Motivation and Book Reviews

I haven’t been so motivated to write in my blog since I put it private in order to thwart those people who might take what I say here and twist it for their own evil purposes. I am really not paranoid. Paranoia would imply that I have an irrational fear that people are talking about me or that they are out to get me. My fear is not irrational; I have proof. There are people out there who delight in the misfortune of others, who are not above spreading lies or half-truths about people, and who I suppose have nothing better to do than make others miserable by maligning them. But good comes from everything.

I can use this time period of my sequestered blog in the fall when I talk about audience in my English classes. I would like to say that I write for the pleasure of writing, but this few weeks has taught me that I write for the pleasure of knowing that someone is reading it. Is this a bad thing? I think it can be. It can be detrimental to let yourself simply write for the pleasure of knowing that someone is reading it. Shouldn’t someone who aspires to be a writer write for the sake of the act itself? I plan to write and read for pleasure this summer, which may help this malady. School may be part of the reason I write for an audience. I wonder if too many years of writing things for other people to read in order to acquire a grade has ruined my ability to write for pleasure.

Today marks the day when I begin writing here again. I have three book reviews to do for The Ooze, which will be posted here. I have been putting them off because of all the other things I have had going lately. I hope they don’t decide I can’t get books and review them anymore. I’d be sad, even though I have only liked one of the three books I have reviewed. I think I would have liked the other two, but they were advertised as something they decidedly were not. Stay tuned for the three book reviews to pop up shortly. The books I will review will be A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story by Diana Butler Bass, The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church by Andrew Farley, and Who Really Goes to Hell? The Gospel You’ve Never Heard: What a Protestant Bible Written by Jews Says About God’s Work Through Christ. The last book is by far the most intriguing, but they all seem to be a simple rehashing of all that’s come before them. We’ll see as I write three distinct reviews.