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EBooks or paperback?
I came across a question the other day and it made me think for a bit. EBooks or paper books? Well I think the answer comes down to the person, and every person will have their own opinion about it. Personally, I like both, though I lean towards a good paperback.
There’s always that feeling about a book in my hands that’s just comforting. I even enjoy the smell of a book, as odd as that might sound. During winter, if you look into my jacket pocket you’ll always find me with a book inside of it. Actually, now thinking about it, when I bought that winter jacket I made sure it was big enough for a good sized paperback.
All that said, there’s definitely got to be some love for eBooks. A device, be it a computer, tablet, or phone, that can hold thousands upon thousands of books. I mean I love my books, but every other year I look at my shelves and start wondering if I need to go out and buy a new one. With a tablet, or even just your phone, it’s all right there and you can take it anywhere. One thing I do dislike about eBooks is the fact I’m looking at a screen. Often times I feel my eyes are hurting after not too long and I need a break, something I don’t often get when reading paperbacks.
Otherwise its plain and simple folks, choose what works best for you, especially when it works best for you. I like carrying around a book, but I keep a few extra books to read on my phone just in case I finish said book or I forget one altogether. Best of both worlds right?
Habits – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
You know that whole thing where you try and make a habit out of something? I can really suck at that. I mean really suck at it. Suuuuck at it. I’ve come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t happen naturally I can pretty much consider myself completely and utterly screwed. I bring this up to explain my next blog post.
Let’s start off with the bad…
Writing as a habit. You know, a part of me LOVES to write. It does. It loves putting down to paper, or on to screen the things that come to my mind. Sometimes I feel it’s tedious, because you’re trying to explain something more than just simply saying, the color red is red. You try and explain it to someone so you can try and smack them in the face and say, remember this color, remember this scene. Sadly I’ve failed at making this a habit. I’ve tried writing first thing in the morning. That stopped because when I wake I’m too brain dead to do anything. I tried writing once every day. That was still hard. I think that lasted longer but somewhere along the way I’m sure I said “oh I won’t do it today, but I will tomorrow!” Yeah, we can guess what happened there.
Let’s go off to something good…
Reading. Good god I can’t get enough of it. If I go too long without a book I start to itch. I start getting jittery for a good read, and run out and find a book. It could be a few hundred pages to over a thousand pages, if it’s good, I’ll devour it. Sometimes in a day. It can be quite scary. I come out of those looking like I’ve actually been doing some rather hard drugs and don’t exactly know where I am. IN all true honest, I look around and just see rows of words still staring at me. Like looking at the sun and getting an after image burned into your retina. I’ve gotten a pretty decent sized library at home now. I think I should be at 300 or so, maybe more. So it’s often that I find myself coming back to old friends on my shelf for a good read. The problem if anything these days is that when I go out and buy a book I look at it like it could possibly be poisonous. There are days where I seriously wonder if I’ll come across another good author. That’s when a good surprise comes my way, Neil Gaiman was one, and so was Patrick Rothfuss. This is what I mean though, I come across reading and it comes naturally to me. Like drinking water, or in my case rye and gingers.
The ugly…
The ugly is basically the realization of my own faults here. I know why writing fails all too often. I lack willpower. The dedication to sit and do what I need to do, and not when it’s just needed. I’ve been trying with deadlines of late, it’s been helpful. I get distracted way too easily as well. That’s really annoying… but I get too distracted to really get upset by it… I think this is why I need to get a computer that’s NOT connected to the internet. I’ve been writing this post for quite some time, I keep on getting distracted by k-pop. How horrible of me. I feel like having another screen to look at something just too easily distracts me from what I should be doing.
There should be a silver lining to this all though…
That is, even though I’m not writing anywhere near as much as I should, I’m still doing something that involves writing which is reading. As long as I’m doing that I’m filling my head with stories, ideas, and expanding my world of what can be. Now if only I spent as much time writing as I have reading!
Very first post!
This is my who-knows-how many-attempt to write a blog. It’s like my novel writing, I get into it for a bit and then something distracts me. I get attacked by the world around me. A movie, new show, a game, something.
Always in the back of my mind there’s that voice. We all have one of those voices, you know, the one which says “hey you, you should be doing something better/more productive/anything than what you’re doing now.” To me that voice whispers, “hey you could do some writing!” in my head, I reply, “That’s a great idea…but I’m not feeling like it right now. LATER THOUGH!” I’ve come to the realization that I’m quite the lying bastard to myself because later seems to never happen.
I have quite the passion for reading. I tend to read sci-fi and fantasy but every once in a rare blue moon I dabble in something else just to expand my library a bit. I got into reading for pleasure around the 8th grade. Before that I had been like most kids around me, ugh…anything but reading… It was my best friend at the time Ben who showed me a book and soon after that I was into. It was the Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It took me two months to finish, the second book, took me even less time. I soon devoured that series and went on looking for more.
I’ve come across authors whose books I’ve read in a day, no matter the size of the book. I’ve come across writers who’ve left me sad and fearful of ever reading their writing again. I’ve come across books that have blown my mind away and books that have left me thinking for hours afterwards trying to unlock its secrets. I have come across a lot of books.
You would think this is where my passion for writing has come from but you’d sadly be mistaken. I actually got into writing around grade 4. I recall just writing one day, it was something silly and something I will hide in my closet of horrors until the day I die. I just recall that I kept writing. One page turned into two, turned into three and four and more. I think it came out to about eight pages, which for a young kid isn’t that bad I’d like to think. So what was the motivation for writing you might ask? I had an active imagination. Very active. I’m quite sure if I had seen some shrink at that age that might’ve mentioned some sort of medication for me. That imagination came out in many forms over the years. Writing thankfully was one of them, and one I was happy to pick up from time to time.
I guess this was a small sample of who I am and how I got into reading and writing. Hopefully I’ll write more. Hopefully. Later. *cough*
Stuck in a Book 