So in another thread I explained to sweetchaos that reading a post made my brain fuzzy because it was so good. How does reading a great peice of work make you feel? Does it make your stomach tingle, give you goosebumps? It makes the top of my brain feel fuzzy and makes my heart beat faster. Anyone else feel the same?
makes me wish i wrote it hard to say, depends on the genre.. i've suffered through them all, good and bad
It depends on what I'm reading. Usual really sweet moments between two characters sets off that stomach tingle I mentioned in the other thread, such as a first kiss. One moment that sticks out in my head, which is actually from a movie, is in Hope Floats when Sandra Bullock is visiting her father and he suddenly remembers who she is and asks her to dance. My stomach was in knots for days. Or somtimes if I read a really interesting peice I'll suddenly get the urge to write (idea or not).
Good one. If it is very well-written, I actually envision the situation with myself as the choice character. I love reading great pieces of writing.
since i've been slurping up great writing since early childhood [read the iliad and the odyssey along with all of nancy drew and shakespeare, at 8 or 9], i greatly 'enjoy' truly wonderful stuff... can't say it causes any physical thrills, though... the fact that i've been feasting on such wonders for over 60 years now may have something to do with this... ;-)
I also get a similar high when I'm writing. When I write a poem quickly it's like a I'm taking speed or something. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I'm flying like a kite for hours. It's great. Lol.
Usually, if it blows me away, I become a little green with envy. But I fall in love with the piece so quickly that I usually end up placing myself in place of the character if she's female. The better the piece, the more likely my vivid imagination will take over and create the entire story in my head, pictures like a movie format, almost.
I usually get chills or, like Neha, cry. Once, I finished the passage, stopped, and said "Damn." out loud. And then just sat there, taking it all in for a while.
I know that, at times, I read amazing peices and go, Why do I even write? This is SO AMAZING! I can never amount to this. But that's rare. Lol.
Often, I have to stop and re read the passage several times, in my head and out loud. If it's really good I have on occasion committed it to memory. As far as feelings go, usually a tingle in the tummy or kind of a swelling felling in my heart, and it will linger for days. lol Moira, great writing always makes me want to write more! Perhaps it's my competitive nature.
I feel jealous, and often pathetic. I feel it in my throat: I want to laugh, or cry, or tell everyone. If it's very moving, I become desperate to reach the end, so I can stop feeling so intensely. I read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter", crying, for 6 straight hours so I could stop feeling so wretched. Even if it's a happy peice, I still want to devour it up. The difference is, I then want to read it again.
Usually for me it's like falling; one minute I'm laying in bed, reading, and the next minute I'm in a big musty house, or a fragrant garden with a crazy girl telling me about the time she posioned her family with arsenic. There's no space between me and the story. Upside: amazing feeling. Downside: it ends. ;_;
I think my heart kind of races and I usually say something out loud to myself like wow, geez, or woah. Like some other people said I feel envious too.
