I was able to read 5 books in April. There were two non-fiction books and three novels. I learned something from every single one of them and now I’m ready for what my next big goal is going to be towards my passion. The books are: Outliers, Wild Mind, The Giver, The Pleasure of my Company, and Shopgirl. Some short, some long, but they all had a realness to them.

Right now I am in the phase of improving my writing. There are a couple of ways to improve one’s writing. I could either write as much as possible, write everyday, and believe it or not, read as many books. I have learned how people put together their sentences, use commas, colons, semicolons, and whatever punctuation known to man (and woman). I was constantly jotting down words I wasn’t familiar with (which is a lot), so I can go back and remember them for my writing and in everyday speech. I got a better idea of how people let their voice be heard through the story they were telling. And, the sure pleasure of sitting down and getting lost for a couple of hours.

Here is a quick report of the books I read.

Outliers:

I written about Outliers a couple of blog post ago. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get away from fiction and see how somebody else breaks down the story of success and how it is really achieved. Go back and read the post about Outliers if you want my take on the book.

Wild Mind:

I picked up this book about creative writing from amazon via a blog post from, Write to Done. The book was super easy to follow, because of the short chapters that had stories and lessons learned from experiences in life by the author. She also had writing examples to help get one out of their mind and approach to writing a writer has never thought about doing. Ironically though, I have done quite a few of the lessons the author suggested, but there are many of them that I am going to do and also make into blog post, essays, or even short stories in the future.

The Giver:

While I was in Half Price Books with my nephew looking for books for him to read, I saw, The Giver, on the book shelf. I have been trying to remember this book for some time now. I read some of it in middle or high school and couldn’t put a memory on what it was called. Once I saw it in the book store, I knew it was what I was looking for. The book is about the perfect society and people obeying the rules. The story turns as the main character realizes what the world is about and goes crazy because he doesn’t want to live the way he was brought up. If anyone wants to read it, I’ll send it your way.

The Pleasure of my Company:

I read this book because I saw it on Zen Habits a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know Steve Martin wrote novels, I thought he only acted in movies and wrote screenplays. But, as I kept reading this novel I got a greater appreciation for the man and was jealous of his writing voice, but not the story. I didn’t like the main character much, because he wasn’t much a man of action, he just thought and thought and thought about shit that wasn’t true, his perception of reality. A good book for a crafty writing voice, but not for the story.

Shopgirl:

The words, the description, the story, the way everything worked together in a 130 page book was intoxicating! I read this book in one day and have come to realize this is the best way this book is suppose to be read. I want to see the movie so bad, I don’t think it is going to be bad, because Steve Martin also acts in it. I wrote down so many vocabulary words from this book and The Pleasure of my Company that will keep me enlighten for a couple of months.

So, I read 5 books and loved every bit of the challenge I gave myself. This month I will switch it around and keep it to 2 books and write like crazy. I am going to write a couple of days for 4-5 hours in one setting. This should be fun and am looking forward to where it goes. I have no idea, but it is cool that I am finding different ways to challenge myself, and to grow and get better as a writer.