Blog 3

My reasons for reading creative non-fiction may be a bit more ignoble than many others’.  For me, it comes down to anxiety.  I write a lot of fiction, and I also tend to be my own worst critic.  Sometimes it gets so bad that I am legitimately unable to read fiction without my inner critic assaulting me; each paragraph becomes ammunition for the critic to say “See that?  That’s what good writing looks like.  Not that you would ever know.” Or “Gee, isn’t that a similar technique to the thing you tried in your last short story?  This author got it right, but you really effed it up, didn’t you?”  Needless to say, concentration becomes impossible in that sort of mental environment.  Seeing that I like to read before bed, and relentless self-doubt is not conducive to the relaxation required for such an activity, I started turning to CNF for my bedtime stories.  CNF keeps the critic quiet while still allowing me to enjoy a good book and learn.  As a reader, I gravitate toward CNF books about science, nature, and medical history.  I am particularly fascinated with parasites, which sort of encompasses all three of those categories.  Three CNF authors that I particularly enjoy are Sherwin B. Nuland, Carl Zimmer, and Siddhartha Mukherjee.  Aside from some past essays for classes, which I can now see may have employed some CNF elements, my previous blog post about fidelity and schistosomes is my first foray into the world of writing CNF.  So far, I’m having fun.  I just hope the critic doesn’t catch on to me and force CNF out of my reading regimen.