I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I read, what I read, etc.  I also got to wondering how much I read, after reading that many people won’t even read one book this year.

So, with that in mind, I’m putting up a new blog page, my Reading List. I’ll start it off with the books I listed a couple weeks ago and keep going from there. That should include all my books read from May onward. From time to time I’ll include a blog update and maybe a short review or two.

I think you can tell a lot about a person by what they read, and I doubt I’m any exception. I’d be curious to see what people learn about me from my book list.

I’ll also be putting my Amazon affiliate link on the page, so if you’re interested in buying something from Amazon, I’d appreciate your using my link. If you do, I’ll cut a small cut to help support my lavish lifestyle. Yeah. Right.

I’m genuinely curious to see how much I read in a year. I think it’ll also be fun to be able to look back and rememberwhat I read. I know I read dozens of books last year, but I’d be hard-pressed to remember more than half a dozen of them right off.

If anyone is interested in joining me, or if you’re already doing something similar, drop a comment on this post and I’ll link to your reading list as well.

Check this out, one in four people read NO books last year.

I have a tough time understanding that, but that isn’t really what I want to write about.

As a writer, these numbers make me think.

• Of the people who do read, the average was seven books a year. SEVEN.
• The most avid readers are older females.
• Fewer than 5 percent listed horror, scifi, speculative as books they’d read. I care about these because they’re what I write.

So, I can’t help but think about what this means for writers and publishing. If older people tend to read the most, then will the numbers of books read drop even further in the future, as the internet generation ages?

Will new technologies, like the kindle, replace books or bring younger people back to reading with the attraction of a cool gadget? Will they do both? Neither?

How possible is it for a writer to make a living in this market?

Will books as we know them even exist in a few decades?

I obviously don’t know the answers to these questions, but I have my own opinions. I don’t see brick and mortar bookstores going away any time soon. No Amazon or e-book can match the atmosphere of a good bookstore. Well, at least I hope they’re not going anywhere!

I’m curious. How many books have you read in the last month?

Here is my list

• Lynn Viehl’s Dark Need
• Plot and Structure by James Bell
• Encyclopedia of Knitting by Donna Kooler
• A historical novel about Bloody Mary. That author and title completely escape me, and I’m too lazy to go digging.

I’ve also started reading the Cluetrain Manifesto online.

O.K., everyone. What are you reading?

If you head over to Steve Pavlina’s site, you’ll see plenty of reviews of his book, Personal Development for Smart People. I want to take a little different route here. I want to focus on what this book can do for you as a writer.

What makes this book different is that he doesn’t focus on one aspect of your life to improve. This isn’t a book about making more money, improving your career, finding better relationships, or improving your health. It’s not a book about writing, becoming a writer or becoming successful at it.

Yet the book is about all those things, and more. In short, it’s a manual for improving whatever aspect of your life you choose to work on. That may sound overly ambitious, and maybe it is. However, I think he does a good job of presenting the material and giving readers the tools needed to walk away and use what he’s put forward.

Will you get a to-do list to fix your life? No. That isn’t what this book is about. What you will get are some tools that you can use to reframe you current situation and make decisions about where you want to go and how you’ll get there.

Part I

In part one, Steve discusses what he calls the fundamental principles. You’ll use these principles later in part two, when you focus on specific aspects of your life you’d like to change.

The three primary principles are truth, love and power, and they’re covered in the first three chapters. I found these chapters a bit abstract, but I read Steve’s blog, so I’m used to his approach. He might take a while to give you the background you need, but rest assured, he’ll get to the practical application.

Truth

For those of you who think of the truth as being a big nebulous and subjective, you might be better served to think of this chapter as “fact.” One of the most important things you can do is learn to take an honest assessment of your current state and use that to predict what your future will be like. Of course, if you don’t like the prediction, changing it is what this book is all about.

• Think about your writing habits. Where can you honestly expect your writing career to be in five, ten, twenty years given what you’re doing now? Be honest.

• If you asked a colleague or family member for an honest assessment of your writing future, what would he/she say?

• What is your honest assessment of your talent, drive, commitment? Would people who are familiar with your work answer these questions the same as you would?

Love

Love isn’t, in this book, really about romantic love, although it does encompass that concept. Think of love as being connected to others, and you’ll have a good idea of what Steve is getting at.

You may ask yourself why this is important to writing. After all, writing is a solitary activity, and it would seem that truth and power would be the dominant forces in making you successful.

I’d argue that writing that leaves out the emphasis on love, on being truly connected to others, tends to be the sterile, plot-driven writing that tends to lack depth. Don’t send me hate mail if you’re a writer who focuses on plot! That isn’t what I’m getting at.

