Matt B. Perkins

In Practice 002, my intention was to read four books within a 30-day time frame. I think this is still possible, but for me that approach was a complete disaster.

First, it wasn’t the easiest month to actually try this out — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic (we are in Mid-May 2020 as of this writing), I was glued to the news, trying to learn more and understand more (this was all fear-based reading, of course, but I found this to be an issue). Naturally, this took away from time reading anything in a book.

Second, simply saying to myself, “Read those four books in 30 days!” proved to be the wrong approach to reading more. It’s incredibly restrictive in design, and I think it misses the point of actually reading more. Cramming in 4 books isn’t going to help build the habit of reading more on a daily basis.

So, I think there’s a better way to attempt this.

Enter Practice 004 — The Bradbury reading program.

Ray Bradbury has been one of my favorite writers for a very long time. And I say that fully acknowledging “a long time” means about a decade, maybe more. I wish I’d really found him in my youth, but alas.

In a 2001 interview, Bradbury described a “program” for “stuffing yourself” with reading material. According to his suggestion, Bradbury says every night, one should read the following:

  • One short story
  • One essay
  • One poem

In the story linked above, this effort is dubbed “The Bradbury Trio” — for my own purposes, I’m referring to it as a program, as Bradbury himself did (though I admittedly like the word “trio” here).

I remember hearing this advice from Bradbury a while back, but I never really took it on. It feels more manageable then, say, a book a week. (To be fair, I want to reiterate that I do believe reading a book a week is certainly possible — I just found it utterly difficult during a pandemic when I’m also working a day job and helping with family responsibilities — homeschooling kids goes into that bucket now, too. This isn’t an excuse, this is reality).

THE GUIDELINES

  • Timeframe: May 1-31, 2020
  • Read one poem, one essay, and one short story every day (Bradbury says every night before bed, but I’m not limiting myself to reading these before bed — as long as they’re read at some point during downtime that day, all good).
  • Will attempt to also read an “ongoing” book during this effort, too. That means whatever novel or nonfiction book I’m reading at the time will be read concurrently with the above, even if it’s a few additional pages a day. That is to say, the poem/essay/short story won’t be the only things I’m reading.
  • I’m starting this with three particular collections, but I’m not restricting myself to just those — if I feel pulled toward an old copy of The Believer magazine for an essay, or another collection of poetry, I’ll have at it.
  • I’ll post daily updates below with what I’ve read and/or any other interesting takeaways that have revealed themselves

DAILY NOTES

May 1, 2020

Notes: Busy day before getting all of this in, but was able to do it, and it seems that from a time standpoint this is may be more doable than I initially gave it credit for. That does not demean the importance of practice. Can’t get complacent here. Also, the “digital minimalist” work is proving to open up more space for such things. Love being off my phone.

May 2, 2020

  • Essay: “Being Taken for Granite” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “Domination of Black” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Second Suicide” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

Notes: Finished all three of these relatively early. The essay and the poem were short (I’m finding myself reading poems twice now, once silently, once out loud to feel it). Howey’s story was a little longer, but easy to consume (and a great tale). I’m finding that, with essays and stories, I’m able to practice more “absorbtion” in my reading, and part of this comes from some experience practicing speed reading, which is a whole other topic of itself I may expand upon soon (in short, I find that speed reading on the whole does not work for me, but reading words in clusters or groups has a more “absorbtive” effect and I’m able to consume content faster and deeper rather than linearly reading word-for-word, which I tend to re-read and do so more slowly.

May 3, 2020

  • Essay: “Indian Uncles” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “The Snowman” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Nothing Goes to Waste” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

Notes: I am loving this process, to the point where I find myself getting excited over what I’ll be reading that day. Some days mean some shorter stories and essays, some mean longer, but I feel no intimidation at this point. Also, reading Ursula K. Le Guin is like hearing a long lost aunt tell me stories. Also, I am currently reading from the three books I planned to read as part of Practice 002, which isn’t a coincidence. I’m not being restrictive to just these collections; if I feel drawn to read an essay, a poem, or a story outside of these, then so be it. The only rule is to read one of each daily — what they are or where they from is irrelevant at the moment. That said, I’m really loving these collections.

May 4, 2020

  • Essay: “My Libraries” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “The Ordinary Women” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Deep Blood Kettle” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

May 5, 2020

  • Essay: “My Island” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “The Load of Sugarcane” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Machine Learning” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

May 6, 2020

  • Essay: “On the Frontier” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “Metaphors of a Magnifico” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Executable” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

May 7, 2020

  • Essay: “All Happy Families” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “Ploughing on Sunday” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “The Box” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

May 8, 2020

  • Essay: “Things Not Actually Present” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “Glitch” — Hugh Howey (from Machine Learning)

May 9, 2020

No reading today; day completely got away from me. Picking up, dusting off, and moving on.

May 10, 2020

  • Essay: “Off the Page: Loud Cows — A Talk and a Poem About Reading Aloud” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “O, Florida, Venereal Soul” — Wallace Stevens (from The Collected Poems: The Corrected Edition)
  • Short Story: “The Highway” — Ray Bradbury (from The Illustrated Man)

May 11-14, 2020

Completely fell off the tracks during these few couple of days. If I don’t keep this practice on-mind, it’s easy to lose my grasp. Onward.

May 14, 2020

  • Essay: “The Wilderness Within: The Sleeping Beauty and ‘The Poacher’ and a PS About Sylvia Townsend Warner” — Ursula K. Le Guin (from The Wave in the Mind)
  • Poem: “A North Beach Scene” — Lawrence Ferlinghetti (from San Francisco Poems)
  • Short Story: “To the Man on Trail” — Jack London (from To Build a Fire and Other Stories)

May 28, 2020

ABANDONED. After several days of inconsistent reading from this format, I’ve decided to call it quits early. More notes below.

Final Thoughts

Started this effort strong but I felt oddly frazzled and overwhelmed with too many options in front of me during this effort (such is the life of an INFP, apparently). I really loved reading a variety of stories, essays, and poems each day. Oddly, the short stories always felt the more daunting of the three forms and seemed to demand more of my attention (and they felt harder to focus on).

Ultimately I’m finding two things — the first is that almost every “30-day” or “XX-day” challenge I take on, whether self-devised or followed from someone else, ends in failure. That is, I either abandon it early because it isn’t sticking, something in me pushes away from it, or, by the end of it, I revert back to old habits, which defeats the whole purpose. So, moving forward my intent will be to not adhere as much to “daily” or “weekly” challenges, but rather to report on various efforts as I work on them (such as my experience with learning Tarot cards, sketching, or craft-writing or flash-fiction exercises).

I’m less concerned about “failing” this effort and more grateful that I’m realizing this type of structured framework isn’t conducive to how I think, feel, work, or even navigate the world. That’s not to say they aren’t valuable, and that’s not to say I’m promoting that idea that if it’s too hard, quit (I would never suggest that). But I am saying that I am finding there is no one-size-fits all approach to how I want to or successful can create a change in my life. These multi-day challenges, set up ahead of time, rarely seem to be effective for me. Onto the next thing.