if I read 365 books in a year, do I win a prize?
Happy Thursday! Why is this week speeding by oh gooooooosh!
Are you the type of person hate consumes media? Or even consumes media that you halfway don't like, but you have to at least finish it to see how it ends? Generally, I'm not. When it comes to movies, I can turn it off and walk away. Television show? GoodBYE after two or three episodes. Video Game? Ain't nobody got time for 150 hours of hatred!
A book? Buddy, you best believe I'm not only going to read the entire thing, but I will have multiple text threads complaining about it.
I don't know what separates books as a media from everything else I can drop if I don't like. A part of me wonders if it's because for the most part, that book was a product of one person writing it, and a little part of their soul has been poured into it. (Yes, I know there is an entire team editing, copy editing, marketing, publicizing, and more.) I also wonder if it's a snobby part of me that is like "well the written word is simply better compared to that trash of a video game!" (except what kind of weird monocled-monologue is my brain having because brain! Your skin suit has three video game tattoos! Deal with it!)
When you think of movies or television or a video game, it's a whole group of people working on it. Even if it is an auteur, even if they wrote, directed, produced, and edited the entire damn movie, did they do all the costuming? Props? And in the television world, it's even more rare to have the solo artist do all the writing for a show because there is usually a writing staff. One exception off the top of my head is White Lotus, a show directed, written, and show run by one person. I'm sure there are others except I always think about that show because it was late 2020 and he could set the show anywhere and would have to fly out and live there for a while so like, setting the show in Hawaii so he could travel there on HBO's budget? Brilliant!
But generally, no creative endeavor is mainly made with one person. Even with all the writing being done by one human, as I said, there are so many other factors that go into it. Who is delivering the lines isn't going to just be the writer (though that would end up being one weird, fascinating one person show, if then). But for a book, everything, from the costume design to the dialogue to the props to the beauty of the words on the page is by one person. And the company helps to tighten it up and make it shiner, but the rock! Was carved! By one!!! (or two if it's two people writing - BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN). So how can I simply put down that person's work, and not finish it when they gave like days, weeks, MONTHS of their lives to it?
Easily apparently! I just don't know how!
I was reading two books last Tuesday in the effort to finish them, and something about that was so painfully odd at the moment. I wasn't reading to enjoy - I was reading to be done with it, something I could do if I closed the book and walked away. But for whom?? I'm not doing this as a job--
*stares into the camera like I'm on Abbott Elementary*
-- okay so NORMALLY I'm not reading as a job, but there's still this weird presence that a book must be finished. So I must ask - how do you all do it, stop reading a book that you aren't loving? Do you give it a few chapters? Do you give it to a specific percentage? Hate consuming - or even worse, meh-consuming - takes so much time, energy, and dedication that I wish to be done with it!!
Anyway, recommendations!
Are you the type of person hate consumes media? Or even consumes media that you halfway don't like, but you have to at least finish it to see how it ends? Generally, I'm not. When it comes to movies, I can turn it off and walk away. Television show? GoodBYE after two or three episodes. Video Game? Ain't nobody got time for 150 hours of hatred!
A book? Buddy, you best believe I'm not only going to read the entire thing, but I will have multiple text threads complaining about it.
I don't know what separates books as a media from everything else I can drop if I don't like. A part of me wonders if it's because for the most part, that book was a product of one person writing it, and a little part of their soul has been poured into it. (Yes, I know there is an entire team editing, copy editing, marketing, publicizing, and more.) I also wonder if it's a snobby part of me that is like "well the written word is simply better compared to that trash of a video game!" (except what kind of weird monocled-monologue is my brain having because brain! Your skin suit has three video game tattoos! Deal with it!)
When you think of movies or television or a video game, it's a whole group of people working on it. Even if it is an auteur, even if they wrote, directed, produced, and edited the entire damn movie, did they do all the costuming? Props? And in the television world, it's even more rare to have the solo artist do all the writing for a show because there is usually a writing staff. One exception off the top of my head is White Lotus, a show directed, written, and show run by one person. I'm sure there are others except I always think about that show because it was late 2020 and he could set the show anywhere and would have to fly out and live there for a while so like, setting the show in Hawaii so he could travel there on HBO's budget? Brilliant!
But generally, no creative endeavor is mainly made with one person. Even with all the writing being done by one human, as I said, there are so many other factors that go into it. Who is delivering the lines isn't going to just be the writer (though that would end up being one weird, fascinating one person show, if then). But for a book, everything, from the costume design to the dialogue to the props to the beauty of the words on the page is by one person. And the company helps to tighten it up and make it shiner, but the rock! Was carved! By one!!! (or two if it's two people writing - BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN). So how can I simply put down that person's work, and not finish it when they gave like days, weeks, MONTHS of their lives to it?
Easily apparently! I just don't know how!
I was reading two books last Tuesday in the effort to finish them, and something about that was so painfully odd at the moment. I wasn't reading to enjoy - I was reading to be done with it, something I could do if I closed the book and walked away. But for whom?? I'm not doing this as a job--
*stares into the camera like I'm on Abbott Elementary*
-- okay so NORMALLY I'm not reading as a job, but there's still this weird presence that a book must be finished. So I must ask - how do you all do it, stop reading a book that you aren't loving? Do you give it a few chapters? Do you give it to a specific percentage? Hate consuming - or even worse, meh-consuming - takes so much time, energy, and dedication that I wish to be done with it!!
Anyway, recommendations!
- So if you're on the internet, you've probably heard of Brian David Gilbert. He did a lot of videos about video games (my personal favorite is him trying to cook all the food in the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild game as accurately as he can [ie, no salt]), but he also does weird videos! About god knows what! And this week (last month), he came out with honestly a sweet song about..... a Pumpkin Cowboy. .... Look I've been singing it all week, I'm sorry, I had to share my suffering with you.
- I'm still learning how to manage my money, but I stumbled across The Financial Diet a few years ago, and honestly, they are delightful. They have wonderful articles, courses, and a Youtube Channel all focused on helping women (and well anyone) understand their money better. I used to skim their videos and now I watch basically whenever they come out?? Who have I become. One video I think about a lot is when the CEO/Founder did a video about what it took to buy a home (or, well, apartment) in NYC and included everything, like pricing, all the documentation she had ready to go... etc. I'm not looking to buy a home yet, but this was definitely eye opening to say that I might be able to if I wanted.
- And uh... in "hey did you know I have a podcast news," we recently had a four part? series where us and two others participate in a game called "We Used To Be Friends" where we had to solve a ~mystery~ that we all came up with together! Part one is available as a podcast, and episode two should be available soon. Or you can listen to... the other episodes lol.
- PS if anyone has extra girl scout cookies that, idk, you want to get rid of just give them all to me I forgot how delicious they are and I ate all of mine!!!! D:
- PPS The most books I've read is 170 in one year but one day I will hit that 200 mark!! But 365 is a joke relax in case you were like "That! Is too many books!"
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