Instead of Writing, How About Reading?

For those of you who keep up with my posts and caught Friday's bit about overworking, let me just say a few things. First, I stick by my words. Sometimes it is better to get some reading in to satisfy our need for creative exploration. Second, the things I wrote during that period of overload were not my best works. You will not be seeing them. With any luck, nobody will. Third - and this is the most important of them all - when you overload yourself, make sure you don't get sick.

A famous ancient philosopher once said, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." Unfortunately, I did not do that as much as I should've. Belatedly, I did "check" myself in the sense of finally going to a doctor, who has a pretty good feeling that had already "wrecked" myself to some degree. Nothing permanent, nothing crippling, but nothing good or worthy of an origin story. To make a long story short, it was 97 degrees out here and I was in the doctor's office, watching her set up my prescriptions for treatment of walking pneumonia.

On the bright side, I can walk around, which is helpful. On the downside, it (and most every other activity) quickly exhausts me. Even typing up this post is a bit of an ordeal. However, I have decided to take the other part of my own advice and do the reading thing. I will still be going to my writing workshops if I can muster up the energy, and if I get inspired, I will write things. However, my primary goal will be to read things - particularly, things I have already read that really got my brain thinking in a different way.

And on that note, I will offer my Big List of Things to Read, a.k.a. - Reading in the Time of Pneumonia. Take them or leave them - these are what I will be going through:

Non-fiction:

• Liar's Poker, The Big Short, Boomerang (The mortgage crisis in three books), Michael Lewis
• Natural Obsessions, Natalie Angier
• Money Makes the World Go Round, Barbara Garson

Fiction: 

• Skeleton Crew, Stephen King
• Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
• Thieves' World, assorted authors

I hope to be back Friday with some actual advice on writing. For now, I have to go and pick up a big pile of pills. Stay healthy and keep on writing.