Thursday night I bought the Hunger Games trilogy. By mid-day today I closed the third book. It's been some time since I've lost myself in reading in quite that way. Most nights I read before I fall asleep, and a lot of the time I'll have a book in my bag to read at lunch (though I don't take it out as much as I could), but I've tended to let a lot of other things get in the way of reading time and this weekend reminded me of how much I miss spending so much time getting lost in story. It's important to do, especially if I want to keep writing, or do more writing, or whatever it is I'm looking for in terms of writing. If I'm not reading, I'm not creating those connections that get me to the pictures in my head, the transformation from words to images that our brain is so adept at.
It's not an automatic leap, perhaps, but the connection is there, The more I read, the more I write, because the more I read, the more my imagination and language centers are activated. I need to keep this in mind and spend more time with a book in my hand and less time with a movie or TV show in front of my eyes. I have an idea of suspending Netflix for a while, starting on my birthday, just to see if I can take a bit of a break from all of the exposure to other people's pre-formed images. I think it might help, and at this point I'm willing to try just about anything.
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