[HPforGrownups] Reading

[Denise Rogers]

No: HPFGUIDX 3277

APPPPPPPPLLLLLLLAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSEEEEEEEEE


Ok, you go Peg!  You are amazing.  You think you're dealing with writers' block, when the seven sins are some of the most beautifully written things I have read in awhile (since SS, at least--winks).  I wish I could get my novels finished and published, but I think I do have a sensory overstimulation going on.  I get almost 600 emails daily.  Do you think I am reading too much?  Grins.

Seriously, Peg, thank  you for reminding me once again about the wonders of the world, and how much we tend to be compulsed to read.  From email, to the newspaper (even if you're "only reading it for the comics" or the want ads, you are reading!), to the drivers' ed. state book sitting here beside the computer to the website in the other window!  I am constantly reading daily.  I need a reminder now and then, to stop, toss the paper out the front door, shut off the computer, turn off the Disney movies (closed captions, reading again, lol), and shut the books.  Turn on a piece of classic music (G-string, perhaps), and sit to play cars, people, or even Buzz Lightyear/Woody with my son, and just enjoy the moment.  Don't worry about cleaning--the dirt isn't going anyway.  Life is, though.  Age is creeping along like a mist wrapping us in its coils of cares.

Thank you.

Dee

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peg Kerr 
  To: HPforGrownups at egroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 8:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [HPforGrownups] Reading


  voicelady at mymailstation.com wrote:

  > On Tue, 10 October 2000, Peg Kerr wrote:
  >
  > > Once, I tried a week of reading deprivation, at the suggestion of _The Artist's Way_, a book on creativity, just to see what it was like.
  >
  > Quit reading for a week?!?  No, thank you very much!  I'm one of those read-at-least-3-books-at-a-time people.  And if fanfiction counts as "books", up that number to 6!
  >
  > So, what was the premise of the book's suggestion?  That reading helps or hinders creativity?
  >

  From _The Artist's Way_: (see pp. 87-89)

  "If you feel stuck in your life or your art, few jump starts are more effective
  than a week of reading deprivation.

  No reading?  That's right: no reading.  For most artists, words are like tiny
  tranquilizers.  We have a daily dose of media chat that we swallow up.  Like
  greasy food, it clogs our systems.  Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.

  It is a paradox that by emptying our lives of distractions we are actually
  filling the well.  Without distractions, we are once again thrust in the
  sensory world.  With no newspaper to shield us, a train becomes a viewing
  gallery.  With no novel to sink into (and no television to numb us out) an
  evening becomes a vast savannah in which furniture--and other assumptions--get
  rearranged.

  Reading deprivation casts us into our inner silence, a space some of us begin
  immediately to fill with new words--long, gossipy conversations, television
  bingeing, the radio as constant, chatty companion.  We often cannot hear our
  inner voice, the voice of our artist's inspiration, above the static.  In
  practicing reading deprivation, we need to cast a watchful eye on these other
  pollutants.  They poison the well.

  If we monitor the inflow and keep it to a minimum, we will be rewarded for our
  reading deprivation with embarrassing speed.  Our reward will be a new
  outflow.  Our own art, our own thoughts and feelings, will begin to nudge aside
  the sludge of blockage, to loosen it and move it upward and outward until once
  again our well is running freely.

  Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool--and a very frightening one.  Even
  thinking about it can bring up enormous rage.  For most blocked creatives,
  reading is an addiction.  We gobble the words of others rather than digest our
  own thoughts and feelings , rather than cook up something of our own. . . . "

  Peg

  P.S.  if anyone is moved to try this, I'd be interested in how the experience
  went for you.  For me, the whole week was an unpleasant and rather unnerving, but eye-opening experience.

  P.P.S.  And you know, the author of _The Artist's Way_ has a point.  Voicelady, I think, has uttered a gentle complaint that I'm not working on my next book.  Part of the
  problem is that I spend too much time reading this listserve!


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