Addiction

I get addicted to things.

 Sometimes I'm addicted to an artist, at other times it's a particular song. These are the harmless addictions, the ones that don't really hurt anything but my ear drums (and really… my headphones are never turned up loud, so even that pain is minimal).

In NaNo'08 I was addicted to Kiss Me, by Sixpence None the Richer. It's one of the awesomest songs in the universe, and spawned a story idea based on it. That story's still waiting. Doesn't seem so smart now as it did then. But Kiss Me always gives me a floaty feeling, as if everything is going well. I listened to that song… a thousand times? It was a good time.

I often get addicted to artists. Some people don't have one or two good songs— some people have an albumful of good songs. I've gotten addicted to ABBA (more than once), Mircea Vintilă (just… an awesome Romanian artist), The Beatles, Elvis (for a time), Buddy Holly (when I was five I'd put on his Greatest Hits CD and go to #5, Everyday), Taylor Swift… There's many others (including contemporary people), but I can make an entire post out of that alone.

All these artists will fade away for a time, and I can't bear to listen to them… but then I rediscover them. Especially Mircea Vintilă. I think it's because he's Romanian.

But I also get addicted to other things… things that aren't so easy to get out of sometimes.

Two are the most important:

1) Finding books to read. I have an iPod Touch. On this I have the FreeBooks app. This app has the benefit of offering about 20,000 books from pre-1923. It includes Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Andrew Lang, Jack London… etc.

EVERY TIME I go to search for a book, or browse the categories, I end up downloading many more books than I counted on. Things like Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (Really?) Or Cicero's Orations (Unfortunately I haven't learned Latin yet. It's on the list.) Or Pinocchio. Or the Aenid.

I don't get these books because I have to read them (though I often do feel that I have to), but because I feel like they'd be interesting. My take on classics is that if they're classics… they're good. Of course, some classics like Catcher in the Rye absolutely suck, but for the most part they're all wonderful. (I'll make a post about awesome books later though.)

And every time I open up FreeBooks or GoodReads or whatever, I see these books, and I think, "Oh, goodness, I want to read this too! But this one's awesome as well! And the title of this one is interesting… and this is Dickens, and I want to read all Dickens' books… here's a book originally in French, so I'll want to read that, and then I really should find Don Quijote. Ah, here's Pinocchio! I should learn Italian so I can read Pinocchio too. WHY IS THERE NO TIME?"

2) Challenges. Yeah. Anyone who knows me off Write Write & Write knows that I will take practically any challenge you offer up. Later I'll figure out I can't really use it for anything, so then I'll say, "Listen, I changed my mind on this." But most challenges I do take, and then it becomes this entire fiasco trying to figure out how all this stuff is going to fit into just one month.

It also includes figuring out how on EARTH I'm going to: 

• write a 50k novel 
• while rewriting another novel 
• while writing 31 short stories 
• and 31 dictionary entries 
• as well as reading 12-13 books (so a third of a book a day)
• while reviewing 4 of them
• not to mention reading one book in French 
• and starting Don Quijote 
• also updating Write Your World with 500 words a day
• and adding a chapter a week to WeBooks for Riddle Rose.
• Learn physics and psychology and math

These are the goals for just January, by the way. I'm probably going to have to fix this 365 short story gig… it's getting insane.

SO… do you guys have any addictions? I bet yours are probably more interesting than mine, and don't make your head hurt to think about them.