Some Reading/Writing advice from a Bibliophile

I am an avid reader. At present I finish at least one or two books a week. I have been an avid reader since the third grade when my teacher introduced me to the fact that books allow you to leave this reality and enter a new one.

Let me explain a bit. When I was younger my father took a job in a small town, I mean small as in maybe 200 people. It was a farming community so most of my classmates lived in the country. In town, where I lived, there were a few dozen kids. You get to my age group and we're talking maybe a half dozen. Needless to say it was boring, especially for someone like myself who was always questioning the world around me and my place within that world. Yes, I questioned my place in the world at a quite young age.

In my defense it was the late 70s early 80s. Back then it wasn't that uncommon for parents to start pushing for kids to figure out what they were going to be when they grow up. (Just a spoiler, I still haven't "grown up." I collect anime figures, love manga/anime, and watch cartoons just because I can.) I was born Generation X, the forgotten generation, the FAFO generation, I'm sure you've heard the different names we've gotten through the years.

Back to the point, in today's educational system I would thrive in the respect that the internet gives almost unlimited access to information. Any whim, idea, or "crazy" I could/can dream up I have the ability to actually research and learn about. In the 80s this wasn't a possibility, especially in a small town middle of nowhere North Dakota. Yes, I said North Dakota, a state that most folks can't find on a map or think is no different than South Dakota. No Mount Rushmore ISN'T in North Dakota. As crazy as it sounds there are folks who don't know the difference. I blame the educational system but that is neither here nor there.

As someone who was thirsty and dying for mental stimulation I tended to space out during class, doodle, and generally just not pay attention. SQUIRREL! I wasn't disruptive, that wasn't acceptable behavior. I was however bored. My parents were great when it came to allowing me to have many things that allowed my creativity/thirst for knowledge to grow.. The biggest issue was a lack of availability. I had watched PBS for years imitating and attempting to find the last number because, darn it, there had to be a last number.. Everything has an end why didn't numbers.

So I'm stuck in North Dakota in a town with more pet dogs than people. Entertainment is walking around town, deciding if I can ride my bike to the next town over (9 miles), playing in the cemetery, or walking the train tracks that were still actively used. In comes Miss Sible, my third grade teacher. She was amazing. She saw how bored I was with the normal class work, how it was always completed within minutes. I'm not a genius (well, alright, I can score genius level on test but let's be honest, those tests are a joke), at least I don't consider myself a genius. I'm smart but not going to solve world problems with some miraculous invention. When I get an idea or concept that I find interesting I will learn everything about it I can until I'm bored again. She recognized this need for mental stimulation as well how miserable I actually was.

See when you have someone that is a bit smarter than many of the folks around them, or at the very least has a curiosity about the world beyond the county line, failure to recognize that need, that hunger leads to some rather unfortunate conclusions. I bear scars that will never fade, self induced. I understand that need to feel something, even if it's pain. I also understand the fascination of seeing your own blood dripping from your skin as the razor splits that fragile yet impenetrable membrane. There is a point when such a person has to ask themself if the reality they are living, one that they hate but feel completely trapped in, is the only reality or if there really is something beyond. When a person feels unable to connect to those who live around them it creates feelings and emotions that no amount of logic will kill. Of course, there's the knowledge that even if you think there is a connection those same folks will use anything you give them as a knife to carve out your very soul while twisting that blade for maximum damage.

That was my life at one point. I felt like there was no one I could talk to, no one I could trust that wasn't out to hurt me. I guess I was broken, or at least that's what we would term it as now. I didn't feel broken, I felt like someone who had used duct tape and glue to hold the pieces together, all before I had even hit puberty.

Back to third grade and Miss SIble. Somehow she saw the cracks, the need within this young lady attending her class. She took me to the library and handed me a fantasy book. "With this you can travel to other worlds." Honestly I doubt that is what she actually said to me but that's the message I have kept. She was right. I rode dragons, I swam in oceans of mist, I even moved to non fiction and was able to go to Europe, Asia, countries that were just places on a map. When Miss Sible intruduced me to the joy that is reading I flourished. I devoured every book in our small school library. I asked the librarian if I could get out of print books. It was as if an entire world opened to me that had been shut behind a bank vault door before.

Understand, this didn't stop all of my self destructive behavior and I still actually don't particularily like people. I've been backstabbed so many times with the knife twisted for maximum pain that I struggle to trust anyone, even family. What Miss Sible did for me was stop the desire to experience what was potentially beyond the veil.

