Confessions of a Storytel addict
Don't you just love audiobooks? I absolutely adore them. After climbing the first hurdle that is. Because if you love reading books, whether you prefer physical or e-books, you know that part of the experience is when the words on the page creates images in your head. And you can actually hear and watch the characters come to life. It's like having a special edition movie created only for you. No one, absolutely no one else will "see" or experience this movie the same way you do. Even if they are reading the same book.
That's the magic of reading. Which is why I often laugh out loud or even cry when I read a book. Because it's not just a story that I am reading about. I am experiencing it.
Audiobooks
And if I go back to audiobooks. My dad loves them and has been trying to get me to listen to them since I was in my teens. I have heard bits and pieces of Hemingway's Old man and the sea playing as my dad used to listen to it a
couple of times every year.
But, audiobooks are a little special. Because, for me, they hijack the imagination and creation process in your mind. To start, the reader's voice becomes the characters, and their tone of voice edits the images of the story. So it sort of takes
away that magical creation process I was talking about above. That I love about reading.
But after being hit by that famous exhaustion that far too many good girls and overachieving woman (and men of course) experience, I started to listen to audiobooks religiously.
Storytel tough
Year's before this, I had a friend who was amongst the first to start working at the now worldwide company Storytel. She was then fresh out of university having finished her degree in publishing.
Fun fact, I was asked to write one of the first book reviews on their blog. Think it was Sylvia Day :)
So even before getting into the habit of always having an audiobook playing in my earbuds, I did listen to Storytel every now and then.
Listen to some f-cking music instead
To the point. I discovered recently that always having a voice reading a story in your head, it messes with the creation process, no matter how interesting the story is. At least for me as a writer, since I tend to find inspiration in my daily thought
process. Having a very strong and vivid voice in my head that absorbs and processes words in books, movies and music very easily.
So a couple of weeks ago I decided to stop constantly listening to a book. And voila, just like that I find myself writing again. I have to say that when it comes to writing - it really is true what they say.
You can't wait for inspiration to hit, you just have to start writing.
There's a quote by Nora Roberts that I love:
"A writer writes. If you want to be a writer - then write."
