Power of the Written Word

I was contacted a few days ago by Melanie Bowen, a contributor at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog. At first, when I heard who she was, I wondered why on earth she would be interested in writing a post for my blog of all places. I support her cause, of course, but I wondered to myself how I could help. I told her exactly that, but it didn't deter her, and when I read the post that she wrote, I realised just how well it fits into the theme of my blog (not that my blog really has a theme). Perhaps, actually, that is exactly why it fits in so well. A blog is not just there for a specific purpose. Well, it can be, but mine certainly isn't. It is there to write down thoughts, not caring who reads them. It is there to help those who might be feeling the same way, just to show them that they are not alone in the world. It helps the writer know that they are not alone in the world! And I can kinda see, especially after ready Melanie's blog, how that can help. So, I'll stop my rambling now and hand it over to Melanie.


THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD
By Melanie Bowen


There is a magical quality about putting down our thoughts, our
dreams, our hopes, out goals, into words--it makes them seem more
real, more concrete. From the experienced writer crafting his or
her story, to the mesothelioma treatment patient expressing hopes
and feelings, writing is not only the art of self expression, it is
a powerful tool in inspiring us. Writing helps in motivating us to
achieve our ultimate goals.

A recent oncology study indicated that writing for as little as twenty
minutes a day could help a cancer patient think and feel more positive
about their disease and increase their quality of life. Researches in
Georgetown University further found that expressive writing, which
involves writing one's deepest feelings and thoughts, can result in
immediate changes of thought about illness and improve the patients
perception of a better physical quality of life in just three short
weeks. There are other advantages of writing especially for those
suffering from depression or chronic illnesses.


Seeing is Believing

From to daily to do lists to grand "bucket list" life goals, seeing
the things we want to get done on paper helps us organize our thoughts
in a way that breaks our smallest tasks and grandest hopes into real,
doable steps. It makes them real, and motivates us from the inside
to go for them and relish the satisfaction of crossing them off our
lists. Don’t let daily task or a stated prognosis or treatment stop
from from living a quality life of wellness.


Hope during Hard Times

We all have good days and bad days. Writing down our good days reminds
us during the rougher times that good things happen and keeps us
hopeful that the present darkness will give light to dawn once again.

Writing the Blues Away

We can sometimes get 'lost' in our thoughts and writing is a way
out. It helps us see the ridiculousness of irrational fears, applaud
ourselves for the noble moments, and gives even the smallest thoughts
and actions a new sense of meaningfulness that lifts the spirits no
matter what one's life situation is.

Tangible Reminders

We learn by repetition, and when we write down our hopes and our
positive thoughts, they tend to stick more. Whether in a personal
journal for your eyes only or if it is a public blog on the Internet,
both serve on the behalf of positive rewards. What is stopping you
from starting your own blog today?

Our Stories Inspire Others

When we share our defeats, perseverance and our victories, we inspire
others to push through and make it as well. There was a time when
in order to get one's story out, one had to write a lengthy book or
submit a professional article to a newspaper. But in this day and age,
anyone can share their story online through a blogging website which
reaches a vast population of young and old. It is a powerful tool and
medium to mutually encourage each other and has proved over time hope
through the written word is contagious.

November Life

So as many of you may have noticed, I have been quite quiet recently. This is because, as I suspected would happen, I have been crazy busy! But, there are a couple of aspects to this busyness that I had not expected.

So Lara, what have you been doing?

There have been three things taking up most of my time over the last month. The most obvious one is work, and the less obvious are writing and photography. I have stuck to my NaNoWriMo plans, and am 33240 words into my novel. I still have 8 days left to write, and I think that I can make it if I buck up and start writing a little more than 2000 words each day. Which is totally possible, considering that I got to 25k by the 10^th of the month and have just been slacking since then.

In terms of photography, I have been participating in a mentorship programme as the mentee. My mentor is a Photography professor in the States, and I have been chatting with him over Skype 3 days of the week. I am given assignments to do and am learning how to use PhotoShop, and the experience has been great (Sausi, my tutor, is AWESOME), but it is also extremely tiring and leaves little time for other things, like writing.

