Loony’s Musings: Why I don’t take notes while I read

I know a lot of bloggers take notes while they read, and I can understand why: sometimes you forget a comment you wanted to make in a review, or there’s a particular quote you have to note down. Which makes perfect sense! But I don’t do that, and I probably never will except for English class.

It’s not just bloggers who do this, either. A lot of writers take notes while reading because it helps with learning more about the craft. Again, totally understandable, and this is one instance where I probably would think about taking notes – but only if it’s a very specific book for research.

But most of the time, I just read; usually quickly, and usually curled up in my bed, without anything else.

And here’s why.

1)      Reading is my only time to relax

Seriously. When I get home from school, I do piano practice, at least two hours of study that night, and chores. Reading is basically the only time I get to myself, and I cherish it greatly. I read because I love it, and if I’m taking notes, it’s not going to be a fun process.

2)      My reviews are based on overall pictures of books

This is the reason I don’t often include quotes in my reviews. I like looking at the overall book – how it made me feel, what impressions I was left with.

3)      I would probably get distracted…like penguins chasing a butterfly

Let’s face it, I’m an easily distracted person. I tell myself I’ll take a study break and then wind up checking out awesome blogs for an hour (let me just say you guys are totally worth it). That’s part of the reason I don’t let myself on the internet between 7 and 9pm on school nights. If I were to take notes while I read, I feel like it would pull me out of the story, and that’s the last thing I want.

4)      I don’t want to analyse books too much.

We already analyse books to death in English class. Every single word matters. And in some ways, I appreciate this. But when everything is analysis, it feels nice to have a bit of freedom to read however I want.

And those are the reasons I don’t take notes while I’m reading! Do you? Why or why not?

Loony’s Musings: how long does it take you to read a book?

I did this online quiz thingy the other day. It tells you how many words you read per minute, based on this little excerpt thing. You can find the test here (and tell me what you got!).

My result was ­­675 words per minute. Which is apparently on par with college professors, but I’m not buying that. Although I WOULD look cool as a college professor.

(yes, this is what I think of when the word “professor” comes up)

This is the speed I generally read at. At this pace it says I can finish Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in about two hours. About 17 hours for the Bible (yeah, let’s not do that).

This raised a question in my mind. Namely, how long does it take me to read a book? I know that I’ve read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a day once. All the times I’ve read The Fault in Our Stars have been in 2-3 hours (but that’s pretty short). But those are both books I really enjoy. Sometimes, if I really hate a book, it can get to be like this:

And that’s when my TBR seems to overwhelm me the most. If something’s just too dense and you’re not getting through it, it can seem like you’re running out of time. For what? Fair enough, for reviewing books sent to you by publishers. But as bloggers we’re used to reading things quickly – when I don’t, it comes as a shock. For instance, it took me two weeks to read Fellowship of the Ring (in between a couple of other books).

Western society in general places importance on instant gratification, and if I don’t like a book straight away, I often see that as a flaw in the book. The majority of people today don’t have the patience for lengthy descriptions like that of Tolkien. I was reading it like:

Basically…anger, and then not caring anymore.

Also, I’m a skim reader. I often miss things, and if a book didn’t stand out to me, I probably won’t even remember the main character’s name. As bloggers we have to be constantly reviewing new books and keeping up with popular series’ and sometimes it can seem like I’m finishing a book only to immediately start another.

I want to make sure this happens less. I want to savour books more, and take some more time to really enjoy books. I haven’t hit a reading slump yet, but if I’m not enjoying the reading process, I know it will happen way too soon. At the moment I read about 2 books a week, what with everything else that I’m doing. Any more than that and I’ll probably be overwhelmed.

And I never want to stop loving reading and blogging.

How long does it take you to read a book? Do you have the same problems as me?

Loony’s Musings (4): Life of a Blogger

I got the idea from this post from Mel over at YA Midnight Reads, who wrote THIS AWESOME POST about her daily routine. So I thought I’d tell you all a little about my daily routine.

Prepare to be amazed.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, my alarm goes off every morning at 8. I know, right? How lucky am I? I check the internet until about 8:20 then run around for half an hour trying to find socks and hair elastics and something to eat. At a quarter to nine, I leave for school.

At 3:20, I walk home so I’m back at about 3:30. I check my internets again because six hours without it is really hard, okay? Then it’s piano time.

Most days, after piano, I stuff around for a while longer on the internet. Then I’ll probably read and write for a while, do homework, do my chores, have dinner and a shower (not at the same time), and the real school stuff starts. I don’t let myself on the internet between 8:30 and 10. It’s done wonders for my productivity. This is my official study time. Because otherwise I’ll never get off Twitter.

