Reading is FUN-da-MENTAL

From 2003 to July 2009, I believe I read a total of 4 novels: Catcher in the Rye, Nightwatch, Daywatch and Twilightwatch. Those aren't the only *books* I read during that time necessarily, just the only works of fiction. Instead, I read a fair amount of textbooks, technical manuals and books about making electronic music. I also read Sun Tzu's The Art of War in June 2009, for whatever that is worth. (Nothing.)

I have two "songs" written, except for lyrics and vocals. For some reason, I'm just at a total loss. I don't really pay attention to lyrics anymore; to me they're just another texture to a track. Words are meaningless. On the other hand, the last thing I want to do is write bad lyrics. I'm not trying to be profound, but I also don't want to be retarded. It probably doesn't help that my favorite genre of music is dominated by Germans for whom English is a second language. (Example lyric from Destroid: "Life is too short for mourn.")

I've had a copy of On Writing by Stephen King sitting around since 2000 or 2001. My mother bought it as a gift for me because she always wanted me to be a writer for some reason. (Writing is probably a far less expensive endeavor than electronic music - and equally unprofitable!) I never bothered with it; I used to read a lot of Stephen King and Clive Barker from the 4th grade up until I was in 9th grade. The last Stephen King book I read was Insomnia, and I didn't even read all of it. I don't think I got halfway through it before putting it down out of boredom. (I guess old people with insomnia and hippie-ass aura shit put me to sleep!)

Sometime after August 1st (I know this because it was after Gemma and I got home from a vacation to Door County, WI with her folks), I read through On Writing for inspiration about lyric writing. (Reading a book about writing prose for inspiration on writing lyrics is pretty assbackwards - but that's just how I roll). I don't know if it helped, but it did get me interested in reading Stephen King again. Sometimes reading about someone's creative process can spark an interest in their output; it happens all the time in music, especially when I was in college studying Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Philip Glass. Along the same lines, reading Tom Shear's blog, Waveformless, has gotten me more interested in listening to Assemblage23 than I had ever been before.

Gemma and I each brought a shitload of books to this marriage. She had a couple of Stephen King books I had not read before. After reading On Writing, I started off with Bag of Bones. I finished it in a few days. I was then going to read The Drawing of the Three, but it turned out that was the second book in King's "Dark Tower Series." Being totally anal, I wanted to read the first book in the series, The Gunslinger, before I read the second book. I had the same neurosis for the X-Men movies. I never really wanted to see them, but I won a DVD of X-Men 3 when I worked for the pork plant. I didn't want to watch the third movie without having seen the first two, so it sat on my shelf for 3 years before I watched it. I still haven't seen X-Men 2, but that's okay because I think X-Men 1 and 3 are ass.

I went to a bookstore to pick up The Gunslinger, as well as The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White (the latter wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little of all things). King mentioned this book in On Writing as an essential tool for writing; his description of its rules of grammar and style caught my attention. One of the "lessons" that made an impression on me is to avoid using adverbs. This intrigued me. In all my years of schooling, from kindergarten up through grad school, I had never heard that piece of advice - yet, once revealed to me, it made a lot of sense. I tried counting the number of adverbs King used in 600 pages while reading Bag of Bones, and I counted four (not saying that's all there is, but he really does avoid them!). The Elements of Style is a great book for anyone who writes or for those who just find the English language interesting; it also has some amusing examples of how we mangle our language.

I found the two books I was looking for at the bookstore and also picked up Gerald's Game on a whim; call me a perv (because I am) but for some reason a horror novel about a woman handcuffed to a bed sounded interesting. In a matter of days, I had read Gerald's Game, The Gunslinger and The Elements of Style. It probably helped that I was sick and ended up taking two days off from work.

Next, I read a copy of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend that I've had lying around for a couple of years. Right before the movie with Will Smith came out, I had asked Gemma to give it to me as a gift, either for our anniversary or for Christmas - I don't remember which. I had just watched The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, which was the first movie made that was based on I Am Legend. I finally got around to reading it about a week and a half ago. Then, satisfied that I had read The Gunslinger, I plunged into The Drawing of the Three without fear of missing some crucial plot point from the first book of the Dark Tower Series.

Last Saturday, I caught Hellraiser on TV. This inspired me to reread Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, the novella that Hellraiser is based on. I've had it lying around since I had last read it back when I was in middle school. It's short, under 200 pages, so I finished that in a night. Clive Barker uses a lot more adverbs in his writing than Stephen King does. I hadn't realized it until last weekend, but I had read everything Clive Barker published before 1994 back when I was in middle school. No wonder my mind is so fucked up. (For reference I was in middle school from 1993 to 1995).

Recently, I have taken another trip to the bookstore and picked up the third book in the Dark Tower Series, The Waste Lands, as well as Salem's Lot. I'm reading The Waste Lands right now, but I don't seem all that interested in it and may put it down for Salem's Lot instead. Gemma also has a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I intend to read while I'm on this roll. However, I tried reading it earlier this week and I just wasn't feeling it. It may the language, I don't know.

It's strange, having done so much reading after not really being interested in fiction for such a long time. I had not realized how much I used to read when I was a kid until now. I remember it used to take me weeks to get through a 600 page book, now I can do it in a couple of days. I'm sure college and grad school sharpened my reading skills, but it just feels so weird. It's like being thirsty for years and not realizing it, and then all of sudden drinking a shitload of water; or not running for years and then all of a sudden breaking into a sprint.

As for lyric writing - I still have not written shit.