Oh, and I have been packing. Not as much as I should be since I have had other things taking up my time on the weekends that I plan to pack (things like photo shoots or trips to PE or no packing tape being in the house). But there are a good number of boxes taking up the area under the stairs and we intend to move a lot of them to the new house this weekend. The move really is around the corner and it is uber-exciting, especially since I GET A PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO IN MY GARAGE! Plus, two giant gardens, plus a house-warming party where people bring gifts and things. Can you tell how excited I am? I don’t think you can. SQUEE!!!!!!!!!!

What have you been reading?

Oh yeah, I haven’t given up on reading completely. Though most of my books have, at this point, been packed into boxes, I left one out for my reading pleasure, and that one is the book that I recently received from Loot – “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” by Jose Saramago. I first heard of the book when I was doing my post-grad diploma and have been intrigued and wanting to read it since then. Unfortunately, it is not the most popular of Saramago’s work and has proved difficult to come across. But I found it on Loot and ordered it a couple of weeks ago. It arrived last week and I have been reading it (slowly but surely) since. It is definitely interesting, but not the easiest read. I will let you know what I think of it when I’ve finished, which will not be this month considering everything else that is going on.

What have you been watching?

Not very much – one movie and a couple of series when I am going to bed at night. The movie that I watched was Easy A, which I LOVED and will be writing a review of later this week (probably). The series that I have been watching are Dollhouse (I didn’t get into it when it started, but am loving it now) Misfits (during my lunch breaks at work – another review around the corner) and Castle (uber-awesome!)

What about that uber-awesome cat of yours with the incredibly lame name?

Oy! No being mean to Puddims L He’ll totally kick your ass! He is a superhero after all! He has been saving me from 8-legged monsters left, right and centre, occasionally jumping on my head at 4am to do so and attempting to do the same to Grant (though I stopped him). He is also LOVING the boxes that are around the house and thinks that they are there just for him. I think he is not going to be such a happy kitty in 9 days time, however, when he finds himself in unfamiliar surroundings. But there will be boxes (and spiders I’m sure) to keep him company, so he will survive.

And so my life over the last few weeks has pretty much been explained. What’s going on in your lives?

Revisiting Jane

As I have mentioned before a couple of times, I am a big fan of reading, and I have been doing a lot more of it lately. But after finishing with the David Mitchell, I didn't know where to go. Should I pick up another of his books? Should I go for a lighter read and pick up a Meg Cabot or Sophie Kinsella? Or should I put aside my preordained notions of authors and go by category - comedy, thriller, suspense or drama? As I was wondering about this, I stumbled across a book that was lurking in Michael's room and decided that it was time to give a classic a try.

I had one of Jane Austen's novel as a setwork in my third year of University, but I never really got into the language of Mansfield Park, and so it ended up gathering dust on my shelf, occasionally been paged through when it came to writing essays but ignored by and large. I had, however, heard great things about her writing and always intended to come back to her one day - maybe not through Mansfield Park, but maybe through Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, one of those books that has had a movie put to them so that I can picture the movie while I read the book and can understand the storyline better. I always figured that I would need the support of a movie to understand Jane Austen, you see. Her language just seemed to complicated otherwise. And then I stumbled across Northanger Abbey. There was no movie put to this work as far as I could tell, or at least not one starring a notable actress like Keira Knightley or Emma Thompson. I was completely on my own for this one, but I decided to take up the challenge.

I was less than five sentences into my reading of the novel when I came across a sentiment of the author that made me burst out laughing (leading to Michael staring at me from across the room with the look of someone worried about another's sanity.)

"Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard..."

Anyone who knows me and my experience with men named Richard, will have heard me say (possibly on more than one occasion) that the only sensible nickname for these men is Dick. There is none more appropriate, and the fact that Austen seemed to agree with me led to my already deciding that the two of us would get along. I paged through the rest of the novel, trying to even out my reading of it so that I could enjoy Austen for longer, and would regularly interrupt whatever it was that Michael was doing at the time to inform him of some witty or quirky comment that Austen had made. I found that there was no need for a movie to guide my reading, as I could picture all of the scenes in my mind, could hear the characters voices in my head, could read of the comings and goings of Catherine as though a dear friend were telling me about them. I suddenly found myself swept up in the lifestyle of balls and tearooms and didn't want to leave!

