u/Noelle-Spades

For the first time in years I haven't really been writing or reading the work I make on a daily basis, I still look at my drafts, write new ones, edit them, the who shebang, and I don't have a specific project I'm working on, no scripts, novels, or what have you, but I still felt like I should be writing a lot of the times when I wasn't. Not so much in a guilty "I should be more productive" way, but like excercising muscles to make sure they don't atrophy sort of way.

So, somewhat recently, I decided to read some books I read in childhood again. Not so much the Diary of a Wimpy Kids and Captain Underpants, moreso the literature novels and book franchises that made me fall in love with reading and encouraged me to write my own stories. With adult eyes I understand a lot of the decisions better, why some things stuck with me more than others, and I had a lot of things recontextualised for that I was able to appreciate more. I started because I wanted to reread The Hunger Games in preparation for the most recent prequel and things sort of snowballed from there.

Books like Bud, Not Buddy, Walk Two Moons, and Bridge to Terribithia were amongst some of the first (relatively) pictureless books I can remember reading on my own, they shaped a lot of my tastes and writing style, and getting to reexamine and appreciate them has given me so many new ideas and thoughts on how to approach certain subjects and of techniques I could use. And it also encouraged me to read books I 'missed out on' that I didn't look twice at as a kid; I'm picking up on fantasy and sci-fi novels now, when I mostly ever read realistic fiction and black literature before. That or books with at least four rewards on the cover.

And honestly I feel like the writing I've pumped out since then has only improved for it. Which isn't to say I wasn't reading before or that I exclusively read and write for younger audiences, I think it just helped to be reminded of what gave me that spark to write in the first place. And also to see what's considered timeless and see what modern releases are being placed on the shelves with those books.

Anyway, do you have any books or pieces that inspired you to pick up writing, maybe something you'd recommend to expand by tastes or that taught you a technique you could use in your own? Would you have any general book reccomendations you think writers can learn from while reading? It doesn't have to be general audience or children's literature. :)

I worked at AMC for a summer between college semesters and one interaction that stuck with me is when I was taking someone's order for snacks, asking them about their memberships, rewards, the whole ten yards, and right as I was getting her change, she smiled at me and asked if I believed in the word of Jesus Christ, something about how Jesus loves me, or the word of God, the theatre was busy and this was years ago, I don't remember what she said verbatim.

I was really confused, because I saw her interract with all my coworkers and talk with them, but I was the only person she pulled out this pamphlet from her purse for and tried to hand off. I told her I wasn't religous, and she gave me a quiet "Oh,", stuffed it back into her purse with dozens of others, and walked away with her husband.

After that, while I was telling my coworkers about it when we were closing, one said that she probably thought I was Muslim since I was wearing a beanie that covered all my hair. (She wasn't the first customer to do this either, despite the fact that my benie only covered my hair, it didn't resemble any religous garbs as far as I was aware). And that just confused me even more.

I remember she and some other people would often try to leave their brochures or business cards at the registers and I'd have to walk around and peel off whatever stickers and throw away whatever cards and it was almost always some sort of weird, lowkey kind of cultish thing on it, that or an unlicensed summer camp ad. It was the strangest thing, please tell me I'm far from the only person who's dealt with this.