Keeping a Reading Journal
We're going to establish the habit of deep reading. Here's how it works: Every day, you spend some time reading, then reflecting and writing about what you read. The books you read are your own choice, but you have to have a variety of different kinds, and you can't get way out of balance (like reading the entire Cradle series before moving to another book...). When you reflect and write, your job is to create well-crafted sentences and clear ideas about the book. You can speculate about what's going to happen, talk about the author's use of plot devices, ruminate about how the book made you think about your own experience, or whatever you like. The only requirement is that you write coherently and that it expresses your thoughts about what you're reading.
As you get further into it, you'll want to be able to connect ideas from one book to ideas from another. This format we're going to use will make that easier to do, so there is a method to this particular madness and it's worth doing.
Setting up your notebook
You can choose: paper notebook, or Obsidian. A paper notebook will be more convenient to carry around and use while you're lounging and reading, but Obsidian will be faster for entering text and searching for your past work. Not an easy call to make! In my case, I'll probably use a paper notebook and then try to write neatly enough that I can use OCR to transcribe it into Obsidian after the fact...
In either case, here's what you'll need:
- One page (or file) for a list of books you're interested in reading. In Obsidian, this could be a kanban for maximum awesome.
- A few pages (or a file) reserved at the front for quotes and other graffiti that you collect along the way. This is for things that you just really liked when you read them, or things that made you stop and think for a moment.
- A page laid out like a table, with the genre histogram on it (see below)
- A section for each book you read, where you write more in-depth thoughts about it and cross-link things to each other as one book reminds you of other books.
The to-read list
The purpose of this list isn't to impose a schedule, but rather to remind you of things you've been interested in or that have been suggested to you. It's easy to notice something and then forget about it; in fact that's the default mode for humans. This list is here so that you have a chance to follow up on threads you wanted to pull. See somebody who looks interesting? Jot down a note to look for a biography. Something about history seem really intriguing? Look for a good book about it and put it on the list. Discover a new fantasy author you really like? Look up the first book in a series and put it on the list.
The graffiti page
This is where you take the best of the best from each thing you read, and jot it down. In my case, Miss Tick's quote about "following your star" would definitely be here:
If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.
- Miss Tick, The Wee Free Men, p. xxx
The genre histogram
The genre histogram is here to make sure you don't neglect things that you might not otherwise go looking for. Here's the table I want you to use, with some books added for an example:
| History | Biography | Classics and Myths | Fantasy/Sci-fi | Technical/Skill | Historical Fiction | Realistic Fiction | Humor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breathe | The Odyssey | Unsouled | The War of Art |
The idea is that when you read a book, you put it in the column for its best-match genre, and you try to keep the height of the stacks pretty even. In particular, you have to keep your tallest stack within three of your shortest stack.
If you're using obsidian, you can make the book names into page links that take you to your notes page for that book. This table can then serve you as a nice index for seeing what you've done. If you're using a paper notebook, put the page number for the book's section into the table along with the title.
The book sections
Each book you read will have a section dedicated to your writing about it. In this section, you spend some time to reflect after reading, and write down anything that you think is interesting that comes out of your reflection. The only requirements are that you must write with well-crafted prose, and express complete ideas (or completely express half-baked ideas, if you're still working out what you really think). The purpose of this writing is to help you think through your own reactions to the book and also to provide you with some good material for future long-form writing (essays and other things).
You'll be building up a repository of powerful quotes, analysis, and broad experience of ideas that you can use to make really good work later on. If you're careful about indexing and cross-referencing this stuff, you'll end up with something that will be extremely useful to you for the rest of your life! So do a good job...