Reading

Some people might say that it's not good to post twice in one day.

But of course, I try to make it habit to not care too much about what people might say.  As of this moment I sit with a newly created blog, all but empty, and I know that if I don't set out at this very moment with a full head of steam, this thing I have just made might just die as it lies here, barely born.

I spent the greater part of today working with books: making a list of all the books I've read in 2011, cataloging my own personal library of books, and the like.  I started out this year with the goal of reading 25 books in 2011, and... well, I read 53.  I am quite pleased.  

Looking over the list of books I finished this year, there were a couple of themes that stood out.  I read 32 fiction books and 20 nonfiction books.  I read more YA fiction this year than in all previous years combined -- mostly thanks to Scott Westerfeld, since I discovered his Leviathan trilogy early this year, which lead me to read his Uglies series while waiting for Goliath to come out.  I also read a number of dystopias, from Brave New World to The Hunger Games.  G. K. Chesterton was probably my favorite author that I read this year.  I discovered him in 2010 when I read his biography of Charles Dickens.  This year I continued my journey through Chesterton with Orthodoxy, The Flying Inn, The Man Who Was Thursday, Heretics, and Saint Thomas Aquinas.  Chesterton is the kind of person that makes me wish I could steal his brain and make it my own.  His writing style is gorgeous, and the thoughts he has are so profound.

While it's tempting to see if I can read even more books in 2012, I think I'm going to take a different approach.  Instead of aiming for a number, I'd rather have the luxury of taking my time reading a book, choosing longer books to read, or rereading books.  In my eternal quest to improve as a writer, I want to examine the works of my favorite authors in detail to see what I can learn from them.

And as a rather odd resolution, I've decided I'd like to dive into the Christian fantasy genre.  It came to my attention as I scanned the fiction shelves at Family Christian Bookstore the other day that, even though I think of Christian fantasy as the genre I'd like to write it, I haven't actually read that much of it.  So I plan to begin my journey with Donita K. Paul's DragonSpell and see where it takes me from there.

Realization

I realized recently that over the past several months, I have drifted away from being a producer of media to being merely a consumer of media.  "Well," I said to myself, "this can't stay this way.  You weren't given life in order to be a sponge.  Sponges aren't of any good to anybody until they're used to wash cars."  So, in order to kick my spongy self out the door (to the driveway, where sits a car badly in need of washing), I decided that I needed a new blog for a new year.  (The fact that the new year isn't here yet is hardly relevant.) 

So, here I am again, with many things to say.  I cannot predict ahead of time what they will be, only that I will say them, and perhaps someone will read them.