I was a cutter until I was in high school. My poor mother tried. Each time she found my razors she took them away. She hid the razors in the house but I always found them, found a way to continue my almost obsessive love affair with cutting. The difference was that reading, being able to travel to lands that were just inside my head, made was I no longer wished to die. Cutting was cathertic, a way of expressing the pain I felt inside on the outside. External pain is fleeting, internal pain isn't.

After working my way through the small library at my school (I even read the dictionary and encyclopidias) my parents decided that any books I wanted they would allow, within reason. Obviously Letters to Penthouse still wasn't allowed but when it came to my personal library it was rather impressive, at least to me. My doodles were no longer just spirals/lines on the page. I sat and studied my hand laying on my desk attempting to draw the bones as they might look. Characters, landscapes, robots started to grace the margins of my class notes. Runic drawings and created writing flourished next to notes about the next history test. I even attempted my hand at a few fantasy stories. I still have all of those writings, maybe someday I will pull them out and actually use them in a book.

So what is my point with all of this? Well, it's this, books are not for you to see yourself they are supposed to be a way to escape your reality. That's correct. Anyone who cries about "not seeing myself" in a book has completely missed the point. When you sit down to read a book, especially fiction, the point is supposed to be allowing you to travel someplace you have never been. If the author has done their job (which I will never say my books do but I hope it happens) you are transported from this reality to the reality of the story. Even if that reality is based within real places the point is that it isn't the reality you know and experience. There are differences. Perhaps the characters, like in Harry Potter, have abilities and talents that don't exist in this world. Perhaps the architecture, think Bioshock, is completely different. That's the point.

Don't get me wrong, there are books out there that are designed for a person to put themself into the story. Most of them are intended to get you to change your opinion by seeing yourself as part of the story. The reality, they're propoganda designed to get a person to potentially change how they think about something, to push ideas and narratives, not to entertain.

So what? What's wrong with propoganda? What's wrong with wanting to see myself in a book? Again, I come back to the failure of the education system to actually educate and create idependant thinkers. If your teachers taught you that you should see yourself in every story, every book they failed you. Teaching that you are in every story creates unneccessarily emotional responses, even in places when logic and clear thinking are required. It is no shock to me that anxiety is at an all time high. I doubt it is going to change unless we take back our provinance to tell the education and political systems that our emotions aren't their's to play with. We know that policies based off emotion rather than logic fail. We've known this for decades and yet people still vote with their heart instead of their mind. We know that students graduating from high school and college are not as smart as previous generations. They think they are. They can't logically step back and hold the mirror up to see what they are doing is hurting more than helping. Voting with emotion instead of actually looking at the potential ramifications of policy fails everytime. This is exactly how California and New York have ended up being so expensive you need to be a billionaire to live there. The internet has been both a boon and poison.

Don't misunderstand, I see the irony of typing this out on a computer to share on social media, something that is both a powerful tool and the scourge of civilization. I'm from a generation that can take or leave social media and the internet. We didn't grow up with it so it isn't the life blood of our social lives. The fact that studies have found that college literature majors didn't realize they were required to read a book from cover to cover is one of the things I blame not just the education system but also the internet for. (https://heidelblog.net/2025/07/the-literacy-crisis-in-america-english-majors-cant-read/ ; https://theweek.com/education/college-students-read-books ; https://www.thecollegefix.com/even-ivy-league-students-are-struggling-to-read-whole-novels/) I grew up with the understanding that when a book was assigned you read that book. Now we have a nation, and even international issue, of college students who can't read an entire book, can't read anything longer than 100 words, or can't read at all.

Okay Miss on your soapbox high horse, what are writers supposed to do about this? Honestly, nothing. Do nothing unless your goal is to write garbage that looks like an AI spit it out. Instead of railing against readers get involved in education. Vote for candidates that recognize the education system is failing. If possible give talks at schools. I know, I know, who the heck has that kind of time. MAKE time. Be proactive. Don't just sit back on X or TIkTok or your social media poison of choice. Get active! As is ascribed to a man who evidently never actually said it actually listen and be the change you want to see. Don't change your writing style just to sell slop. Write your book your way. Will you make millions? Probably not but that isn't a realistic expectation to begin with. Will you actually be honest and true to yourself? Yes and that's worth more than anything money can buy. As the credit card used to say, Priceless.