Is fiction good for you?

If you're like me and you constantly immerse yourself in the minds of fictional people in fictional worlds, and you've spent time wondering if it is truly as beneficial as it feels like it is, then this article I read in the Dallas Morning News this morning is for you.

Here's one of my favorite parts:

Enjoy, and Happy Memorial Day!

On Writing Every Day

I know I've written about this subject before, but an experience last week has inspired me to write about it again. It's about that mantra I'm sure you've heard plenty of times: write every day. Write even when you don't want to write. Even when the words are awful.

I'll be the first to admit that I fail at this. Which is why I like to think of it more as: actively think about what you're writing every day, even if you don't write any words. My writing time is more productive when the plot and the characters have been on my mind when I'm not writing.

But I'm at the very beginning stages of a first draft, and I have a harder time working on a story at the beginning than at the middle. The vastness of pages I have to fill to have a completed manuscript looms for me, and, since I'm a pantser, so does the idea that I don't really know what is going to fill them. It takes 10,000 words or so for me to believe that what I'm working on is enough of an idea for a whole manuscript.

So at the beginning, writing every day is harder for me than when I'm really deep in the manuscript. And the other night I was trying to write and it just. wasn't. working.

I think I wrote about 200 words, and I had to force out each one. It wasn't as many as I was aiming for, but I told myself that at least I wrote something, and then I worked on something else. But when I was showering a couple of hours later, about to go to bed, a sentence and scene appeared in my mind. I got out of the shower, sat down at my computer, and wrote over 700 words in very little time.

I fully believe that I wouldn't have had the idea that sparked those words if I hadn't forced out the 200 awful ones earlier that night.

So yeah, sometimes we can't write every day. That doesn't mean you're any less of a writer, or that you'll never be successful, or that you don't love writing. But just trying to write every day has endless benefits. In my opinion, that's worth remembering.

So Many Books, So Little Time For Rereading Them

People ask me often -- especially those who are helping me move -- why I keep as many books as I do. My uncle, when lugging another box of books up the three flights of stairs to my new apartment last summer, said, "But you've already read all of them," when I apologized for how many boxes of books there were.

And it was true. Outside of maybe one or two boxes, I'd read all the books. And I'd love to say I keep them all so I can reread them on a whim, but most I probably never will.

There's this undeniable comfort for me to be surrounded by books. It's not always that I'm going to go reread that book in the bottom corner of my bookshelf, but just that I have the option to. That no matter what is going on in my world, I'm surrounded by countless others.

In just the past week, upon hearing the news that Wislawa Szymborska had passed away, I was able to find my copy of View With a Grain of Sand and read a few of her poems. I was introduced to her in a Polish culture class in college and really enjoyed her poetry.

From Amazon.com

Then I decided to reread Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere, and when I found it on my shelf I first noticed the tabs sticking out the side, marking some of my favorite quotes. I read the first paragraph and remembered the voice that made me fall in love with it the first time, then fell in love with it all over again.

So I wonder, what makes you decide to reread a book? Do you keep a lot of books around, in case the desire to reread one strikes you?

To be honest, most of the time I don't reread books because I feel overwhelmed by all of the other books out there I want to read and haven't found time for yet. But sometimes I love one so much, I want to get lost in it again. This past week in particular, I had just read a series of meh books -- ones that I enjoyed but hadn't really consumed me. I was waiting on a bunch of books from the library and just wanted to read something I would truly love, so I turned to The Sky is Everywhere.

I'm excited that it's 2012, because I've decided that the only way to exist in this world is by rereading all of Harry Potter, in order, every two years. When someone finds a way to add more hours to the day, I'll allow myself to read them every year. But, well, we're stuck with 24 hours, and I last read them at the end of 2010, so I, for one, am psyched about 2012.

What books have you reread lately? Are there any you read regularly?

Emily Dickinson on Words

I stumbled upon this Emily Dickinson poem yesterday, and I think it succinctly explains what I love so much about words.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.


This is the incredible thing about writing: the words live on, and in different ways for different people. Saying or writing a word is not the end of the word, it's just the beginning.

Thanks for the reminder, Emily Dickinson.

