I remember my father was an avid reader who delighted himself in the written word. When he was not following other activities, he was in his small study sitting on a wooden chair near a window with book in hand reading.
The enjoyment of reading showed on his face.
For him reading was more than an exercise of study. It was a viable medium of entertainment. You see my father was of the old school.
Born when the printing presses were the main source of the written communication. The beginning of the twentieth century.
By necessity he read for learning the basics at first. The ABCs, math and science were the primary school topics of the day.
Sometime during his upbringing and after receiving instruction from his primary teacher, my father discovered a liking to reading about historical figures.
This was through his social studies classes. He also found the power of connecting the alphabet to form words and numbers that related to everything around him.
He became literate. realizing he could understand everything written that fell into his hands words and numbers had meaning.
That was the case for those fortunate people of the time in the back of his woods.
Making Progress
After progressing from his basic learning, he moved up in his reading and into deeper subjects.
He evolved well into what later he felt was to be his calling to evangelize and spread the Gospel of Jesus in his native Guatemala.
This is when I met him. You may wonder why I say it like this. I met my father when I was born didn’t I? Yes and no. As a child a little girl yes, I met my dad and knew him as my father, and he knew me as his daughter.
It was not until I was in my teens that I noticed his love for reading and appreciated how knowledgeable he was in his craft. It was because he devoted a good deal of his time reading on the topics, he would be speaking about to the church congregation.
Have a Simple Method
The notes in the journals he kept helped organized the order of his reading and studies. These in turn provided the sources from which he made his discernments and conclusions.
In the seventies and before then money was hard to come by. When you came into possessing it naturally you thought long and hard on how and where to spend it. For my father, the choice was a no brainer.
After paying the house bills and for food, he would buy another book, a magazine, or a publication about his favourite subject.
The wooden shelves in his small study proudly displayed the collection of books he acquired over the years. Most were read and reviewed more than once by him and my mother. Scribbles and notations in their handwriting were in many of them.
Finding pieces of paper within their pages with written observations ideas and quotes was not unusual, it was like keeping sticky notes the way we use today.
My siblings and I still marvel at his love for reading it seems a couple among us inherited the love.
How then can we grow our enjoyment for reading?
Fast forward to today this question can be a challenge. Why? For the simple reason we are constantly bombarded with information. Written and otherwise. Not a terrible thing in the least, however full of daily distractions.
One must call on our creativity and imagination to produce ways that will motivate us as much as the distractions are distracting. We must determine ways to help us have fun with reading.
Make a visit to your favourite bookstore
How do you remember feeling upon entering a bookstore? I am thinking of one of those physical stores strategically placed within an attractive shopping plaza somewhere near or not so near home.
You have arrived prepared to browse through the isles these isles are meticulously organized by categories and gender, a large array of beautifully made books and magazines with glossy covers and inviting descriptions.
Walking through slowly you read titles from home remodeling and decorating to learning a foreign language, say Spanish, to the latest romance novels to the Religion section.
There you pause suddenly engulfed with the fragrance of fresh brewed coffee coming from the side of the bookstore where a wink from a comfortable armchair invites you to a cup along the copy of that magazine on parenting you were beginning to read.
Relax and Gather Information
So far, your time within these walls evoke relaxation the gathering of information in a relaxed and pleasant manner.
You may have come only to browse and get the year’s agenda but as your eyes feed on the attractive printed publications, you remember how much you would enjoy reading.
Going ahead you select a few short stories for yourself and a couple novels for the evenings after the dishes have been put away, the better half is fast asleep, or the children have gone to bed.
Now you have connected the enjoyment this visit has brought you with a physical undertaking for reading. Your memory will store this visit with all the pleasantries associated with it. This will cause you to visit, read and repeat.
Can the online bookstore visit be as pleasant as the physical bookstore visit?
Yes, it can. In diverse ways it certainly can.
More than likely, you have heard the expression that says, “A man’s castle is his home.” This is true for a good majority of us. For in our home, we devise the places that make us the most comfortable, loving, and private.
