Reflections on Reading and Writing

How reading can inspire us to write and the not so secret tool to concentration

It is currently 4:46pm, Friday afternoon. The sun is setting and making the bricks outside my lounge room window glow a brilliant orange. There’s not much sunlight left to go, but I am somewhat captivated, as I always have been, by the final moments of brilliant, beautiful patches of light. I sit on the blue lounge chair, legs folded beneath me, my laptop settled on my lap, fingers typing, trying to find some of the inspiration to write that seems to have been missing for quite a while. I have sat myself down, laptop open, and let myself think of something to write. Finally I have the time, the space, and the mental capacity to write. And it is not a miraculous epiphany, but something has miraculously helped it along.

A little video that came up on my YouTube suggestions. “Disney Oldies Playing Downstairs (Disney Silver Age)”. The title captured my interest, and accompanied as it was, by a gorgeous still from Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland, I found myself clicking the video. The Disney opening credits sounded, muffled and accompanied by soft sounds of rain. Alice was sitting lazily in a field of Daisies, and all of the sudden I had the desire, which has been lacking this week, to read. The soothing sounds of music from classic Disney cartoons, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Aristocats has now been playing all afternoon, and for a while I felt delighted by the simple act of reading.

The connection of reading to writing will be made, I promise (though presumably it’s a pretty natural and understood connection). For now though, I will dwell luxuriously on the pastime of reading. It’s a pastime I love, but am not always motivated or energised enough to undertake. I am often envious of those who seem to have the capacity to read for hours on end, as I used to be able to do throughout childhood and teenage-hood, the golden age before social media rudely disrupted my adult attention span. Lately I have been coming to the ends of my weekdays feeling drained and reading has felt like too much thinking for my brain to handle. I gravitate towards screens instead of pages. YouTube primarily. Lifestyle blogs.

Funnily enough, through YouTube I found a gateway to concentration. I have found a doorway to desire for relaxation through reading. The video is just a picture of Alice in her field of Daisies, beneath an enormous dark tree, a butterfly mid-flutter towards the right of the screen. But this simple (stunning) picture and the music that accompanies it (did I mention the rain?), is just the right amount of magic, just the right minimal amount of stimulation, just the most adequate mood for relaxation and reading, that I have been inspired to pick up my book once again. And I read for a good chunk of the afternoon, completing the chapter of Little Women that I had been putting off finishing.

And there are many of these kinds of videos out there. To summarise the secret of these videos, is to say this: They create the perfect, cozy atmosphere for reading and other activities that require concentration. And so I read my chapter, and loved it, because it felt so luxurious, so cozy, like being near a fireplace, and somehow the subtle extra noise enabled me to concentrate.

I read Little Women, young Meg learning that there is more to life than pretty dresses and lavish mansions. That to be happy is more important than being rich. Each chapter is accompanied by little life lessons like this, usually taught by Marmee, but often also learnt through the little life experiences these little women are accruing. Such simple messages, but so wholesome and warm are they and the characters, that Little Women is understandably a classic, and a must read. I feel grateful to be reading it, and to have such a gorgeous edition. I read it on the plane to Victoria and throughout my trip so the fondness of my memories there and the fondness for the story and characters are in turn making the book a lovely experience for me.

And now to writing, for my afternoon of reading has given way to typing. I have been wanting to return to writing in this capacity for quite sometime now, but finding inspiration as well as the energy required to write has been escaping me. This afternoon, a Friday, feeling elated with the weekend ahead of me, I knew I wanted to write something. And so I began with a solid reading session. How are these two connected you may ask (or perhaps already know). For me, the connection only became clear once I began my chosen afternoon activity of reading on the lounge with my magical cozy YouTube ambiance.

Reading is often what inspires us to write. Through reading, many things in our mind and understanding of writing are expanded. Most obviously, our vocabulary is expanded, but also our ideas about the world are expanded as we listen to another’s perspective (in the case of Little Women, another time period’s perspective). This perspective may be different or aligned with our own, allowing us to add to our worldview or debate in our minds with the author, forging a stronger sense of who we are and what we believe. In a more subtle way, though perhaps obvious to some, we can learn how to write from what we read. We can witness and adopt writing styles that we like, ways of stringing words together, the flow of syntax. We writers should read widely, for the benefits of reading to our writing are numerous. We should read to write.

And I just so happen to be an aspiring writer, of poetry and of prose. So I should read a wide variety of both. After having read my chapter of Little Women, I felt enriched, as well as soothed. A gentle reminder was given of a lesson I already hold to be a wise truth, that a desire for money should not outweigh our striving for a life that brings joy and contentment. I felt placed in a world, a context, outside my own, and yet was so engaged that I felt connected to the characters, sitting along side the sisters as they listened to their mother’s wise counsel. I felt inspired by the way that Louisa May Alcott used language, words, to transport me to the world she had created.

And so, if you noticed, I began this piece of writing by letting you into a world perhaps outside your own. A Friday afternoon in my world. Through my writing I explored an inner world of peace, contentment and coziness which I had not felt this week so far. Thankyou for coming along with me, and allowing me to feel that.

I will leave you with the words of Disney:

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do.

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Faith steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.