Nowhere I Couldn't Go

I've never managed to keep a journal, no matter how many times I tried during my childhood. But I have a drawer full of spirals, which are filled with poems and stories and musings. They cover so much of my life, they serve the purpose of journals.

I was just flipping through one of my more recent ones, and this is the last thing in it. If I'm correct, I wrote it the day I took my last college final, about 7 months ago.

I was done. Free. And I looked up at the sky, considering what came next, and the clouds had never seemed so far away. The sky stretched from one infinity to another, and there was nowhere I couldn't go.

I so clearly remember looking up at the spring sky that day. And maybe the notion of that paragraph is a bit cliche, but I always want to remember that moment. I always want to remember that there is nothing too far beyond our grasp, nothing we can't dream.

I hope you remember that, too.

This New Year, Keep On Dreaming

I'm not a big New Years Eve person. Growing up, I spent most of them with family friends playing cards into the early hours of the morning, only pausing for a few minutes to acknowledge the clock striking midnight.

And I don't believe much in New Year's resolutions, because I believe that if someone wants to change something enough, the turning of a calendar page isn't going to matter. All the power to everyone who makes resolutions and keeps them -- they're just not for me.

So I'm excited about 2012, but only because I'm excited about life in general and not because I'll write a new year at the end of dates.

I'll always remember 2011 as the year I graduated from college and started life in the real world. The year my Rangers came within a strike of winning the World Series -- twice -- and broke my sports-heart instead. They had me sliding down a couch to the floor with my hands on my head shouting with my dad in disbelief, and I couldn't forget that even if I wanted to. Even if I tried. Because it was one of the greatest games in the history of baseball and they'll talk about it for decades to come.

It is the year I read more books than any other. A year I learned important things about my writing and took some major strides.

But there's one thing I like to learn anew every year. Something Stephen Colbert reminded me of in his commencement speech (which I talked about here). And that's the importance of dreams. To always dream about something, always strive for something. To take every failure, put it in your back pocket, and declare that you'll never give up.

So on that note, I want to share this song by one of my favorite bands:

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you keep on dreaming, even if it breaks your heart.

Books I Read in 2011 that I Recommend You Read

I'm awful at picking favorites, so I don't have a top 5 books list of 2011, or even a top 10 list. But below are some of my favorite books I've read in the past year that I highly recommend. They weren't all published this year, and they're of all sorts of genres, and I recommend them for all sorts of reasons.

• Looking For Alaska – John Green
• Everything about John Green's writing just makes my heart happy. It's smart and funny and compelling and rings true.
•  Room – Emma Donoghue
• This one's a bit disturbing, but it needed to be. And the five year-old narrator is extremely well done.
• An Abundance of Katherines – John Green
•  Paper Towns – John Green (Can you tell this is the year I discovered John Green?)
• Fall For Anything – Courtney Summers
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
• This one might break your heart a little. A quick, lasting read.
• Where She Went – Gayle Forman 
• I highly recommend the first book, If I Stay, too. I wasn't sure how I felt about this second one switching point of views before I read it, but I think I may have even loved it more than the first. 
• Divergent – Veronica Roth
• Don't start this if you've got a lot to do. I was sucked into this world and the voice of Tris and couldn't put it down.
• Imaginary Girls – Nova Ren Suma
• Immediately after finishing this book, I couldn't decide how I felt about it. But I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since, and that says a lot.
•  Before I Die – Jenny Downham
• The prose is just beautiful and heartbreaking.
• Invincible Summer – Hannah Moskowitz
• I couldn't get enough of the families in this story. The book takes place over four summers, but it's about so much more than summer and teenage summer love.
• Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson
• If you loved Speak, you have to read this. It's just incredible.
• The Help – Kathryn Stockett
• I didn't think this was my sort of book, so every time someone told me it was great I just smiled and nodded. But it really is as wonderful as everyone said, and it certainly made me stop and think about the world we live in and how people are treated.
• How to Save a Life – Sara Zarr
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green and David Levithan
• Beyond Belief – Josh Hamilton
• This is a memoir of one of my favorite baseball players who very easily could've died from a crack addiction. His story is so complex and inspiring, I can't recommend it enough.

Here's to another great year of reading in 2012!


Have you read any of these? What were your favorite books you read this year?