p>\n