Reading Stamina
Posted on November 11,2009.One of the comments I received as a writer when I partially represented Rapiers: Twin Fangs in the local fantasy fiction community is my obvious limited reading experience. When I was in college, I read books during free time and I was a “book worm” compare to the people I hung around with. But I shouldn’t dare make a comparison because the people I was around with, up until now actually, when I was in college didn’t read for pleasure. Some didn’t even care to graduate but that’s another story. I guess the amount of books I read isn’t enough for me to make a quality story.
Then again, I started reading books with very weak narratives/descriptions such as Paulo Coelho’s and Mitch Albom’s. I partly blame National Bookstore (insert a smiley here) for focusing too much with bestsellers. I must also admit that when I started writing Rapiers: Twin Fangs when I was a freshman in college, I was thinking of Final Fantasy and other console-based role playing games. It obviously showed. Now, I’m the painful process of catching up, learning and steering away Rapiers: Twin Fangs from becoming a Final Fantasy fan-fiction.
I should also consider my reading stamina. I tend to miss out descriptions and narrations whenever I get bored. There are times I only half-understand a book upon finishing. It’s the reason I’m re-reading some of the books I’ve finished. I now focus on the narratives used and I want to appreciate a well written paragraph whenever I see one. I’m blaming my short attention span for focusing too much on dialogues and pictures back when I was playing RPGs like crazy when I was in high school!
On the other hand, another challenge I have with reading is that books are freaking expensive. I remember when I was in college, I only started buying books when I started receiving allowances as a part of the school’s official student newspaper. It was my junior year. In my first job, I bought books almost every pay day but my bad reading habits when I was in college continued. I believe I only half-understood 2 out of the 3 books I purchased and read. With my second job, I don’t know why I didn’t buy any books and it was for almost a year I didn’t produce/write anything. Here in S-2, I returned to what I used to regularly do and I’m reading books again. But due to the (literally) costly mistakes I made between mid 2007 to mid 2008, I only buy books when I really have some extra money.
I bought a couple of books, a Haruki Murakami and a Raymond E. Feist. The first time I read Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance, I didn’t notice it. But for the second time, because I really want to understand the story, the room he described in Dolphin Hotel and the Wolfman himself were in Linkin Park’s Papercut music video. It’s probably one of the reasons I like Murakami. I tend to look for and find Linkin Park in everything I like.
I went to a Fully Booked store in Gateway mall and my budget was only around P500 and max was P1000. I knew it would only be enough for a couple of books at most. I stopped buying books at National Bookstore. They usually never have the titles I’m looking for. National Bookstore had a crazy 90% discount sale from Sept 15 to Oct 15, but whenever I drop by, their shelves were always empty.
I was looking for either Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (the book that made him popular) or Sputnik Sweetheart. They weren’t available that time. I’ve read a few gay stories and watched gay movies but most of them are made to make you horny, which defeat its purpose, I think. Sputnik Sweetheart I believe is a story between two women lovers. It was written to tell, not to titillate.
There were only three titles for Murakami in the shelf. I did an eenie-minie-moe and I picked Kafka on the Shore. The second book I picked up is a fantasy-fiction. I made a promise to myself that I’m going to start reading fantasy fiction books to pick up the good writing habit. I’m not familiar with this genre and I picked this book because it looked like an easy read. I was choosing between the Prince of Blood and the King’s Buccaneer. For sheer randomness, I picked King’s Buccaneer which is the second part of Prince of Blood. (Amputa!) It’ll be like reading Tolkien’s The Two Towers first before the Fellowship of the Ring. “Bahala na, wish me luck na lang.”
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