uh oh.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my writing professor that I wanted to start working on a novel but hadn't been able to yet. He pointed out that I don't even read novels, I prefer short stories (amazing how quickly you can get to know someone), so I couldn't be expected to write one. You write what you read, he said.

This weekend, as it turns out, I spent my Saturday night reading a book called My Mentor by a man named Alec Wilkinson, who is coming to school on Wednesday as part of our Visiting Writers Series. I somehow am about halfway through it after just starting it yesterday, which is rare for me with something that isn't segmented. (I'm halfway through it but still in the first chapter.)

The book is about Wilkinson's relationship with the writer William Maxwell, who was a friend of his father and helped him as he began a career in writing. The book is nonfiction, and though I haven't read anything significant of Maxwell's before (the next book in my pile is by him), I'm fascinated by Wilkinson's description of him, how he can write such a captivating history without resorting to biography, and how I'm personally responding as a reader to a story I wasn't even interested in when I started reading.

Granted, I started reading this book because I had to. But that already is saying a lot, because (gasp) I don't always read everything I'm told. What is freaking incredible is that I'm still reading it, and even in the few seconds it took my computer to wake up before I started writing this, I had it in one hand and read about a paragraph.

As it turns out, yeah, I'm crazy about good nonfiction.

You write what you read, eh? I might be in the wrong genre.

Fortunately my program doesn't require you stick with just one, though they would prefer your thesis not be a mix of fiction and nonfiction unless there's some coherent theme. I have to register for classes in a couple of weeks though, and I guess only time will tell if I end up taking a fiction class again next semester.

I'll keep you posted, cyberspace.