And so we head into September. Usually, this time of year is when I start to feel creeping dread about fall and winter. The sunlight dwindles, and so does my solar-powered productivity. But this summer…

I don’t know what it was. August seemed to last a million years. It was inexplicably exhausting. I’m so tired of blasting my A/C, the rare moments I can turn it off and bask in the quiet are such a relief. I love summer, but I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to crisp air and crisper apples this month.

On My Mind

Over the last two months I’ve been sharing about reading: about letting go of guilt around not reading more (and why I think I don’t read more), and what I do to make sure I’m always reading something even if it isn’t more. Whatever “more” means.

To round out this conversation, I want to share the other big change I’ve made: rather than trying to read more books in a given year, I’m attempting to engage with the books I do read a lot more deeply. None of this is likely to be revelatory to people who read an author’s newsletter — it’s honestly very high school English class in a lot of ways, I’m almost embarrassed that it made such a big difference for me — but it genuinely has helped me.

The backstory here is a running gag with my writing group, which is that I don’t remember anything about any book I’ve ever read. Maybe I’ll remember the names of the main characters, and the general set up of the story, but beyond that? It would vanish from my head within a month or two of reading it. Friends who read the same thing would have conversations about it; I’d have nothing to add, because I a) hadn’t noticed a lot of the things they were discussing, and b) frankly didn’t remember the things I had noticed at the time. I felt dumb, which I’m not, but it did make me stop and think: how could I start retaining more and being more thoughtful about what I read?

My first experiment was a very obvious solution: What if I just write down my thoughts as I read? Like… duh.

I’ve tracked my reading in various places for years. I was on Goodreads, but I don’t feel comfortable posting more than a sentence or two there. (It feels weird, as an author, to post potentially critical thoughts about other authors’ books in public.) I also used a spreadsheet for a few years, but that was a fairly limited amount of space for writing down reactions, let alone logging thoughts as I read. And as for doing it by hand in a notebook… you haven’t seen my handwriting. Please believe, that was a no-go.

Eventually I settled on a Notion database, where I could put in metadata about each book (as I had on the spreadsheets) but also have a full free-form page to write whatever I wanted to. This has been working for me for a couple of years.

Like I said, I’m not reinventing the wheel here. As I read I jot down the major plot points, who the characters are, and any basic thoughts I have. Sometimes I do this every few chapters, or few days; sometimes I only think to write things down once or twice while reading. The upshot is that down the line, I’d like to be able to open a page in this database, read my notes, and remember enough about what happened to either have a conversation about it or to be able to read a sequel and know what the heck happened in the first book that everyone is responding to.

Very simple. Very easy. Very obvious.

The thing is, though, it gives me space to think more. Reading can definitely put me into a flow state where I do it and enjoy it and don’t think, which is great attention span-wise, but not ideal for getting anything out of the act of reading. Giving myself a chance to pause and write down who the characters are and what’s happening also gives me a chance to reflect: how do I feel about this, am I actually enjoying it, what is the author trying to say, do I think the writing is any good or not, etc.

Like I said: high school English class stuff. But also it’s very good for me. I’m someone who’ll rush through reading a mystery, get to the end, and not actually know if the reveal makes sense or not because I never clocked the details that were being set up, or bothered to remember who the various supporting characters were. That doesn’t make for a satisfying experience! Stopping to write those things down so I actually follow what’s happening does.

For all of this, I do have to shoutout my unfortunate Booktube addiction, which made me start thinking about book annotation. I don’t recommend looking it up on youtube, though, because most videos are just people talking about their favorite pens and highlighters (with affiliate links below!), or occasionally showing an intimidating color-coded tab system. Which is fair, if you’re making book content you want to have notes, right? But I’m not doing that. I just wondered, what would it be like to stop and think a little bit more? (But I do like this video on critical reading and this one on annotation from The Book Leo.)

But… I do sometimes annotate directly in my books. Specifically, I do this with nonfiction (which as I said in my last newsletter, I’ve been reading a lot more of recently). And I realized I’ve actually been doing that for a long time… just not thinking about it that way.

Specifically, I’ve actually done this for years with self-help books when I find they actually speak to me, and writing craft books (I love to try these, gimme). Waaaay back in the day I mentioned the book Burnout in a newsletter, and that was one I read with a highlighter in hand. I did the same with The Artist’s Way a few years back. And almost every writing craft book I read that way, jotting down notes about my projects as they hit me.

Yet it took me awhile to start doing this regularly, with other kinds of books. I don’t tend to with fiction (though I will dog-ear a page if I know I want to come back to it to copy out a quote into my Notion tracker), but I do now with most nonfiction I read.

Here’s a confession: back in college, I almost never did the reading. I was actually a pretty mediocre student in a lot of ways, so I never really picked up note taking or highlighting what I was reading back then. Now, though, I actually find it fun. (As noted earlier this year: it turns out that learning things is is fun.)

My books aren’t covered in marks or anything, but I will read through with a highlighter and pen nearby. Any time a really interesting tidbit of information comes up, I highlight it. If I find a connection to my own life, or something else I’ve read? That goes in my terrible handwriting in the margin. At the end of every chapter, I thumb back through and write up a summary in Notion.

All of which means, I’m actually (gasp!) learning things as I read, and retaining a lot more! Sometimes finding that personal connection is silly (when an unrelated book references Thomas Paine, my favorite random historical guy, I cover the margin in exclamation points) but it keeps me engaged. I didn’t used to pick up random nonfiction because I associated it so strongly with the chore of reading for class — which, again, I avoided as much as possible, something I now regret — but between wandering aisles and picking up the books that call to me, and then making connections and zeroing in on the most interesting tidbits, it really doesn’t feel like that anymore.

All of which is to say: this may be basic stuff, and people who were better students than I was may already do this instinctively, even if you don’t write it down. But for me? It’s made reading (both fiction and nonfiction) a lot more interesting and rewarding.

So do I read more? Like I said back in June: not necessarily. But I get a heck of a lot more out of what I do read, and that’s definitely a win.

A Thing I Made

It’s a bowl! It’s made of coils! I took a workshop on coils, actually, and lemme tell you: hand rolling them, getting them to be all bout the same width without some sections getting too skinny or going entirely flat, is a huge pain. Still, this turned out pretty well!

Something I’m Enjoying

Do you root for the underdog? Do you hate big corporations that think they’re above the law? Are you fondly nostalgic for Looney Tunes? Oh boy, do I have a fun movie for you! And it almost never saw the light of day, which makes the little guy vs. mega corp story even more meta.

Coyote vs Acme is what it sounds like: Wile E. Coyote sees an ambulance chasing lawyer’s ad and decides to sue Acme over the many, many devices that have blown up in his face. Shenanigans ensue. The movie is an absolute delight that never lets court room accuracy get in the way of a good gag — and it LOVES a good gag. It’s the best kind of nostalgia; it’s a fun new take on an existing source, and it loves and respects that source.

Also, it has what I felt was real insight in how to deal with billionaire CEO bullies in our capitalist hellscape. (Hint: it involves cartoon dynamite.)