I Don't Like Reading Non-Fiction (A Boring Title for a Boring Subject)

I really don't. Textbooks left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to nonfiction. It just all seems so dull. Why should I be reading something boring and educational when I could be reading about wizards and magic?

That being said, I found This is Not a Writing Manual by Kerri Majors while I was surfing the web a few months ago, thought it looked interesting and informative, then immediately forgot about it. Because it definitely sounded like a writing manual.

Kerri Majors (a woman I've never heard of before) is the editor and founder of YARN, the Young Adult Review Network (a website I've never heard of before), an award-winning online literary journal of YA short stories, poetry, all that jazz. (And let's just say I'll be looking into that.)

This is Not a Writing Manual is intended for young, aspiring writers to give them advice about the writing life. Perfect for me, right? I'm a young aspiring writer and I know nothing about the writing life. But I've always been more than skeptical of taking advice from other writers. The thing about "creativity" is that it works differently for everyone. For some people it happens in numbers and science, for some it works in music notes, and others it works in words, but it's never the same for everyone. Having someone else's voice in my head while I write tends to hinder the creative process.

But, reading this book, it's not giving me advice on how to write, or even how to live. It's giving me an honest look at someone who's spent her life writing. And that's something I've never had.

The introduction was a bit of a downer, honestly. It talked about all the bummer advice people gave Majors as a teenager when she told them she wanted to be a writer. "Marry well", "Write this or that, it'll sell better", "Better get a day job." Stuff I've heard. Turns out it's all true. Doesn't that suck.

The first chapter took a better turn, for lack of a better word. It talked about drafting, the stage of the writing process I happen to be trapped in. This is actually stuff I've heard too: write every day, rain or shine, editing is huge but it's not everything, yaddah yaddah. What I was surprised by was this topic turning up: time management. Where have I heard that before? Turns out that buying a planner and setting aside time to write in the midst of her busy schedule helped Majors manage her writing and the rest of her life pretty well. I've never been big on planners, but maybe I should start.

The second chapter talked about my favorite part of writing: reading. The chapter was titled "Writing Without Writing." This might come as bit of a shock to some of you (and by that I mean all two of you reading), but lots of reading actually goes into a book. Tons of research has to be done to stay accurate. But it's not only that, either. It's reading a book that gets you in the mood to write what you need to. I did that just today, actually, read some adventure novel to get the action-y juices flowing. I'm a bit of a light-weight when it comes to the factual research of things, though. According to Majors, though, some people actually find research fun. Go figure.

It's different, finding a book about writing that seems like it was written just for me. It seems like this could be a brutally honest read, though. Not just all the ups but all the waaay downs of writing too. I expect a lot of groaning and unshed tears while reading this. The goal is to finish reading this book by the end of this year, but as to how many pages a day I'll be reading? Fifteen sounds pretty good, but chances are I'll read two hours every Saturday instead. Maybe I should get on that planner thing now...