Between 10 and 11, I blog, read, and talk to my cat (I’m only half joking). Basically, I have a LOT of time on my hands. And now that I’ve become wise in my old age (haha), I’m learning to manage my time more effectively.

At 11pm, I go to sleep. For some crazy reason, I cannot operate on less than nine hours of sleep. It SUCKS. Good thing I live so close to my school otherwise I would have no time whatsoever!

So that’s generally my routine Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, I host half of the Aussie version of FriNightWrites, running sprints and writing myself as well. This is when I do most of my writing – it’s a great motivational tool.

Then on Saturday and Sunday nights, I waitress. During the daytime on the weekends, I do a bucketload of reading. This is because I try not to do schoolwork during the weekends.

So that’s my daily routine! School can get a bit overwhelming sometimes, and so do all the other things I have to do: interact with family and friends, learn to drive, practise piano, write, read, blog, read other blogs, waitress, do chores, eat food occasionally and sleep.

But I wouldn’t give up blogging for the world. I appreciate each and every person who comments on my blog posts, or likes them, or reads them (hello, lurkers!). Thanks so much to all of you – without you there’d be no point, would there?

Loony’s Musings (3): On Romanticising Mental Illness

I saw this post on Tumblr the other day:

Suicidal people are just angels who want to go home.

This troubled me. I’m not usually a troubled person. In fact, I’m a pretty upbeat, sunshine-rainbows-lollipops-chocolate kind of person. Hold onto your seatbelts, blogglings. Things are about to get Capital S Serious. No GIFs today.

Tumblr romanticises a lot of things, and one of those things is mental illness. That quote up there? Yeah, that’s damaging. It’s damaging because if we start talking about suicide as akin to heaven, people start to think that suicide is a good solution. People start to think their scars are beautiful, and that self-harming is a desirable thing.

We need to learn that it’s not the scars that are beautiful – it’s the people.

And this doesn’t just happen on Tumblr. It happens in YA fiction sometimes, too. Authors can make a story beautiful without glorifying self-harm, without making mental illness a beautiful thing, because it’s not. It’s awful, and it affects so many people in terrible ways.

But even if an author sets out to do the exact opposite of romanticising suicide, sometimes quotes are taking the wrong way. Take this one from Looking for Alaska:

“Thomas Edison’s last words were ‘It’s very beautiful over there’. I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.” 

Pudge (the main character) romanticises Alaska in the novel, but in the end this is his “fatal flaw,” as it were, and basically the whole premise of the book is that he mis-imagines her entirely. But people on Tumblr don’t know that. They use these quotes out of context to say that mental illness and suicide are beautiful things. This is what John Green has said:

 “The other attack going viral on Tumblr at the moment is that I write novels about broken people who need saving, and that this encourages the romanticization of brokenness…I write about broken people who need other people in order to go on. But those are the only kind of people I know to exist. We are all broken. We all depend upon each other for support and compassion. That web of interconnected yearning and need is essential to my understanding of human experience, and I don’t find celebrating it problematic.”

You can find the Tumblr post he wrote here.

Which is all well and good if you’ve had as much experience, and are as intelligent as John Green. Who’s to say that some teens won’t cling to the broken people he writes?

There’s also this one:

“If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” 

This is what Pudge (again) says about Alaska. He’s basically saying she’s a more interesting person because of how destructive she is, and while John Green may think he made this abundantly clear, that’s clearly not the case when you take a look around Tumblr.

(by the way, if you’re not aware, John Green is my favourite author. I’m just highlighting how easy it can be to take things out of context, and a lot of people have in his case)

Mental illness is not desirable, and it’s not beautiful. Sure, the people are beautiful, and we should be proud of them for fighting every day. But glorifying the illness itself is a million steps in the wrong direction.

YA writers out there, teenagers are strange creatures. We don’t like it when authors are condescending, but for the most part we’re pretty impressionable. Don’t write a character whose mental illness is a quirky personality trait. Don’t write a character whose mental illness can be overcome by having a boy/girlfriend. Don’t write a character who is beautiful because of their brokenness.

Mental illness is a huge issue among teenagers. I am so, so thankful to have my mental and physical health. But others don’t, and we need to portray them accurately.

And if you’re still reading this, thank you for bearing with me. I don’t usually talk about heavy topics like this, but it’s been something on my mind. I’m sure a lot of this isn’t very coherent.

Have a lovely day 🙂

Yours loonily,

Emily.

