Musings on Reading and Writing
What I’m reading:
I say reading - I take a sentence a day. From one of them. Today was an over-achiever day if I’m honest as I read a paragraph of each and may even have ran into an entire chapter at one point.
My Admin manager Laura is a wild and hungry reader, who read multiple books per week and I‘m fascinated by this. My Mum also reads every single night - popular books in the UK. My Dad’s a dipper. Some of my clients are wild readers, collecting books and sets of books and listening to audiobooks and stacking up their Kindles with delights and recommendations. Some are in book clubs. I think I can say with some confidence I will neither lead or join a book club. Although my rebellious nature now wants to start one, which is frankly ridiculous but I like that about myself. Absolutely ridiculous.
I’m a slow reader, and a hyperfocus reader, and I also love reading. A book read, is rather more of an event for me than something I do consistently. I get into hyperfocus on some books and read them really quickly, then don’t complete a book for months. Or send a noth on chapters one and two then pick it up aain and speed through 400 pages in 4 sittings (Grace Jones’ memoir anyone?) But I surround myself with books and notebooks and make a creative nest for myself. every single day.
Fran Lebowitz said in her Martin Scorsese Documentary ‘Pretend it’s a City’, reading is a matter of taste. Meaning preference. Or a trait. This is not a direct quote. And her preference is to read voraciously and she needs an apartment with a reinfocred floor, that can safely house her 20,000 some books.
Much is made of reading, like you can’t be a good writer if you don’t read and or listening to audiobooks doesn’t count; like people who are vision-impaired, or find concentrating on looking at things aren’t really taking in the stories. Or there’s something virtuous about reading and reading high-brow material. I have heard a man, again whose name escapes me as do most of the names, call bullshit on that. A writer.
To write, you need an imagination and a way to record and assemble your words, stories or musings.
Hanif Kureishi uses his son to record his words.
I found both these points of view terrifically liberating as a writer. Especially the Fran phrase (watch the documentary - it’s fabulous, not least for Martin Scorcese’s unfettered delight in the phenomenon that is Fran). I think I love that she, an obsessive reader (and a writer) places no virtue or superiority on reading. She references it as her particular proclivity.
And so I write.
I wrote this missive on a Pomodoro Zoom gathering with my writing host partner, the poet Carolyn Hashimoto, who has been running a daily 25 minute Pomodor write with the Ordinary Magic writing cohort and other writer invitees, in order to give space; to or perhaps force the writer to manifest. And tonight 7-9pm we are on week 5 of the Writing Matters: The Business of Actually Writing Creative writing sessions. I look forward to this every single week - the poet guides us through prompts with music and timed-writes, then we talk about or perform what we’ve written. It’s like a rad salon with a magical play list, and I write and dream up some wildly creative stuff.
I have a screenplay/novel (poet Carolyn told me to CALL IT HYBRID AND GET ON WITH IT) in play, and a mystical mysterious love letter to Zushi with a working title of ‘Who is Johnny Shonan’? My husband even got involved, as the poet also suggested that I collaborate with AI and put my prose through it to see what comes out, so my husband gave me 4 options to do that, and you can see some of the results on my @sarahfuruya Instagram.
Who is Johnny Shonan?
I have another thing cooking. A project we can all get involved in. Inspired by everyday writers and the love and generosity of humans - even the ones who don’t think they are creative.
Making the mundane sacred.