I survived reading deprivation

[bitterfig]

I finally finished George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords yesterday.  I have quite literally been reading it for the last two months-I started it when I was visiting my parents in New York back in May.  An excellent book in an excellent series but my God I am glad to finally be done with it.

I probably would have finished A Storm of Swords

Comments

[readingthedark]

I did that once, for a week, because of Saint Julia. Who is actually completely different in person than she is on the page. She helped her ex-husband write Taxi Driver. But I have derailed. Because I knew I would watch tv the whole time, I swore off both for a week. It was agony. But I didn't write for a living then and I do now. Who knows?

[bitterfig]

I knew she was ex-wife of Martin Scorsese but I hadn't realized she'd had a hand is Taxi Driver (one of my all time favorite films). Since she did, I really hope she'll address the idea of the dark side of creativity-- that's been something that I've been sort of concerned with since I started the course. I'm doing affirmations and "artist's prayers" and positive stuff but I'm still writing about rape and abuse of power and all sorts of bad craziness...

[readingthedark]

As far as I've been able to understand, yes, a prominent role in Taxi Driver. She wrote a novel about a cop that didn't do well but is supposedly dark. Artist's Way? Not dark. Having met her, she is a babbling brook of eccentricity (and a hipster who wrote for Rolling Stone in the 80s). I see her writing voice as Saint Julia and her in-person self as more of a Downtown Julie. I write plenty of creepy, creepy things despite having found the book more useful than I usually like to admit. (I am averse to "I am artist hear me roar" books. They seem not to teach writing as much as self-help creativity theory. Yet I used her course to realize I needed to go to grad school, was so moved I took a workshop with her and then went back through the book in grad school with even more vigor and have two copies of that book and plenty of her tapes. I've also found merit in Natalie Goldberg. All this really proves is that I am a hypocrite who likes to hide some of the tricks I have up my sleeve.)

All best,
ghg

[readingthedark]

Oh, and David Lynch's book on creativity. Wow. I was in another world for the three days that I listened to the audio version he read. It's a recruitment tool for transcendental meditation, but it's also a bizarre compilation of starry wisdom.

[lawless523]

Watching Veronica Mars isn't a bad way to spend time, though. We seem to have some similar tastes in TV shows, hm? I have to admit, though, I haven't finished watching the third season DVDs yet, and I missed at least one show when it was broadcast. I got them for Christmas but Gravi fanfiction writing and LJ madness has interfered with my getting much further than "Spit and Eggs" (the episode ending the campus rapist storyline and starting the Dean's murder storyline

[bitterfig]

I actually haven't seen any of Season 3 of Veronica Mars. It's sort of a complicated story but my last job (before I went to work as a Whole Foods Cashier)I was working as an administrative assistant in a property management firm. It was a home office so my boss had all this work out equipment so every morning I'd work out on the treadmill while watching an episode of something on his TIVO. I watched the first two seasons of Veronica Mars this way but I got laid off in August of 2006 right before season 3 started and since I don't have television reception in my apartment I couldn't watch it. I may watch it on DVD after I've rewatched the first two seasons. It is an excellent show. Gilmore Girls is probably the only other network TV program I've ever watched that has such rich, sharp, rapid fire dialogue. You really have to pay attention while your watching or you'll miss something.

[lawless523]

I watch it with the closed captioning or subtitles on. (And now I wish I had a Veronica Mars/Kristen Bell icon.)

[bitterfig]

That's a good idea, there's so much in the dialogue that it's easy to miss good stuff (and so much of it is very naughty. In the episode I watched last night Weevil was talking about rims on a car and Veronica said something about a rim job.)

[emerald_boa]

I got your package on Friday! Thank you so much. I'm adding the pictures to my giant wall collage.

I, too, often use reading as an escapist pastime, though like a lot of people I justify it to myself by thinking that at least it's not as mentally passive as watching TV, nor does it have all those commercials. Giving it up for a week might be an interesting experiment, though. The idea makes me a little nervous, actually.

[bitterfig]

I'm so glad you got your package. I love giant wall collages-- I used to have one in my room that covered the full ceiling as well as a lot of the walls. The idea of going without reading was really daunting to me. Reading is my all purpose fall back activity. Not having it was like being without my safety net.

[sakru909]

Everyone ends up wasting time on tvtropes.org when they go to the site. I know I, at least, end up wasting hours every time I go there.

[bitterfig]

It's pretty addictive. I figured it wouldn't really count as reading if I just scanned the entry but I wound up reading a lot of it in detail.

[sakru909]

I know, whenever I go I convince myself that I'll only look at one thing, then I end up spending all my time looking up the shipping sections.

[bitterfig]

I liked Game of Thrones a lot but it is dense reading. The whole series seems like history more than fantasy. That is to say history with the occasional zombie and dragon thrown in.