How do writers read fiction? We are encouraged and urged by everyone writing how-to, what-to-do articles and those speaking to writers’ groups to read, read, and read. Read in your favorite genre, read out of your comfort zone. Read new writers, read the classics.
        My 60-year-old Virginia (state, not her name) sister recommended this book as one I’d like, not because either of us IS a round-heeled woman, but because it is a humorous look at older women. (Google the author and title to find out the meaning—if you don’t know—of “round-heeled woman.”)
        How do writers read fiction? I read at bedtime, as many of you do, sometimes only a chapter, or, if the chapter is long, only a section. I also keep a bedside journal as many of you do, from which these notes are taken. I will leave out the specific times, but the dates may be instructive.
        How do writers read fiction? I lift out phrases or sentences that resonate with my experience. In the notes below, my thoughts will appear in italics.
 
November 2
p. 60 – JJ quotes Mark Twain: “‘Whenever I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down and wait until it passes.’” This is my kind of advice.
 
November 28 
A good beginning line for a story/ novel/ essay/ poem: “Setting up housekeeping in your mother’s house is (or is not…) (finish the sentence). Since my mother died, I have moved into her house. As yet, however, I have not “finished the sentence.” One day soon, though…  
 
p. 169:     “…all I had to do was become my mother.”  
 
p. 171 “During my growing up years, I decided I really did not love my father.” For moi, it was my mother—consciously [8th grade] and daddy sub-unconsciously.
 
November 29
p. 182 – JJ took her dad to a girlie show! “I had finally been of use,” she said.  I can’t imagine going out with my dad as on a

date as an adult.  Where would we have gone? Perhaps if Mom had died first, we could have, though I doubt either one of us would’ve thought about it, or asked the other one to go out.  A related thought: Just like I would never have thought of presenting A. with a case of beer during the course of our marriage. He mentioned this at our post-divorce counseling session as something he would have liked me to do. Do all boys [sons] run away?  
 
December 2  
p.271 quoted by JJ:   Willa Cather:       “‘…Human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; they can never be wholly satisfactory, every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them.’” Wouldn’t this be a good epigram or theme for a story?  Courtship seeks a relationship; marriage (oftentimes) repels one.  
 
December 5
p. 270 “…Why is it that aging is so often accompanied by a loss of curiosity?--…”  
 
December 6  
p.271 – “I think we just get tired, and people who write junk about us, because contentment makes better greeting cards, mistake fatigue for serenity.”
 
        Penultimate paragraph: “Life just keeps coming at you. Make no mistake, it’s out to get you and in the end, it will. But every so often, you can catch a piece of it—make it do what you want it to, at least for a little while. You’ve got to stay alert, though. Heads up so you don’t get caught off base, though if you do, what the hell, it’s not the 9th inning, until it is.”
 
        Let your reading inspire some writing.
  
        Next time: This writer’s gall: Critiquing published novels from today’s writers.