Read. We’ve all heard it said a million times, but what is often most repeated and true is the thing most easily neglected. When I meet a struggling writer the first thing I ask is “What have you read lately?” The typical answer? “I don’t really have time to read.” Ah, well, there it is. You don’t read, you say? Then you don’t have time to write. If you are not reading, you are not prepared to write. It’s that simple. Reading is to a writer what exercise is to an athlete. Without a steady diet of reading we lose our core as writers. We get lazy, and flabby, and our abilities erode. It’s not just that reading is important, it’s essential and it needs to be your first love. Think back to your childhood. Did you imagine you would become a writer before you learned how to read? No, of course not. It was your love of reading that led you down the path in the first place. What was your experience as a reader, and why and when did you learn to read? Can you remember the first book you read? It was a child’s book, no doubt. What about your first novel? In recent years I revisited my childhood in a therapy session and in doing so I rediscovered my foundation as a writer. Every writer has their own story. This is mine. I’m three years old and we’ve moved into a home on the Tulalip Reservation. The year is 1970. My father’s friend from work moved into the house across from us and we are over visiting. They have a daughter named “E”. She’s six months old. She crawls to me and latches onto my leg. She won’t let go. Usually I don’t let other children near me, but this girl is special. I don’t mind the contact at all. We form a connection, a bond that will shape the rest of my life in ways that still astound me. From that moment and throughout the rest of my early childhood, we are an inseparable pair, E and I, I and E, E and me.
I’m five years old. It’s the summer of 1972. E brings me her favorite book and wants me to read it to her. I’m five years old. I don’t know how to read. E’s mother explains this little fact. E’s disappointment rankles me, it shames me. I should know how to read, right? I’m the older brother, the one she looks up to, and I can’t read to her. I decide that I will learn how to read that book to her, so I ask my parents to teach me to read. They give it a shot, but my parents are twenty somethings and they figure that school will take care of this issue. I’m about to start kindergarten, after all. The problem is, in 1972 in Marysville, WA, kindergarten is where you learn your ABC’s, not where you learn to read. Salvation comes in the form of my illiterate maternal grandfather. You see, my grandfather was an abused and neglected child. His father was a drunk and worse. My grandfather grew up in a shack with a dirt floor. His little sister died because they had no medical care. He never went to school. He never learned to read. My great grandmother escaped from this horror of a marriage and took my grandfather to a logging camp. As soon as he hit his teenage years he chopped wood and learned to drive heavy equipment. As an adult he made a living as a heavy equipment operator. He helped build the North Cascades Highway. Early in the morning they would lower his cat over the mountainside from a crane and swing him back and forth while he dug away a nook on the side of the mountain to fit himself into, and once this was accomplished they set him on that shelf and he spent every drop of sunlight digging out a road that day. When the winter snow came, he went to work at the lumber mill. Despite all this work, my grandfather remained illiterate. He could not read. He could not write. He didn’t like this fact at all, so as he got older he decided to teach himself to read. He was too proud to take a class, but he would order the newspaper and stare at it for hours. He asked questions on the sly, and slowly but surely he developed the reading skill of an elementary school child. This might sound unfortunate, but for a five year old boy who wanted to learn to read, my grandfather was just what the doctor ordered. He had the patience that my parents did not have, and he knew what it was like to struggle with new concepts and words that made no sense. He was the perfect teacher for a five year old boy. He had never been able to teach his own son to read because my uncle died at the age of thirteen, before my grandfather could sound out his first sentence. When I was able to finally read a book to my grandfather, it brought him a sort of delight I never understood until later in life. He died just two years later, only weeks after my seventh birthday, so I was never able to communicate my gratitude. I’m five years old and addicted to reading. I’m devouring all my children’s books. My first books are literally small, a collection of tiny books in a tiny case called “The Nutshell Library” by Maurice Sendak. First is a boy named Pierre who doesn’t care, ironic for a boy whose chief fault is being so concerned about everything that he suffers from anxiety. Next is Chicken Soup with Rice. I’m reading once, reading twice, reading Chicken Soup with Rice. Next was The Real Mother Goose, and of course I’m reading E’s bear book to her every chance I get. She’s happy. I’m happy. I can’t stop reading. It’s naptime at kindergarten. They give us milk and put us down for afternoon nap, but I don’t want any part of it. I want to read my book. Mrs. Cook teaches us the ABC’s, but I’m already reading. There’s a boy named Rodney, who wears a suit and tie to