There are three kinds of readers. Those who read for pleasure, those who read for measure, then comes the close encounters of the third kind: the bookworm. Bookworms are a wonderful band of readers, taking books off the shelves and into their hands faster than the early bird can catch them. Here are ten habits the bookworm just can't seem to break.
1. It's impossible to walk past a bookstore.
You can't turn your back on a bookstore, it's a mortal sin if you do. Sure, you could always return later but there's no time like the present. Your feet are magnets and they cannot resist the attraction of books to be read.
2. Buying your weight in books is just good brain food.
Money is no object and neither is a book. When your only limitation is the number of books you can carry through a door, the challenge is accepted. You put that gift card you've been saving all year to good use and enjoy another literary feast. Like the saying goes "you are what you read," which is a lot of things.
3. Reading multiple books at once may cause headaches.
So many books, such little time to read them. Your "to be read" pile is begging for attention and the best way to tackle the stack is to read each book little by little, side by side, on and off each day you have. You'll be lucky to remember if you read them at all.
4. The "DNF" pile does not forgive or forget.
The TBR pile has a high mountaintop but it's nothing compared to the "did not finish" pile's peak. The altitude's air is as thin as your patience. Over each ridge, a yeti and abominable snowman appear but they don't want to eat you. They open a book in your face pointing to the place you left off. Unless it was a book you just didn't or couldn't like, the regret of not knowing a book will be colder than a witch's tit.
5. Reader's block is a real thing.
This is the moment when a reader gets hung up on a passage that he cannot read beyond it. Time stops longer than it should where a poetic construction of a sentence or careful, yet confounding wording appears. There is no choice but to read the same repeatedly until the next line can finally breathe.
6. Conversations have no climax.
Ideas are always floating in and out of your head. When someone says the magic words, you become the magician. Sharing your thoughts on the matter, your passion, making the fictional characters known by their real and true feelings, cannot be done with a tame tongue. The conversation always continues.
7. Characters have better things to say.
Talking to people sometimes has its dull moments. At that point, you're intellectually starved and have to fight the urge not to take out the book you brought with you to give them the hint. You quote and paraphrase your favorite lines when you can, hoping they don't notice.
8. One masterpiece (and one mess) later.
Creativity is a process, it can change and adapt to your environment and limitations. To the person outside looking in, a desk with paper without a trace of white space, food wrappers, and books strewn about is not a sign of foul play. It is the aftermath of work and play.
9. Notes become books with tattoos.
Instead of writing on paper like a sane person, you write in tiny margins. Sideways, up and down, arrows, circles, symbols. Even if it was on paper, it's still writing only you can decipher and somehow fit around walls of text.
10. Going off the grid creates a search party.
A book you can't put down gets the best of you and soon enough you find yourself less in your headspace and in the book's headspace. So much so that your friends and family start to think you've gone missing. If only you could be invisible instead.
Bookworms have the best of both worlds. It's a blessing and sometimes a curse being so curious but you wouldn't have it any other way.
