There’s that book smell, kind of musty and sweet. There’s a din of chatter – murmuring – but not too loud like there’s a reverence for the shared purpose in the treasure hunt for the timeless story.
These slow-moving creatures pour over authors and titles; each one having a silent smiling celebration in finding the story they’ve been looking for. There’s camaraderie in knowing that everyone else in that room also loves something as simple as getting lost in a good story – even if the stories we like are all different.
This is what sets us apart from the animals – books.
The fact that every one of these pages have been turned by someone before, that it’s almost a shared experience (but not quite), adds to the romance too. I’ve come across plane tickets, dry-cleaning stubs, and other makeshift bookmarks that always remind me wonder about the previous owner and whether they liked the book so much they stuck the bookmark in and devoured it in one afternoon, or if they bought it to read on the plane and never returned to it after the vacation.
A story within a story.
I did promise to use this space to teach people what I know about how to write. This is my best piece of advice; read.
When I was a child I read everything I could get my hands on. Cereal boxes, comic books, brochures and flyers, not to mention the treasured library books, and the mandatory reading in school.
I’m certain it’s how I became a writer; to read is to learn language, punctuation, audience.
That being said, an English degree makes you a writer not. An English degree makes you a professional reader, in my opinion. Just like there is a very big difference between liking oranges, and understanding why you like oranges.
Great writers know how to draw you into a story, how to keep your attention focused, how to find just the right word to make you taste, smell, feel the action in a story. A good way to learn that is by reading other writers’ work and learning from their successes and failures.
Sure some people are naturally good writers because they can write you a story that makes you feel something, but a well-read writer will write you a story that makes you feel something, while still being coherent because the details like commas and dialogue are built upon experience with the English language.
Whether you’re writing the Great American Novel or a poster for your pop-up shop, experience with the English language can mean the difference between catching someone’s eye, and catching a typo with spellcheck. Hint … you want to do both.
These slow-moving creatures pour over authors and titles; each one having a silent smiling celebration in finding the story they’ve been looking for. There’s camaraderie in knowing that everyone else in that room also loves something as simple as getting lost in a good story – even if the stories we like are all different.
This is what sets us apart from the animals – books.
The fact that every one of these pages have been turned by someone before, that it’s almost a shared experience (but not quite), adds to the romance too. I’ve come across plane tickets, dry-cleaning stubs, and other makeshift bookmarks that always remind me wonder about the previous owner and whether they liked the book so much they stuck the bookmark in and devoured it in one afternoon, or if they bought it to read on the plane and never returned to it after the vacation.
A story within a story.
I did promise to use this space to teach people what I know about how to write. This is my best piece of advice; read.
When I was a child I read everything I could get my hands on. Cereal boxes, comic books, brochures and flyers, not to mention the treasured library books, and the mandatory reading in school.
I’m certain it’s how I became a writer; to read is to learn language, punctuation, audience.
That being said, an English degree makes you a writer not. An English degree makes you a professional reader, in my opinion. Just like there is a very big difference between liking oranges, and understanding why you like oranges.
Great writers know how to draw you into a story, how to keep your attention focused, how to find just the right word to make you taste, smell, feel the action in a story. A good way to learn that is by reading other writers’ work and learning from their successes and failures.
Sure some people are naturally good writers because they can write you a story that makes you feel something, but a well-read writer will write you a story that makes you feel something, while still being coherent because the details like commas and dialogue are built upon experience with the English language.
Whether you’re writing the Great American Novel or a poster for your pop-up shop, experience with the English language can mean the difference between catching someone’s eye, and catching a typo with spellcheck. Hint … you want to do both.