Fiction and Non-Fiction

So... I didn't want to post on Tuesday, because it was election day. And I didn't want to post on Wednesday because it was the day after election day (I try to keep this blog politics free).

So that brings us to today. Which was mostly sewing. Oh, and setting up the new tripod I got for my camera. I'm finally reading more of the instruction manual and wow, there's a lot I need to learn. I also need to read the instruction manual for my sewing machine and see if there is anything more I can do with it that I haven't discovered in the 10 years I've owned it. Instruction manuals actually have a lot of interesting information in them... er, helpful information? I find them really boring to read.

Actually, surprising fact about me. Although I'm a huge bookworm, I actually have a terrible time reading non-fiction. Give me a fiction novel and I'll gobble it up in record time. Give me a non-fiction novel and... well if the subject is /really/ interesting I might get two chapters in before I get bored and go back to a fiction novel. Which isn't terrible with some books, like sewing books or drawing books because that sort of information is good to take in chunks. And if I'm in the right mood I can sometimes swallow a really good biography about some interesting influential woman. I want to read more theology and the like, but the best way I've found for that is a chapter with my morning devotions. Hey, it works! I finally am nearly done with Mere Christianity which I've always found hard to finish...

Basically my brain likes bite sized info. And once it gets that info, it'll hold on to it, but try and overload and my brain shuts down. However, give me a good story and I'll disappear into it so completely that you won't see me for a week.

Well, you'll see me, but not my face because I'll have the book in front of it.

I love learning stuff though, which makes internet or magazine articles an ideal way for me to pick up the non-fiction part of life. Which of course is important for a writer... what will you have to write about if you don't understand the world around you?

So if you want to buy me a book, you probably shouldn't be picking up the non-fiction one, but rather giving me a magazine subscription. Or, you know, gift cards. Gift cards rock. Or take me out for coffee and let me pick out a book. Yeah, that'd be a great Christmas present...

Anyhow. I find this whole fiction/non-fiction thing interesting, because I've met few people that have it to the extreme I do. Most people seem to read more non-fiction as they leave high school, and move steadily into the realms of 'serious important adult stuff.' I mean, plenty of adults read fiction, but they balance it out.

Thoughts?