Reading.

My posts and writing have been horrendously infrequent. Not that I haven't tried. Drafts and I don't really work if I can't do it the first time then it won't get done: and I've started about 3 or 4 posts since the last one... no dice. And poetry? Last poem I wrote was called "Dear Reader" or something to that effect. Written in Carib class, rife with profanity and stolen by a certain kohai (underclassman if you're not japanese honorific- savvy) if i get it back I'll post it.

I would love to write a post about this year improving... About how things started getting better, a story about how I truly realized and started bonding with a newer group of "true friends" and stopped being so fucking down an lonely and meh all the time. Or about getting some much needed ambition and getting my act together in this final push through secondary education and unto the tertio. Something.. Unfortunately I have no such stories and I'm pretty much how I've been since September; except I've rediscovered reading.  

Like all small children I read a lot, and since my interests as a child spread in a tonne of directions I owe even some of my current knowledge to my reading of old. But like most teenage boys somewhere I kinda just stopped. Can't say why, but it happened. But there was always a thing with me and reading and that was that I devoured literature. DEVOURED IT. I started and I finished with little between them. Devoured and moved on. When I started to read manga I adopted the same attitude (though I've lost a bit of my manga fanaticism... which worries me because these stories haven't finished yet....) But some time this month I decided to read a novel. And for that I blame Youtube and specifically, vlogbrothers. 

John Green. 

It started one Sunday with Looking For Alaska and by the next Sunday I had already finished The Fault in Our Stars, Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Paper Towns.... One Week. Four Novels Devoured. I probably stopped because of exams... and after watching another vlogbrothers video, with John Green giving book recommendations, on Friday I started The Magicians by Lev Grossman.... and today, Sunday, I finished the second book of that series, and I'll probably be nagged, by my own brain, into procuring and devouring the third and final of installment of the series, before doing the same for An Abundance of Katherines the John Green novel I haven't read yet. And surely it won't stop there....

Books are alluring, like small, temporary and portable soul capturing devices. They don't let you go. It's like An Imperial Affliction a fictional book in The Fault in Our Stars. It basically never ended and it captured souls right, left and centre... never giving them back. I fear, respect and appreciate books. Holding their author's essence, yet in a way being completely independent of them. Instigating thought, taking hold of emotions, and basically doing whatever the fuck they want. And I kind of hate them for that and love them for that. 

Funnily enough, and maybe for that very reason, I somehow became a writer (not sure how good I am though). I would love to inscribe on some good old ink and paper (or atleast some good old word files or an epub) something as powerful as the books I've read... and that is a daunting task. I actually (embarrassingly enough) started a novel, based on a short story I'd written... and it's been untouched since early this year (after my late computer died). I hope to complete it one day, and God I hope it doesn't suck. 

Books, narratives, reading, even literacy itself are simply amazing things... and I one day want to create something amazing. I want to write something that will instill in, someone sometime in time to come, some awe. Or at least make an enjoyable day's reading for some kid who goes through books like I go through a bag of crackers... who Devours them.

Sincerely

-Me