A nonfiction addiction

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Metamorphosis, 1984, Steppenwolf, The Brothers Karamazov, The Handmaid's Tale, The Man with Two Left Feet, War and Peace.

It's an addiction that our writer feels he should be doing much more of. 

Those are a selection of the fiction books I've read over the last few years. I currently have another few on the go, but I've yet to finish them, hence they're not included.

I refer to them to point out that I do read such works. Yet, I'm usually more content delving into nonfiction, with history, politics, biographies and memoirs being my particular favourites.

Fact crazier than fiction

One reason for this preference is that the writing style of nonfiction is usually, although not always, a little more straightforward than novels. Or at least nonfiction doesn't tend to go into overdrive just to describe certain everyday activities or sights, such as supping on a cup of coffee or staring up at the sky.

I'm not a fan of what I consider to be overwrought text, of overly descriptive prose. Or, to try to put my own creative touch on it, passages that are a fog of flowery language. A little alliteration can work well, after all.

Some novels are more guilty of this descriptive debauchery than others. The ones mentioned at the start are generally in the clear on this charge. And, thus, they are clearer and more enjoyable to read.

That I'm not a follower of flashy fiction matches with my fairly minimalist lifestyle and overall personality, I surmise: 'Keep it simple, stupid.' Being mostly economically inactive these days means I've little choice but to live a simpler existence.

'Digitised versions of books on a device are far inferior to having a real copy in hand, where you can physically turn the pages.'

This isn't to suggest that nonfiction is prosaic compared to other genres. Stories about events that are happening and have happened, about people who are living and have lived, are just as compelling as, if not more compelling than, those that people have concocted in their imaginations.

Another factor for my nonfiction preference is that in my younger days, I was more of a newspaper man when it came to reading. I was generally too restless to sit down for long periods with a novel or something similar. When I did start to read long-form literature, I gravitated more towards nonfiction, largely because, I figure, it was like reading a newspaper, just one with a higher word count and a more focused theme.

There's nothing too revelatory in that. As the great English writer Dr Samuel Johnson put it, 'a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to.' He does qualify this by stating that those who wish to expand their knowledge will most likely have to read material that isn't always to their inclination. But when it comes to reading for enjoyment or relaxation, then obviously it makes sense to go with material that matches your likes.

Digitised dilemma

One of the biggest impediments I have to reading more these days is in getting access to the books I want, in physical form that is. Digitised versions of tomes on a device are far inferior to having a real copy in hand, where you can physically turn the pages.

The chief reasons why I'm forced into the inferior option are, for one, that it's hard to get hold of English-language books in Colombia, particularly in peripheral regions. Additionally, as a mild rover with no fixed abode, it's not that practical to be hauling books around with me from place to place.

Digitised versions weigh nothing, bar the memory they take up on my phone and on cloud storage. And with a restricted budget, the availability, for free, of thousands of classics at gutenberg.org is quite the resource.

So, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, having material to read isn't my problem, even if it isn't in my preferred format.

That I don't get through as many books as I'd like to is more to do with my being what I'll term a ruminating reader. My mind is guilty of wandering, not necessarily in an easily distracted sense, but more a case of thinking about what I'm reading and applying it to situations in my own life. I assume that's a normal enough practice, isn't it?
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The blank diaries

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

'The great thing to be recorded is the state of your own mind; and you should write down everything that you remember, for you cannot judge at first what is good or bad; and write immediately while the impression is fresh, for it will not be the same a week afterwards.'

'Nothing will come of nothing.' Get writing that diary.

So advised 18th-century English writer, Dr Samuel Johnson, to the man who would go on to write his biography, James Boswell. The conversation was about the importance of journalling, of keeping a diary, something that Johnson told Boswell 'he had twelve or fourteen times attempted . . . but never could persevere.'

Digital duplicity

One reason, perhaps, why Johnson couldn't persevere with a journal is that he had plenty of other great works to write during his lifetime. Journalling for a full-time writer may be something of a busman's holiday. Although Johnson, writer of almost all of The Idler series of essays, didn't hide the fact that he suffered from bouts of idleness — what he viewed as being idle in any case. He did, after all, get through quite a lot in his life.

