October 10, 2009

October 10th is the day I celebrate my writing anniversary. This is the day I started what Angie and I used to call the "Yellow Story" (written on a yellow legal pad, later enclosed in a yellow peechee folder), my attempt at young adult romance - written long before I was a young adult. It was awful, but it kept us entertained for a year or more.

And, while I'm distracted by the heat and humidity of summer and rarely find inspiration in the winter or spring, I find in October a wealth of ideas, words, phrases, storylines. The characters fight to get to the page, trying desperately to get my attention before winter sets in. 

There's plenty of Octoberiffic reading material out there. Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Vampire Chronicles. A lot of you are reading the Twilight books. These are not October books. They're August books - books you read quickly at the end of summer before you have to go back to school. 

October books are a little weightier, a little denser, a little more difficult. They require you to pay attention. They require you to carry them with you to work, on the bus, to the corner diner. October books are really rather demanding. 

October books, like October herself, expect that we will think deeply about them, that we will discuss them at length, that we will study them with a fervor we reserve just for them. 

What are your October books?