Unfortunately, the novel came to an end all too soon, and I did find bits of it a little predictable, but that didn't take away from my entertainment of the novel in the slightest. On conclusion of the novel, I made a number of decisions. The first was that I would have to read all of Austen's works, next in line being Pride and Prejudice (not because of the movie this time, but because I can imagine how humorous she must have made some parts of it). One of them is quite a bold decision, and it is one that is likely to flop completely or one that I may give up on along the line.

Upon reading the last few pages of the book, it dawned on me that this could very easily be made into a modern adaption for teenagers, something along the lines of 10 Things I Hate About You, as the characters themselves are teenagers (or young adults) and I can just picture how the story could relate. And so, as April is the month for Script Frenzy, I have decided to try and write the screenplay for it myself.For those of you who do not know what Script Frenzy is, you basically have to write a 100 page play, screenplay or anything of the kind in one month. I will update you all on how that goes.

Was it a dream?

"Meh," I exclaimed slamming David Mitchell's Number 9 Dream down on the kitchen counter. "Meh meh meh!"
It had taken me months and months to get through it, not because the book was boring or because I was trying to take my time reading it, but simply because whenever I picked it up, I was distracted by something coming on TV or by someone wanting to have a chat or by the bus arriving at its destination. It had taken me months to get through it and it had spiraled to a closing point far too quickly leaving my head spinning with everything that had happened in the closing page and cursing David (yeah, we are totally on a first name basis) for leaving me hanging in suspension without any hope of relief. What the hell, David?

My journey towards Number 9 Dream started about a year and a half ago when I picked up another book that David had authored and flipped through it frantically, giggling like a little school girl at parts, tearing up at others and bugging my boyfriend by reading him little tidbits whether he wanted to hear them or not, as I am prone to do. After putting it down, I had a craving for more, and made my way to the local bookshop only to find that they didn't have any more or, as was the case in the few that did, were selling them for some ridiculous amount that I couldn't afford to pay on my student budget. When, after a few months in Korea, I finally made my way to the English bookstore in Seoul, David was the first author that I searched for in amongst the chaos that was What The Book at the time. I scoured the secondhand section fruitlessly and finally gave in to the new books that stood gleaming on their polished shelves. There I found a small treasury of David's works, in amongst them Number 9 Dream. I hmm'd and haa'd about whether to fork over the cash and eventually decided that, since I had the cash to fork over in any case, it would be worth my while to use it on something I had been spent an age searching for. And so I dutifully paid for the book and lugged it back to my apartment in Cheongju where it then spent another age sitting on my bookshelf, looking at me wistfully, begging me to open it up and just glance at the treasures hidden within. Sadly, I wasn't feeling myself and wasn't in the mood for reading at the time. I decided that any book by David needed more than just my half-hearted attention - it needed my all, and I was going to wait to read it until I was prepared to give it that.

About two months before my swift departure from Korea, I opened the book up, intending to turn the pages as I had before. But, as I explained a little earlier, life tended to get in the way, and so Eiji's fragmented story ended up being twisted and intricately wound with my own fragmented life and reading of it. Nevertheless, I swooned over the unheroic hero, describing him and his exploits in detail to anyone who dared to ask what it was that I was reading and thoroughly enjoying every moment that I could spend reading the book. I opened it at every opportunity that I got, mentally encouraging and supporting Eiji both on his quest to find his father and in his efforts to hook up with the woman with the perfect neck - I just about jumped for joy when he finally mustered up the courage to phone her, and came very close to tears when he almost ruined everything. I giggled at the way he wove his words, cringed at the horrifying accounts of his dubious dealings and wept as he fondly remembered his sister and as the blame he felt for her death swept over him like the ebb and flow of the tide.

I could have read the book forever, slipping away into Eiji's dreamlike reality whenever the occasion called for it, but no. David had to tear it all down, leaving me with no hope for the future and no return to Eiji's world. Oh well, I suppose I will just have to find another of David's books to lose myself in. What a shame.