Whatever the case, in the 18th century, one didn't have to deal with ubiquitous digital distractions. So, in theory, those who had the wherewithal to write should have been able to find the time to keep a journal going, if they truly wanted to.

Conversely, today's digital devices make it easier for anyone to write or even dictate a diary. So when, just a few months back, I first read those lines quoted at the start, taken from the straightforwardly titled Life of Samuel Johnson, I decided to start a diary that very day.

It hadn't been in my mind at all, but I figured that if I couldn't keep a diary at this moment in my life, when I have lots of me time, then I'll never write one.

Travel thoughts

Now, it's not the first time I've had a go at this. I vaguely remember a couple of attempts at writing a diary in my childhood but, like Johnson, I didn't persevere.

Years later and with much more success, I kept a travel journal when I went on what turned into a ten-month trip around South America, New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia between 2008 and 2009. The impetus to do so came from my immediately older brother. He had done his own bout of global travelling and he told me that he regretted not jotting down his thoughts.

Considering I was constantly moving around, I figured at the time that the best way to securely write and keep such a diary would be as a draft email on my Gmail account. It has stood the test of time in any case. And it's now backed up in a Word document just in case it were to be accidentally deleted from my draft emails.

It has proved useful in reminding me of what most likely would have been forgotten details from a period that had a huge bearing on the subsequent direction of my life. Only recently I was re-reading segments as research for my work-in-progress memoir on my time in Colombia.

'If one makes the effort to keep a diary, rigorous introspection should be a fundamental part of it, as Dr Johnson suggested.'

I will concede, however, that a handwritten journal is more authentic. Reading it, flicking through its creased pages, one knows that it has served as a tangible paper crutch for the writer. It has been there with him, giving it an anthropomorphic quality. In comparison, a digital version seems rather lifeless.

Yet, again for practical reasons, when I returned to journalling this year, it was to the digital domain I headed. Indeed, the arguments for going digital are stronger today than they were when I wrote the last entry into my travel diary some 16 years ago.

Back then, I had to find an internet café or wait in a queue to use a hostel computer to type in an update. For the latter, use was often time-restricted. So I was writing against the clock — not the best environment when giving a deep disposition of one's coming of age. Or, more accurately and less profoundly, when trying to remember details and write coherently with a delicate head the morning after the sketchy night before.

Now, though, with a smartphone at hand and access to a Word document that automatically updates and saves previous versions across various platforms, maintaining a diary couldn't be simpler. It can be done from pretty much anywhere at any time, as long as one's device doesn't die.

Nothing will come of nothing

Nonetheless, rather than 'write immediately while the impression is fresh', as Johnson counselled, I've struggled to write an update even just once a week.

One major factor for this, reflecting a particular fallow period I'm going through, is a predominant feeling of 'What's the point?' Why take an hour or whatever out of my day to transcribe my thoughts? Couldn't I be doing something more useful and potentially rewarding with my time, like reading? Or socialising? Although, I don't think I'm suffering from a lack of socialising of the beer-fuelled variety in Colombia in any case, conversation-light as it often is albeit.

The idea that there's a cathartic element to keeping a diary is one strong reason to do so. And that's probably more important in these economically inactive times I'm experiencing.

However, many of my blog articles over the last few years have been quite personal, diary-esque entries. So, in a sense, I've been writing a public diary since late 2011, presenting my heart and mind to the world, infrequent as the updates have been. At the risk of sounding as if I'm putting myself in the same bracket as Johnson, something similar might have been at play with him. Why double work?

Of course, there's a lot more going on in my mind and, to a lesser extent right now, my life than what I blog about. Equally, my social media posts offer little real insight into my state of affairs. This is where a private journal comes in. It allows for deeper introspection, should one wish to probe. And if one makes the effort to keep a diary, rigorous introspection should be a fundamental part of it, as the good Dr Johnson suggested.

It's that making — and sustaining — the effort, however, that is proving to be quite the challenge. The words of another literary legend may provide extra motivation: 'Nothing will come of nothing', said Shakespeare's King Lear. A blank diary is of little use to anyone.
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