We can browse online at a pace we choose sitting comfortably somewhere in our kitchen, home office or bedroom, with beverages and snacks conveniently within reach.
Searching online we can leisurely gather all sorts of information all the while reading and absorbing. In a comparable way we do the same while browsing the physical bookstore isles being careful to remain focus on the written material we seek.
Internet browsing and reading can be a very enjoyable activity even more so nowadays with the enhanced technology available.
Nice Viewing and Reading Tools
High quality resolution imagery, adjustable font sizes and styles, adjustable monitor light for day or night, desktop sizes and quality the previous century may only have dreamed about.
This is true and applies as well when we are browsing online and reading from an office environment with the given differences influenced by the type of office, we find ourselves in.
Remembering that the subject we are on is about how to enjoy reading. It helps to associate the enjoyment of reading with an environment conducive redundancy allowed, to enjoy it.
This creates a pleasant memory, which creates a pleasant motivation, which provides us with encouragement to carry it out and get it done.
Developing the Habit
Once the habit of reading grows and develops the routine becomes second nature, one day you realize “I enjoy reading” your imagination takes flight. Finding pleasure in reading comes for your mind and heart creatively. Your skills improve your knowledge increase.
Learning how to read starts early as early as nursery rhymes. It will be up to us how much or how little we will make it an active part of our daily routine.
I say this because unfortunately not everyone in the world today enjoy reading. Reading as the priority it should be and spend extraordinarily little time in this effort.
For my father and mother too, I should describe it as a passion, sacrificing other items of less importance to them to purchase the written word for learning increased knowledge or simple pleasure.
They would have been amazed browsing through the bookstore isles virtual or not while sipping the aromatic fresh brewed coffees and lattes we take so much for granted where we pay no more than frivolous attention at best.
In Conclusion
The enjoyment of reading I believe is a cultivated habit purposeful and intentional. One that is of immense value for the rest of our lives, from when we learned to put our first sentences together to becoming the next Hemingway as a result.
If you have not done so, begin by setting a goal for yourself choosing a topic to read you are likely to enjoy. Whatever the topic may be, nothing harmful, nothing dark, but something you will enjoy.
Each day prepare to be in a quiet and pleasant setting, comfortable with the printed or virtual work in hand surrounded by what brings you imageries of pleasant and relax and finish the reading. If a book one per month, if an article two per month, if a short story be it of similar time. And do it to the finish line.
Is it True that to be a good writer you need to be a good Reader?
I do not claim to be an expert and able to answer this question inequitable but let me answer based on observation and common sense.
Unless you have already covered most of the information on any given subject, and you know clearly in your mind what you will be writing about, reading needs to be an active part of a daily routine.
Identifying the subject and the type of writing we need to read to expand our understanding is the first hurdle to conquer.
I find it a huge step forward once I can set a goal on what is it, I need to concentrate my reading. Prior to that I find myself fumbling around.
Almost feeling stress unable to put into words something brewing in my mind. An idea about something I would like to write but do not know quite yet how to bring it together.
Here what I do is to steadfastly keep on reading.
This to feed my mind the habit on purpose while keeping a note pad in hand for when ideas start to flow.
Here is a Suggestion
I buy inexpensive notebooks with lines on white bond paper size 14.9 cm x 20.1 cm in a variety of cover colours and using a permanent marker I print a name on the cover which tells me what my notes are about.
Having a few notebooks on a variety of subjects, an orange colour notebook name “Spiritual” where I wrote notes from Bible reading and video recorded messages from speakers I respect.
I wrote notes on their teaching about topics that helped me to write a thirty-day prayer journal I have prepared for publication.
A green colour notebook marked MA where I write notes about affiliate marketing training.
A notebook colour yellow marked ANGEL containing my handwritten fictional story in que for publication. HIDDEN ANGEL.
I find looking over my collection of notebooks containing my handwritten notes is a part of me which motivates me, organizes me, keeping my focus on reading to improve my writing.
I leave you with this question:
What Other Benefits Would You Say Come from Reading?
Cheers!
Priscilla Hudson
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