Okay, there's this thing called a meme. And I've been tagged with this meme by one of my closest friends, author Natalie R. Collins. The meme I have to blog to is "10 Reading Secrets." Then I get to tag 3 other people. Let's hope I can get to 10.
1) I don't read grown up books. Without fail, my favorite books are the same ones I loved as a teen... or even as a child. I have a life-long love affair with Newbery Medal winning books. My favorites: Adam of the Road, Jacob Have I Loved, My Side of the Mountain.
2) Despite making up 40% of the market, I hate romance books. Most romances are silly, predictable, insipid and boring. The heroines drive me bonkers with their shilly-shallying and I find the men mostly unattractive. Yes, I realize it is supremely hypocritical and ironic considering the over-the-top romantic content in On the Edge. Let the flaming begin.
3) I read books over and over and over and over. The ones I like best, I read again and again. I had more time to read as a kid, so books I have had since then are more likely to be read a zillion times. My "Most Read" books are probably C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader which I have read around 37 times and My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George which I have read at least 33 times.
4) I read when I'm sittin'on the can. It's warm; I can close the door and it's the only place I can ever get any peace. My husband and oldest daughter also read in the bathroom, but what you may find amusing is that my 4-year-old ALSO "reads" in the bathroom and has since she started potty training at two and a half. My middle child doesn't read on the toilet. Go figure.
5) When I was in 5th grade, my teacher had a contest for who could read the most books. I read 538. I was TIED with Christian Bauman, a new boy (whose mother was my doctor when I was a teen. Small towns!). The only reason I tied him? I spent the last 2 weeks of 5th grade in the hospital with peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. I read 11 books during those 10 days, but since school was over before I could return, I never got to write them down. Counting weekends and vacations, 538 books over a 272 day school year (180 days + 36 weekends + 20 vacation days) is not quite 2 books a day.
6) I had trouble learning to read. I will never forget the humiliation. When I get stressed out, I can't think. My first grade year, my dad was drinking (used to have to go into the bar to get him), my mom got PIDs from her IUD. Some people died, but my mom was only in intensive care for weeks. She only NEARLY died. And of course, I was too little to go in to see her, so I couldn't even speak to her. Anyway, I fell apart and things just would not click. I went from the highest reading group, to the middle one, to the lowest one, to sitting alone with the teacher while the other students sniggered about how smart I thought I was and how smart was I really? If it hadn't clicked in the last half of the year, I might have been illiterate.
7) I'm a writer. As you see above, I had trouble learning to read. I am a volunteer at Peninsula Reads, a local literacy organization. I tutor math.
8) I named my middle child after Anne of Green Gables, but it's my oldest girl who is the most like the Anne from the book... except without red hair. She is heedless and wild, sensitive and caring, she means very, very well, but gets into awful scrapes. She reads and reads and reads. I find that my very best friends are "kindred spirits," women who grew up with Anne of Green Gables and still love her.
9) I read very, very fast, but I am not a speed reader. I read about 2 to 3 times as fast as most other people. I don't read every word... more like every third word. I get my eye around a word, seeing the first part of it and then infering the rest from context. I'm seldom wrong. As a result, and because phonics never meant a darn thing to me, I tend to badly mispronounce longer words... because I never actually read every letter, never see every syllable. It's embarrassing.
10) My house is overflowing with books. I have books on the stairs. I have bookcases everywhere. I have books in my kitchen. When I first got married, we had to move right away (military crap) 3/4 of what was moved, not counting furniture was books... that was 11 years ago. My dream livingroom has shelves, floor to ceiling, on at least one wall--the one that's 24'. THEN I might have enough room for all our books.
11) Phonics sucks!
Now, to tag people...
Miss Snark - a very snarky (and amusing) literary agent. Miss Snark just wrote me back, declining to participate. She's got a bad backlog. But visit her anyway.
Martha O'Connor - author of Bitch Posse
Barb Huff - a prolific and talented writer of Christian young adult fiction.
Okay, I cheated. I tagged 4 people. Maybe one of them won't answer. here's #4.
Janet Elaine Smith - a very prolific authoress of hard to genre-ify fiction.
For all the new people who come to my blog (I hope), you won't find any of my books in print. Some of my very early work is at Private Ice along with various other heroes of skatefic. As for the actual good stuff, it is in a hidey hole hoping that someday my agent hires an assistant who gives a darn about it.
ta ta!
dej
