How YouTube Terrified Me into Reading More Books

I recently found a YouTube video that I want to share. It's right below, or if that's not working, here's the link to watch it on YouTube. It's about half an hour, but to me, the most important bits will be covered by the time you're five minutes in, so you don't absolutely need to watch the whole thing.

If you're anything like me, you're now completely distraught. I know I fucking was after I watched this. Seeing that bookshelf and hearing "These are all the books you're going to read for the rest of your life" was not okay with me. I've always been a reader. That's just...scary to me. I read way more books than he does in a year (On the low end, I read probably eight. An average year for me is twelve to fifteen, but in my prime, I read about fifty per year.), but it still got to me.

I really hope it gets to you, too. Not because I want you to be miserable, but because I think everyone could do with a little more reading time in their schedule. I did the math from the video to figure out what I could get through, on average, in a year, and it was thirty books. Thirty books is plenty, with only half an hour a day. Lord knows I have a TBR pile that could use to get lower.

Now I haven't been perfect at this. The last couple of days have been rough on me finding time to read. Well, I guess they've more been full of me not making the time to read. I had the time, but I didn't spend it reading. I spent it watching video essays on YouTube and eating cold pizza.

So I'm posting this not just to convince everyone to read more (And I mean, honestly, that's pretty baldly self-serving. Read more books...also, if you look at my website, you'll see I have books you can read.), but to make myself a little more accountable. I want to read books. I love reading books. It's just sometimes hard to remember how much I love it.

The answer is a lot. A whole lot.

Voss

This Message is Brought to You by... Someone Else

Today, I’m going to talk very little. I know, I know. Words are kind of my thing. I’m an author, for fuck’s sake. But I’m going to step aside after a bit and just let you watch something. Hopefully, it’ll touch you the same way it touched me.

So, as a bit of backstory: I have a bad habit when it comes to Youtube. I know the first step is admitting I have a problem, but I don’t know the other twelve. All right, it’s not that serious (yet). I still manage to work. it popped up when the insomnia did. I was too tired to work, which would have been the ideal usage for all that time. But no. I wouldn’t have produced anything of actual quality. So I took to watching Youtube videos, and I eventually stumbled over to the gamers of Youtube.

I would spend hours and hours just watching other people play video games. I don’t play that much anymore. The occasional foray into Pokemon (More on that in a later blog post!) or a silly online game. I sometimes play solitaire, and I judiciously care for my dragons in Dragon City. But in all, that’s maybe an hour of my time a day, and if I miss it, oh well. I don’t Game with a capital G anymore. It’s just not something that stuck with me the way it did for other people I know.

Now, I was failing to sleep one night, so I thought I’d put on a video. Just something simple in the hopes that it would lull me off into dreamland. I saw that jacksepticeye had put up a new one, and that it was massively long. About 2 hours. I didn’t think I’d make it through the whole thing, but I know that long gaming videos are normally slower paced, so I wouldn’t be invested. Take a couple melatonin tablets, turn it on, and shut it off when my eyelids started to droop. Not the first time I’d done the exact same thing.

Cut to two hours later when I’m still wide awake. I’ve got chills, and I’m just staring at the screen and reading theories about this game I’ve never actually played, because it dug under my skin that much. Dug in and really took hold of me.

That game was The Beginner’s Guide.

I won’t tell you what happens exactly. You should experience it. But I want to include this little end note all the same, just to convince you to watch this, or at least click the little Watch Later button in the corner (Which has become my best friend, of late. Yes, I have no social life.). It’s about the creative process. It’s emotional. It’s about recovering from success rather than recovering from failure. It’s unique and wonderful (Did I mention the chills? I got chills.).

If you do anything creative at all, or you even want to, or you just want to give up two hours for a moving experience, I recommend it. I sometimes put it on while I write, which is why I’ve seen it five or six times since it came out. It’s that good.

In fact, I think I’ll watch it again while I work today.

Voss

Clear Lakes 44

If you were here last week, you probably saw me talking about TV shows, and you probably saw Marble Hornets on that list as my number five SF/F show, and me bemoaning the fact that, even though it's an incredible program (One of the best horror shows I've ever seen. Ever.), the experience of waiting for a new episode and seeing it posted on the channel was gone. New viewers would miss out on that one thing.

If you keep up on all things Marble Hornets, then you probably already know where I'm going with this. You probably knew from the second you saw the title of this article. If not, keep on reading because you won't be disappointed. Not at all.

It's back. Something is back and happening on the Marble Hornets channel, now called Clear Lakes 44 | Marble Hornets. three new videos have been posted so far, with more on the way, from the sounds of things. But what's more is there's something extra. Something special.

Marble Hornets, a Film by Alex Kralie

There's something strange going on over at the film's website, and possibly on the Twitter feed as well (@marblehornets). If you want the full, immersive experience, check all of it out. I recommend it. I, for one, am going to be watching out for updates from totheark on Youtube as well. Maybe nothing will be there, but it's not worth missing some information.

And of course, as fair warning: don't watch this with the lights off.

Voss