Words, words, words

Nickity Steez's post about writing got me thinking back to my writing days. I wrote fiction and was also a published poet in high school and college. Though I wore combat boots, ripped jeans, a biker leather jacket complete with zippers and chains, and sported some seriously bright fuschia hair in high school (I refuse to show any of you pictures), switching to radical feminist t-shirts in college, most of poetry was surprising non-angsty.

Many artists seem to feel that writers are not, in fact, artists. I beg to differ. Art originates in the mind and words can inspire and create imagery just as vibrantly visual creations. If you are an artist of any kind and you don't read, you are missing out on an amazingly vast and fruitful source of inspiration. I have always been a consummate bookworm and I read for the pure joy of reading and letting my imagination run away with the story rather than consuming knowledge (not that that's a bad thing either).

In the fast, furious, stressful, high-pressure world we live in, reading what I call "brain candy" or "comfort books" is a great way to relax your mind, use your right brain a little bit, and decompress. I've converted many a non-reader just by making them read the first Harry Potter book. No kidding. Tony Morrison calls the engagement of an open mind with another open mind "the peace of the dancing minds".

End of soapbox/stream-of-conscious crap.