Loony’s Musings (2): 5 Best Things About Part-Time Jobs

I’m in year 11 at school. And I’m a big fan of money. School means I can’t work too often, but wanting money means that last year I did in fact get a job. I work two days a week for a total of 10 hours, and it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, both as a person in general and as a writer. So here are my favourite things about my job (which, BTW, is as a waitress at a Thai restaurant):

1) Awesome People

Working at a Thai restaurant means that most people working there are…well, Thai. But the wait staff I work with are a mixture of Indonesian, Chinese and Indian – there is also a chef from New Zealand. The diverse cultures and experiences they bring with they are really amazing to hear about, and I feel so privileged to know them! There are so many things they’ve told me where I’ve thought, hmm, that could go into a story somewhere…

2) Unintentional eavesdropping is great

UNINTENTIONAL. I SWEAR.

(maybe sometimes I accidentally-on-purpose listen to conversations that are really interesting, but only because I’m about to take their order and I HAVE to stand there)

People talk about really odd things, sometimes. Once I overheard the single phrase “strawberries and sausages” and I thought, DUDE, that’s an awesome name for a title. I spent the rest of my shift thinking up a plot to go with it (if you’re curious, MC’s father is on death row and his last meal is strawberries and sausages). In that shift I also broke a few wineglasses but that’s another story.

Unintentional eavesdropping is a great part of my job.

3) Money to buy books!

You may have noticed that people work in exchange for money, which they use to purchase items. This money can be used to buy BOOKS from my local DYMOCKS, which is AWESOME.

4) I get to use my Irish accent to confuse people

There’s a story behind this one. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know that I’m doing Irish accents for drama at school. Occasionally I use this accent on new customers to see if they’ll think it’s legit. Unfortunately, I used it on a regular customer last week and they were like, “how did you turn Irish?”

But at least they thought I was Irish, right?

5) Doing something different

Often as a writer things can get alarmingly…well, not boring, but something like that. If you’re just sitting down to write every day, what are you going to write about? You’re experiencing nothing. That’s not to say that you have to experience everything you’re writing about, but certainly there is a LOT of influence from “the outside world” in my writing.

I mean, I’m not a big fan of the outside world. I’m a big fan of what Neil Gaiman says:

But, you know, sometimes the outside world has good things to offer. Things that inspire and influence your writing.

For all those reasons and more, my part-time job is great, and I love it.

What about you? Teens, do you have a part time job you love…or hate? Adults, do you have a day job to support your writing? Does it help you?

Loony’s Musings (1): Back to School

So this is a new feature I’m going to be doing. I’ll post every Wednesday about what’s happening with my life, and sometimes it will relate to reading and writing.

This year, I’m in year 11. Which for all you Americans is junior year (I think?). Anyway, my second-last year at school, and I am simultaneously this:

And this:

But seriously, I’m REALLY excited for this year. My subjects are as follows:

English

Extension English

Society and culture

Drama

Music

Legal Studies

Studies of religion

Do you notice something about that list? NO MATHS. NO SCIENCE. I AM FREE. Bye bye, silly subjects!

I’ve also got amazing teachers and great classes this year. Basically, I’m excited!!

What I’m reading at the moment:

– Fellowship of the Ring (for school)

– The One and Only Jack Chant by Rosie Borella (for review)

What I’m writing at the moment:

– This blog post (ha!)

– A second draft of my WIP, The Daisy List

Books I’ve read recently:

The Intern by Gabrielle Tozer

Shift by Em Bailey

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

What I’ll be blogging about next:

– The recent Harry, Hermione and Ron fiasco, and why books belong to their readers

Right so anyway, back to school.

It’s going to get more hectic for me this year. Year 11 means that next year I’ll be doing my HSC. Next year I’ll also be an adult.

But it’s okay. I’ll still refuse to tie my shoelaces. I love school for so many different reasons: I love the people, I love learning, I love the teachers who are all so supportive, and I love the community. I go to a nerd school (Penrith Academic Selective High School as titled by the snobby principal – we nickname it PASHS). Going to a nerd school means that we have a giant chess set and also that the biggest behavioural problem is hacking the school computers or creating homemade tasers. It’s a fun place.

What with school coming back, I’m going to have less time to read. In fact I’m going to have less time for everything. But on the weekend, I got the chance to create an awesome blog button, which you can grab here:

<a href="https://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/&#034; target="_self"><img src="”http://i1348.photobucket.com/albums/p732/emily_june1/BlogButton_zpsfda70fae.png”&#034; alt="”The Loony Teen Writer”" width="125" height="125" /></a>

And it’s all thanks to Cait Drew’s tutorial on how to make a blog button. Thanks, Cait!

Maybe, when it gets further into the year, I’ll be looking for a co-blogger. But right now, I’m just glad to see my school friends again and start working on projects that interest me and make me more aware of the world in general.

And that’s it for the first Loony’s Musings. I’ll be back next Wednesday to talk about my part-time job, and why it helps with writing!