Single-Minded Reading

My friend, and co-writer said to me tonight: "I wish I could read fast like you."

I laughed.

We all have our own lives, filled with work, spouses, friends, etc. And I told her that in order to inhale books like I do, there is a lot I have to put to the side in order to achieve my speed-reading abilities. Including the things I just listed above. I read single-minded, drowning out everything else around me.

The Pros: My vivid imagination allows me to immerse myself into other worlds...quite literally becoming a part of that world, albeit an outsider.

The Cons: Well...drowning out everything else. I have a laser-focus, and sometimes that gets the best of me.

For instance, over the past couple of weeks, I beta-read 8 books in a series for an author. I could not put them down...I read a book a day. I wanted to be a part of that world. And immediately, I jumped into a series she recommended. A huge series. over 3 million words in the series she suggested. It isn't a small undertaking...in the least. I am on book 3...still chugging along.

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One of my favorite activities is to just go to the library, tracing my finger along the shelves, looking for the next world that I can jump into. Though my main love is YA fiction, I dabble in historical fiction, historical non-fiction, and really anything that catches my fancy.

Being a creative person, my mind is always active...with something I am currently writing, reading, or imagining other wise. Among my friends, most of us are creative-minded, living in a world that we create in our own minds. It is both a burden and an amazing aspect of my life that I wouldn't change for anything. I can only hope that my daughter grows up loving and finding solace in books like I have all my life.

Reading is second-nature to me. I am not sure what I would do without it.