Obsessively Found and Lost

In Jae’s never ending awesomeness, she came up with the idea to do a post on the things she fills herself with, the things that inspire her. Her original post is here; please do review it in all its awesomeness. My first “Things I Love” post was on Victoria Frances’ art, here.

For me, Jae’s challenge to do a series of posts on those things in which you fill yourself, your days, and your thoughts with, translated to an itchy thought I’d had in the back of my mind for some time by then. I’d read a quote by someone who had stressed the importance of knowing one’s obsessions and surrounding yourself with them (as long as they aren’t serial killer obsessions or linked to a mysterious chain of fires) within reason. Doing this would keep your muse healthy, and for all the writers out there, it would help you continue writing with your own unique voice with simple ease.

Jae’s challenge gave me a simple way to examine my life and pull out my obsessions, one by one. It even gave me the ability to look at them in depth.

Last Thursday night, I had a realization hit me. An obsession, and its importance for me. I sat there, having finished reading an awesome book, basking in its awesomness bookness and then began picking out which book I would read next.

Then…. WHAM!

I picked out my next choice, but put it down and didn’t start reading it yet.

 

This happens to me. A lot.

I find that I don’t discover things about myself in any conventional sense. Instead, what should have been subtly obvious in a normal, yeah-everyone-already-knew-that-about-you-Daph-way pops up in my life suddenly in the middle of some internal or external issue/conflict/melodramatic tragedy that makes for such a stark contrasting background against what isn’t obvious to me, that I finally catch on.

Maybe I knew part of it already. Maybe it was in my subconscious, swimming around, awaiting the time to spring itself on me. But until it’s so starkly shoved in front of me, whether by someone else or by my own inability to avoid the truth, I finally get it.

Then I kinda do this:

Oh… that makes sense…

Duh!

You’re such a moron, Daph. How could you have missed this; I mean REALLY?!

 

Last Thursday night, my discovery was not that I love reading, not why reading helps me, but how reading helps me and how much I depend on it.

It was just a simple thought, but one I’d never really gotten around to thinking.

As you all know, and will soon know much more about as I catch you up with the past 2 months in blog-ish detail, I am currently in Hotel Hell. I named it Hotel “Hell”, for a reason here people.

It sucks.

 

So why do I love reading?

(By the way the “Thing I Love”, just in case you haven’t caught on yet, is Reading a Good Book).

You might find the title of this post a little strange, off topic, and well… random.

But that’s just what reading a good book does. It allows me to find myself while I’m lost.

I’m lost in Hotel Hell.

I have taken to reading a book every day, at an alarming rate, immersing myself consistently in a world where I can handle what’s going on; blatantly allowing myself to ignore my real surroundings and bleak current circumstances just a little every day.

I have found my refuge by being lost in a series of fictitious worlds, the emotions within their pages, and the emotions stirred inside my heart and imagination.

 

I have always read to get away. To go somewhere else. Somewhere where death threats and threats made with physical blows that others recognized and fought against were the only kind of threats; the kind the main characters could actually fight back against. Somewhere the good guy didn’t have to be perfect to be loved, including by him or herself.

Reading was something I didn’t burry inside myself. Instead, I buried myself in reading.

But never like this.

Reading has become an all out obsession since December 1^st, the day we moved here because we had nowhere else to go.

The library sells hardback novels for 50cents and paperbacks for 25cents. The thrift store sells books for 75cents. The second hand bookstore down the street a few blocks sells books for half their price when you bring in old books you don’t want and marks down the price on all books even without a trade on your part.

My siblings piggy banks went missing overnight.

Just kidding. They’re in storage, where I can’t get to them.

 

Don’t fall over but, I’ve been trying new authors, sometimes liking them and sometimes grimacing and not getting past the first 50 pages. But I’ve been trying, ok?

If there was a Bookaholic’s Anonymous, I’d never attend!

I, Daphne, have become a book reading, obsessive freak. And I intend to stay that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But… as Jae so aptly pointed out, what you take in, what you fill yourself with, fuels you. And so in return, my imagination has been practically abuzz with new, twisted, and awesomely strange ideas for my writing.

(Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Mwahahahahahaha)!

 

By the way, I’ve had to force myself not to end one book and then pick up the next. Anybody ever noticed that it’s just as much fun reading the book as it is taking it all in once you’ve finished reading it? I give myself a good five hours before I’m allowed to start another book.

Okay, so most of the time. Kind of. Well, at the very least an hour.

 

What are your obsessions? Are you obsessed with reading? If so, what does it do for you; why are you obsessed with it? And how long do you go inbetween books?

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