Whatcha reading?
Mine's a hardback, bab.
I’ve been marking essays for work and I just love it when someone has been moved, or engaged with reading. Anything that sounds like they got something out of the text makes me feel as emotional as the end of Racing Stripes (film about a plucky zebra that makes me cry every time.) I don’t know why, perhaps because as a kid I hated school and used to cry off sick at any given opportunity to stay home and read books.
The books we had were from an ancient subscription service that Mum had got years before and decorative hardbacks on the shelf she never read. So there I was reading hardbacks of Brave New World and Wuthering Heights as if I was in rebellion to the establishment. I’d be seen as a school refuser now but then instead of spending my time hanging outside Aldi with a can of cider, I’d be hiding in my living room having my mind blown by Asimov or a Bronte sister. For me it’s always been a sanctuary and I’ve been an avid imbiber of everything from Barbara Taylor Bradford (mainly for the naughty bits and the fact they were so big I could keep reading for longer than a day) to Shakespeare.
After I leave a book, I come back into the real world blinking like I’ve been in a brightly lit cave and desperate to find a new adventure in words. Sometimes they stay with me to the point I have to leave it to digest for a couple of days. That’s a really good book when that happens. I’m a fiction reader and I have more understanding of the world through stories than I do through facts which must be something to do with my strange brain. I’m still a rebel on the quiet. The other day it was hot and with nothing to do I read all day in the sunshine. I was a teenager again, diving into the alternative world and watching from the corners of the story.
The last novel I wrote felt like that. I loved it so much I realised it did felt like a world I was entering in its own right and I reached the sublime experience of being fully into it and a true pleasure to be able to work on them. If that sounds like I’m boasting, I’m really not, I don’t know if any other readers will like it but I am one. I’m also an indulgent creative of epic proportions. I’m an entitled broke skiving writer. I should live in the attic. I’m the kind that spends my time reading and scribbling notes for no monetary reason even though I’d really really like a monetary reason.
I asked my husband what would be a deal breaker with us - What if I took out a huge loan? What if I disappeared to the Antarctic? And then had to reassure him I’m not doing any of that, it’s just my brain thinking of another story that I haven’t written down yet. Disappeared to squirrel it down and forgot I was supposed to have lunch.
There is joy in it. A secret, inner joy that I can’t explain and I feel after years of scribbling, I’m incredibly lucky to have found some of that. How long it will last for I don’t know but thank the goddess for this brief window of time to indulge myself in the warm bath of it all. That’s my summer in a nutshell - finding snatched time and being the most extravagant reader/writer before having to break the shell and return to the world of job hunting. I’m spending time like I’m a billionaire buying my own island.
Fifteen years ago I met my husband after having a similar epiphany. I indulged myself by going to Edinburgh Fringe, made new friends for life and met my partner for life. My sole intention that summer was to mess around, make a few people and myself laugh and be free before returning to a heavily intense world of single parenting after divorce. It turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. So I highly recommend liberating your dreams and seeing if you can indulge yourself in something wonderful and life affirming. Let’s make the world a better place.
I hope you enjoy your writing and reading this week, bab! Try not to melt. x R.
Reading: Taking Doreen Out of the Sky by Alan Beard - writer of short fiction and lead of Tindal St Fiction Group, I have a vested interest in his work but also he has a new collection coming out soon. He’s a bloody good writer so do seek it out.
Writing: As above - I’m on a voyage of discovery.
Thinking: Ah the Phoenixing show and substack - I’m making it happen just a little bit slowly. Birmingham Comedy Festival happens in October so it’ll be up and running by then.
