Rule Books

Yesterday I stepped into my neighborhood Barnes & Noble with a sense of excitement. Purpose! I came not to buy something for a friend, not to redeem a gift card, not to sip a mocha, but to lay down my cold hard credit card for a new book of my own. Something I almost never do. Though I work in publishing, nearly all my reading material comes from the library. As they say, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? I'm too risk-averse to spend money on a book unless it's one I already love.

So it was with the feeling of breaking my own rule that I scanned the bookshelves, keeping my smartphone queued up to a photo of my "Books to Read This Year" list. I justified the rule breaking by telling myself I needed to keep up with my reading plan for the year and didn't have time to wait for the library's hold system. All these self-imposed rules around reading! Quite sad, now that I think about it.

And I am thinking about it. I walked out of Barnes & Noble with Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. I probably first heard of it in a college English class, and since then it has floated around in the "one day I'll read this and be a better person" category.

I think I make reading lists for myself because I know I'm easily inspired. Bird by Bird not only has me blogging for the first time in nine months, but resolving to blog once a week. Not to satisfy a mass readership. If anything, working in publishing has wearied me of words. Not even for the sake of keeping another rule. But because, as Anne writes,

"Good writing is about telling the truth,"

and

"becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader, and that is the real payoff."