Most of us have read books or stories that leaned too heavily on plot. The characters are wooden, almost indistinguishable from one another. The author moves the story along through plot devices that are more daring with each turn, but the story still leaves you cold. Why is that?

It’s because you don’t care about the characters. You don’t care because the author didn’t care.

Power

Power includes concepts like self-discipline, focus, and effort. Obviously, writing is work, like anything else, and no matter how much you enjoy it, it will still demand a certain amount of commitment and focus in order to succeed.

Think about your current level of commitment to your writing and ask yourself if it’s enough to get you where you want to be.

Part II

Here is where we get to the “meat” of the book. Resist any temptation to skip ahead to this half; you’re not likely to be able to follow it unless you know what Steve means by his principles discussed in part one.

Here Steve talks about practical things you can do to improve specific areas of your life. He covers habits, career, money, health, relationships, and spirituality. However, you’ll find techniques within these chapters that will help you evaluate where you are and work on changing your life into what you want it to be.

As a writer, I enjoyed his discussion of career and choosing one “with a heart.” I also found the chapter covering habits very useful. If you’re a writer, you know how powerful simple habits can be in getting words on the page and getting submissions out the door.

I’m not a big fan of personal development books in general. I think many just rehash old ideas and make suggestions that just about anyone with a bit of common sense could have come up with. This book has the advantage of taking a unique approach.

I’m going to be one of the reviewers for Steve Pavlina’s new book. You can see a discussion of its release here.

I’m expecting my review copy any day now, so look for my review soon. I’ll keep you updated.

Photo courtesy of austinevan

Have you ever read something that changed the way you look at things, work, write, interact with people, etc.? It doesn’t have to be a classic or even something terribly well-written. Here are a couple from my list, what’s yours?

Eugene O’Neill’s early plays

O’Neill is arguable one of the United States’ greatest playwrights, and he was the subject of my Master’s thesis. So, I read pretty much everything he’d ever written. Let me tell you, some of his early stuff is bad. Really. Incredibly. Bad.

How did this influence me? I figured that if someone could start out writing so badly and turn out so great, then I shouldn’t kick myself when I turn out something awful. It was a concrete reminder that even great writers churn out their fair share of garbage.

Elizabeth Zimmermann

I’m a knitter, and Elizabeth Zimmermann is a bit of a guru in many knitting circles. If I had to sum up her philosophy, then it would be to do what you want and not worry about rules, should’s, ought-to’s, etc.

What better advice can there be for a writer?

Write what you feel compelled to write, how you want to write it. Don’t worry about all the naysayers, those who tell you what you really should be writing and how it ought to be done.

While these may seem a bit odd, I think it’s testament that we often find inspiration in strange places.

Getting Things Done

Yes, a productivity book. In general, I think productivity books are a huge source of procrastination. Isn’t it fun to make lists and plans? It absolves us from actually getting down to work.

I like this because it gave me a simple way of keeping track of what I need to do and knowing exactly where I am in a project. Once I started thinking about my work as a project that’s divisible into small, manageable parts, I had a much easier time getting started.

StevePavlina.com

Okay, so this one isn’t a book. The site is full of advice on personal development, but I particularly like his discussions of polarity. To summarize, people operate from either a polarity of love or of fear. It’s a useful way to examine others’ behavior, or my own.

So, I can understand a competitive coworker when I understand that he’s operating from a fear polarity. If nothing else, it helps me not take his snide comments personally.

I know you’ve heard of social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.) If you’re like me and haven’t found a place you really like, then you may want to check out this site.

Goodreads

It’s a site for readers to track what they’ve read, are reading, and plan to read. You can find people who’ve read the same things and even compare book lists to see how similar your tastes are. If you’re interested, I’m Cornerscribe there. Look me up.

So far, I’m please with the site’s ease of use, and the ease with which you can find people to talk with about what you’re reading. If you’ve ever wished you had time for a book group, this site may be a good substitute.

I heard about them on NPR, but there are other book lover’s sites out there too. I haven’t tried any others, so I can’t speak to how they work.

LibraryThing

Shelfari

If anyone has others you’re using, post them here. Also, feel free to post your username if interested.

I’m taking the night off from blogging, so you won’t be seeing the next post in the “Characters” series until tomorrow. I hope to put up more of the workshop-style posts over the next weeks, so I’d love to hear what you think of them.

For now, I’d like to recommend a great writing book, Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve read the book, and I’ve been re-reading it via audio book this week. If you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s funny, sad and insightful, and he gives some wonderful writing advice as well.

See you tomorrow. I’m off to do spend a little time relaxing with my hubby.