What Do I Want to Write?

That's always the biggest question, isn't it? And yet, for as many words as I've combined together, through keyboard or pencil or pen, it is still a difficult question to answer. Why do I write? Because I have to, I say, and so say the writers. The philosopher in me has to doubt: and he has to doubt that I actually want to write.

Because I have to doubt anything I think I want.

I can only want what I have been exposed to. I can only think I know what I want based on my experiences, which are based on my circumstances, which alas, I have not entirely decided on my own. /enddigression

One key to understanding what I want to write is understanding what I want (or "want") to read. Lit Reactor had a post today about lazy readers ("lazy fuckers") who are too dependent on Amazon. I am not one of these readers. I thought it curious that the writer of this article assumed their readers all depended on Amazon for their next book purchases as opposed to going to a bookstore. Is this really the state of the book-buying public? Perhaps that shows my own bias: I am fortunate to live in a city with a plethora of stores: one Myopic would be more than enough for a single town, yet I can go months (years?) without having shopped there due to going to other bookstores.

Likewise, I travel, and when I travel, I make it a point to visit bookstores (see: St. Louis / San Francisco).

You find books you never knew you even wanted to read. It's the same with record stores as I've made this point before: you don't know what you really want and being surrounded by all of these possibilities is so much grander experience than relying only on Spotify or Amazon. /enddigression

Year in Reading 2015

End of year lists. A bit played out and commenting on them being played out is too. But I think it's important to look back on what this year meant for me, literaturely. Along with starting to volunteer at Open Books as well as working on an event with Asymptote (stay tuned!), I've been writing more, sometimes for money, sometimes creatively, sometimes not at all (more often than I should). But the bones of a novel came out of it. If you're reading this blog and are interested in reading a surrealist tale about language, identity, memory, and perception, with indulgent experiments in form and more namedrops to philosophers, writers, musicians, and other pop culture references than I probably should have made, I will absolutely let you read it while I figure out where to go with it next.

But enough about what I wrote, here is what I read: