Lying in my bed last night, my laptop open beside me and a book on my chest, I realized just how many wonderful writers there are and have been. I knew this before, but reading Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, the made the fact even more clear to me. Annie Dillard, my current favorite authoria, is a prime example. My mother actually turned me onto her books, and my dad agreed that I should read them. Being young and dead set on filling my brain with "young adult literature" (namely the Twilight Saga, Harry Potter 1-7, and various other series). So I held off on Annie for a long while. In the mean time I started develpoing a taste for classics and better writers (John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Homer, Stephen King). To my happiness, my writing improved. I strayed farther away from contrived plots and dry characters. Writing became a practice more so than a hobby.
If only I had known what gems lie in Annie Dillards prose. I would have read her much sooner. I feel like I should be writing down every other sentence, posting her quips and sayings on my facebook status, and memorizing for later use. I have a feeling that as I age I will develop profligacy with literature. I can see myself as an old woman taking long morning walks in the brisk New England fall and then returning to a surfeit of books. But no cats. I'm allergic.
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