By DeAnna Knippling
I've been thinking a lot about readers lately, about what
they want and need. As a "them" rather than solely as an "us."
This is not the bullet-point article that tells you the seven things that
readers want and need. I'm still too
close to being utterly and solely a reader to do it now; I get sucked into
the stories I'm writing so hard that I don't give two cents about my readers. So
today it's just about the memories that came back while I was thinking about it.
I suspect that we become avid readers out of damage.
Here’s my story; I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether
yours is similar. There are two incidents.
The second one was twelve years ago. It was my first office
job, which meant I could afford to go out for lunch. I’d drive off alone, buy
something cheap but tasty, and hide in my car to read and eat. I’d glare at
anyone who drove by, as though I were afraid they’d steal my food.
That wasn’t it, though. I was afraid of being punished. For betraying a lifetime of home cooking and
plain living and honest hard work that involved at least a modicum of sweat
from my brow. I was above myself, too big for my britches. I was making a
living off the signature on my BA and my typing speed, and it was a kick in the
gut every day. I grew up poor, and I see my parents as trying to prepare me for
the worst, instead of the best, in life. In gentler words, to survive rather
than to dream. They were happy I got the job but it felt hollow. The wrong kind
of success.
In the midst of that, I was getting a coffee refill from the
break room, where one of my co-workers was brazenly, openly eating lunch and
reading. Alone. I don’t remember what she was eating. She had red hair so
streaked with white it looked neon pink. She never spoke to me, or really to
anyone. I considered her a crazy cat lady despite knowing nothing about her. The
Fates had punished her by making sure she’d never have a family or friends or
anyone to talk to. Just like they were going to punish me.
She was reading a prehistorical something or other. She
turned to the last page, finished it, got heavily and awkwardly off a tall
stool with short legs, and...threw away the book.
It clanged in the empty trash can.
After a few seconds, I said, “What did you do that for?”
She grinned at me. I felt like she was looking into my soul,
finding my deepest fears small, fuzzy, and kind of cute. “Because I was done
with it.”
“But what if you want to reread it?”
“I won’t,” she said. “I never did like to read the same book
twice. But if I did...I’d just buy
another one.”
It was a strange turning point in my life. I’ve carried it
around for years, not even realizing that it meant something to me, but unable
to forget about it, either.
That's the second story. Here's the first.
When I was a kid it was my mom’s job to teach me how to...be
a person. Be female. Fit in with society. All that. Again, preparing me for the
worst. Keep your legs crossed, stand up straight, and brush your hair kind of
stuff. Be just like everyone else. Don't attract attention and you won't get
hurt.
Didn't work.
When my daughter was about six or so, she came to me and
said she wanted bangs. I couldn't make myself spend the money to get her bangs
done, because cutting bangs at home was the kind of thing frugal mothers did. But
I couldn't force myself to cut them myself either, because I couldn't get away
from the memories of being screamed at because my cowlick wouldn't lie
straight. So I dithered.
And then one day, she cut her own hair. She cut the holy
hell out of her own hair.
I laughed and laughed and laughed. To this day, whenever she
tells me she needs her bangs cut, there’s an implicit threat to it. The
stylists always look to me to tell them what to do with her hair, and I say,
“It’s her hair. Ask her.” It makes me feel giddy and dangerous.
Here’s the thing about my mom, though. I found a copy of The Valley of the Horses and read it
when I was maybe eleven or twelve. Mom either left it around or didn’t keep it
hidden or didn’t take it away when she found out I had it. Thank God it wasn’t Clan of the Cave Bear. Anyway, it had a
sex scene in it, and I read it, and she didn’t make me suffer for reading it.
Books became the one good thing I never had to suffer for,
even when it was pretty obvious that Mom disagreed, start to finish, with what
I was reading.
It was enough.
Now I see people trying to get books pulled out of
libraries, huge arguments about how ebooks are never going to be the same as
real books, articles shrieking about how bookstores are dying and how awful it
is, even how some books are fundamentally better than others, and I remember
those two books that changed my life, one by being allowed to read it, and the
other by being destroyed.
And I go, “I must not be the only one messed up about books.”
But the preciousness and power of books were never about the
books themselves. That readers think so seems to me...a kind of crack in the
facade, a sign of damage. The best, strongest parts of books were in people the
whole time--the writers who gave us the gifts of understanding and freedom, the
people who let us read without making us feel ashamed, and even the people who taught
us that, all in all...
...it was just a book.
About the Writer: DeAnna Knippling started freelancing in May 2011 and wouldn’t be able to do it without her wonderful family and friends, especially her husband. In fact, she owes a lot to Pikes Peak Writers for helping her be a better writer, especially through the Write Brains, both in the lectures and in meeting lots of other writers.
Her reason for writing is to entertain by celebrating her family’s tradition of dry yet merry wit, and to help ease the suffering of lack of self-confidence, having suffered it many years herself. She also likes to poke around and ask difficult questions, because she hates it when people assume something must be so.
For more kicks in the writerly pants, see her blog at www.deannaknippling.com or her ebook How to Fail & Keep on Writing, available at Smashwords, B&N, Amazon, and OmniLit.
About the Author: Stacy S.Jensen worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for two decades. Today, she writes picture books and revises a memoir manuscript. She lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and toddler.