Addiction

I have an addiction. It is a problem most serious, and it is almost impossible to cure. You see, everytime I walk into a bookstore, I have to leave carrying something. It may not be something you have ever heard of - it may not in fact be something that I have ever heard of – but it will be something. Fiction, non-fiction, romance, comedy, sci-fi, fantasy – You name it and I can almost guarantee you there is one of every genre sitting on my bookshelf at this moment in time.

My addiction started off fairly small. I had few friends growing up and most of my time was spent delving into the worlds that books provided me with. I could be an it-girl at Sweet Valley High one day and a treasure-hunting teenager travelling the world another. The highlight of every week was going to the library where I could choose three – THREE – worlds to explore without ever having to pay a cent (unless the books were late that is, which they often were).

As I grew older, I started making more friends, but I still made time to feed my imagination. My reading pace sped up and I suddenly found myself racing through books faster than ever. Many of the friends that I made shared my love for reading, and suddenly books were being recommended to me.
“Have you read this?”
“What did you think of that?”
“What about these?”
My trusty library started failing me as it couldn't keep up with my demands for the newest, latest and bestest books on the market. Slowly my bookshelf, which had previously held only children's books and collections of stories and poems, started being built up with newer models, far more appropriate for my teenage self.

When I got to University, there was no doubt in my mind that English literature was going to be one of my subjects – how could I pass up this opportunity to turn something that I loved into a more serious path that would possibly even lead to a career? I was given the list of books and excitedly made my way to the store to buy them. I stroked their unworn covers, I breathed in their unread scent... and then I never opened half of them again. At university, for one reason or another, I stopped devouring books in the way that I had in my younger years. I found myself too busy doing other things and without the desire to pick up a book to read. Yet, though I wasn't reading them, my desire to own books would not relent.

At this point in my life, I have a rather large collection of books, and probably the vast majority of them have never been read. I am sitting with 40 books on my shelf and more packed into boxes on their way back to South Africa, and yet I am still buying them. To be fair, I have started getting back into reading, but I think that the privilege of owning books has surpassed my desire to actually read them. I think that someone needs to send me into rehab, and I think that rehab should be known as a library – a place where you can read all the books you want without having to own them.

In any case, I thought I would share with you some of my haunts in Cape Town – the shops that I have discovered feed well into my addiction.

Book Wise: This shop in Durbanville is run by a family friend. There are a large range of good quality second-hand books here, and you can always be guaranteed to find something to walk away with. The shop has a credit policy where if you bring them a book, you can take one with you or else you can sell the books for cash credit and come back at a later stage to buy to your heart's content.

Exclusive Books: This is, of course, where I go when I want the newesst of the new or the best of the best (basically, the books that I wouldn't be able to find at a second-hand store.) They do have an online ordering system, but there is just something special about walking into a bookshop and browsing through shelves, the special feeling that you get from finding something you have been searching for amid the shelves and shelves of books that are just not it. Unfortunately, with their rather steep prices, this is not where I do most of my book shopping.

Bargain Books: While this shop does not have the same reputation or sell books in the abundance of Exclusive, I have found myself wandering in more than once to glance through their '3 for R90' books. These are usually the fairly trashy sorts of novels that are not particularly intriguing reads, but it just so happens that these kinds of books are just what I need at times – no brainers that just solidify my love for reading and get me back into the swing of things.

Kafda: This shop in Sea Point is an absolute treasure trove of second-hand books and magazines. Sold for as little as R4 or as much as R50, I have found some of my favourite books at this store. These include The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (R10) and a number of other interesting authors like Kundera, Ondaatje, Archer and more. What I particularly like about the store is that all of the takings go to charity. This means that you shouldn't expect to be paid for any books you bring in, and the staff are purely volunteers, not paid for their efforts. It also means that you are contributing to something good everytime you buy a book there, even if it's as small as a R4 contribution. I highly recommend that any serious reader pay a visit to their sstore on Main Street. You won't be disappointed.

Finally, I have put up two lists: a reading list and a read list. Feel free to browse through them and let me know what I should read next or else comment on what has been read.

What have you been reading?