Lion and Magic Boy

[Pardon me while I wipe away a wee tear caused by the endless amusement I cause myself with my clever plays on words.]

Ahem.

The other day Matthew took me to a bookstore in Vancouver. Not just any bookstore, and certainly not a big-box Barnes & Noble-type bookstore. This one had spiritual-type books, and only spiritual-type books, but of every description. It was wonderful, and I was certain I would find in it The Book, something that would Change My Life. Not that I was looking for a change, really, but more that it was the sort of bookstore that had that sort of book.

So imagine my surprise to pick up a book on writing. Writing Down the Bones. Yeah, I had heard of it. I didn’t know why I picked it up. I looked at the back. “Writing class…” Hmm. I am a writer already, what do I need this beginner-stuff for?

I started to put the book back on the shelf.

What are you afraid of?

I looked around. There was no one there.

Yes, you. What are you afraid of? What, you can’t learn anything anymore? Do you really think that?

Uh, no.

I kept the book in my hand, looked at it a little more. Maybe there was something in it for me after all. I decided to keep it.

I read some on the airplane coming home. A mix of Zen Buddhaism and writing wisdom. Rather a good fit. I’m sure there is something in it for me, even if nothing else than the lesson that there is always something I can learn.

So it looks like November is a writing month for me.

Several weeks ago I weighed my options. Last year at this time I entered (and won!) National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in order to change my life. I did and it did. I don’t regret it a bit, although it was a bit daunting and exhausted my creative capabilites at the time.

Apparently I like working under pressure.

Last year I also entered (and won!) NaBloPoMo, which by comparison seemed minor, but truly, there is an art to blogging daily. And I weighed those options and decided that in addition to everything else I am doing, posting to Lion and Magic Boy every day would be more than enough.

But then there’s the whole working under pressure thing. I like that.

So when it became clear that my 2.5 year old project wasn’t writing itself in my wee cabin in the way northwest last week and the week before, I thought I may as well ride that current of November creativity and just finish the damn thing under NaNoWriMo. So yeah, bending the rules a bit, but every word I write will be a new one, so close enough, and if I come out in a month with my project completed I will be one happy girl.

So, to recap:

1. 50,000 words (only 1667 a day!) in a new-old project under NaNoWriMo.

2. A post a day. That’s all I have to do. NaBloPoMo.

3. Two! New! Jobs! Soon to be announced.

4. The already close to 50,000 words a month I write as it is in all my various locations.

5. I work extremely well under pressure.

I have always been a voracious reader. If I had a scanner I would show you a photo of me at about age 6, lying on the pink rug in my bedroom, reading. Though the rug, thankfully, was later replaced with another less pink one, the overwhelming memory from childhood involves reading, usually on my bed and with three or four cats in attendance.

In fact, I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read.

As an adult my reading habits have been affected by the appearance of the small time-sucking beings who seem to demand food and other attention regularly. As a result, I read much less than I once did, which almost makes the impact of what I do read all the greater.

Years ago I developed a theory that I was being somehow guided, receiving an education of sorts, from the books I read. Without exception my books were chosen in a library and I allowed them to fall off the shelf into my awaiting arms, certain that whatever books I was drawn to were indeed the “right” ones to read. With only a few exceptions, I’ve been right about this.

Sometimes the themes were about various cultures as I worked my way through the modern fiction of India, for instance, or China. I am still fascinated by both places and they hold deep resonance for me. Rarely do I read bestselling fiction, preferring instead to prowl the stacks in the pursuit of something different.

But always I could draw a line that connected the dots between one selection and the next; my reading always went in themes and always seemed to hold resonance with whatever was going on in my life at the time.

Some books are so compelling that I find myself living them, absorbing them, even dreaming within their worlds. I have to choose carefully now because I have become quite sensitive to falling into the worlds created within the pages. They permeate everything and transform me.

This concept would be a little disturbing if I wasn’t also convinced that it is me doing the guiding, me just happening to “run across” a particular book, me providing myself with an education of sorts.

I’m looking around now for something to read as it’s been awhile since I had the luxury of immersing myself in a book. I wonder what’s next in this journey?

This isn’t my list, and I don’t think it’s JustJenny’s either, but apparently my taste in books is similar to hers. Although I think there’s entirely too much Harry Potter on here. And Dan Brown. And Stephen King. Anyway, you be the judge. The bold ones are the books I’ve read.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I’m curious as to what’s on YOUR bookshelf:

1. Deb at Organized Chaos

2. Jennifer at Pinwheels

3. Merlyn at RE-Cycled Crows II

4. Peter at Night Writer

So pony up, guys! I want to know what you read! (Feel free to change the list)

[tags]memes, books, reading, ponies, just kidding[/tags]