Cereal packets and serious fiction: reading the world around us

A month of ‘learning from books’ comes to a close.  I think I learned further things in the process of choosing what to write about.  An unexpected bonus.

I normally write a ‘content post’ right up to the end of the month – but I’m sneaking in a bit of reflection on the month instead.

The surprise is not that we learn from what we read – the surprise is just how many different things we can read, and learn from.  And why I chose to contemplate what I haven’t covered, as well as what I have.

Nearly 30 posts, and I haven’t gone near a lot of the writing that surrounds us everyday: newspapers, telephone directories, cereal packets, advertising on buses/bus shelters/taxis, personal letters, and much else.

I realise you may have been waiting for my insights on Bran Flakes packet advertising of the 1980s.  But despite it being in front of me pretty much every day at that time, I couldn’t tell you.  Sorry about that.

What has been fun has been amassing a set of topics – and then discovering how life situations, day to day, meant that I could pick up those topics and connect the past learning with current scenarios.

Because, as writers, there sure are days when it flows – and days when those topics just remain on the ‘to do’ lists.  We may have a great piece to write, but that added kick from where we find ourselves mentally, day to day, can mean the post starts to sing.

I had a couple of ideas ready – and they may come to fruition another time.  But I also drew on what was happening right then – as well as noticing the process of reading over my own writing, and working out what to think about it.

I noticed more ‘reader reaction’ when the titles were about well-known books: The Hobbit, Little Women.  Makes sense.

But I also enjoyed those times when a post connected with someone, through what they’d lived or experienced themselves.  I love finding posts on others’ blogs where I have a ‘me too!’ reaction – delighted if I can offer a little of the same.

One of the trickier bits has been deciding how to term what I was finding, and enjoying, in what I read.  I decided on separating ‘things’ – moments of feeling understood, bits of information – from style: techniques authors used that I really loved.

So you won’t be surprised that there’s another list building with writing techniques that impressed me.  But I’ll leave that for a little while.

When we think about writing that has impacted us, it’s often come at a time of life when we needed the encouragement, the sense of greater perspective.  It’s not surprising that what we read in our teens, at that time of forming ourselves, and our opinions, can stay with us.

Still, I seem to have written about my teens more than I thought I would.  I don’t think I’m off to pull out the diaries just yet.  But I have a plan afoot to have a little more dialogue with that younger self – and how my teenage environmentalist self would view me now, and the world we live in.