kindergarten. He’s sensitive and nosey. He notices that I’m not napping, so he calls the teacher over and tattles. She tells me to nap. I tell her that I’d rather quietly read. Rodney, the poor, sensitive kid, takes it to heart that I can read and he can’t. He begins to cry. My teacher calls my parents in and explains that kindergarten won’t do me any good. Best to just let him stay home and skip to first grade. E is ecstatic when she finds out that I can stay home and play with her instead of going to school. The reservation is not a great place for a child. The poverty and alcoholism create a special kind of misery for adults, and the children suffer consequences as a result. I’m not going to go into what happened to those two children, the boy I was, the girl that E was, because that’s a book of its own, and one that doesn’t have a happy ending. So let’s skip a year ahead. We moved away to a place my brother and I still call “The Floody House”, and we call it that because it flooded. Again, a story for another day. During this time my teenage uncle noted my love of reading, so he took it upon himself to read to me. I’m six years old, sitting on the top of my grandparent’s stairs, listening to my grandfather lecture my uncle about the book he’s reading me. “The boy is too young for that stuff! You’re going to scare him!” My uncle insists that I’ll be fine with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’m enthralled, of course. I don’t want him to stop, because I have to find out what happens next. Moreover, I’m incredibly curious about Turkish Delight. What is Turkish Delight? I ask my uncle. He doesn’t know. My parents don’t know. My grandparents don’t know. My great aunt tells me “It’s Applets and Cotlets.” I don’t believe her because I eat them all the time and they aren’t that special. They’re just apple and apricot jellies smothered in powdered sugar, which isn’t anything amazing and mysterious like “Turkish Delight”. Years later, I revisit the question as an adult and realize that my great aunt was essentially correct. I’m seven years old and I decide I’ve had enough of children’s books. I want to read an adult book. My father laughs, but when I continue to inquire he hands me a battered old copy of Treasure Island which I gobble up in a matter of days. The next novel I tackle is Captain Blood and as I devour it I wonder who it was that made this book. Rafeal Sabatini is his name. He’s my first “favorite author”. Over the next few years I will read The Sea Hawk, The Black Swan, and many others. They’re easy to read, clearly written, and perfect for a young reader, though none of them really left a mark. Last of the Mohicans did, and I read all the others in the series. The Pathfinder, the Deerslayer, and so on. Natty Bumppo, aka, “Hawkeye”, is my kind of hero, but when I hit eight years old I read The Hobbit and my life is forever changed. Tracking through the deep forests and shooting deer and Frenchmen with Chingachgook, Unca, and Hawkeye is one thing, but a world full of goblins and elves is quite another. I’m utterly enthralled and I want to stay in this fairy world forever. It seems better than my own, even if it’s far more dangerous. After all, I’d rather live in a terror filled fantasy land than cope with my actual life. My father’s depression and drunkenness, my parent’s impending divorce, well, it’s just all too dreary. Fire breathing dragons, on the other hand? Yes, scary, but there’s a magic arrow for that problem. I’m nine years old, and I crack open Fellowship of the Ring. It makes no sense to me. Where is Bilbo? Where are the Dwarves? What is so dark and mysterious about this silly magic ring? I finish the book, and I’m completely confused, yet obsessed. I read it again, and again. Then I finish the trilogy, and read it again. I’m in trouble at school because I bring the books with me everywhere and read them during class. I can’t stop reading them. It’s all I want to do. The Lord of the Rings consumes the next three to five years of my life. Even though I read other books, I never stop reading them. I can’t. I buy everything related to JRR Tolkien. I know who he is. He’s the man I want to be. I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to create what he created. It’s my destiny. I’m a writer because I loved reading. Before you write, you must read… forever. JM Prescott
2 Comments
11/29/2018 08:05:55 am
I agree. Reading is an essential part of writing. You can see how other people use the language and develop characters. As I child, I read a lot but as I grew older and had to work, my reading slowed considerably. I was lucky to read one book a year. After I started writing, I started reading again and realized what I had been missing.
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2/20/2019 12:12:59 am
This was quite a moving blog. A saw in it my love for certain stories, but the lives were so sad. Your grandfather learning to read reminded me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, sitting on her father's lap and putting it together. There are easier ways to learn and I real admire someone who does it all on their own. Bravo! You were lucky to have your grandfather share with you the way he did. I think reading pulls you out of many circumstances and teaches us how there are alternatives along with just plain entertainment. I usually carry a book, or now my Kindle that carries many books, I am never without a story.
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