The Introductory Bandwagon

In truth, I really don’t know how to start this. It might be the strangest greeting I’ve ever done, introducing myself to countless strangers, but here goes nothing. As you most likely already know, my name is Britton Thagard. I’m a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma and I’m majoring in Professional Writing, which is super exciting and fun for someone who loves writing as much as I do. I started my college career at the opposite end of the academic spectrum—upon arriving at OU I was a Biology Pre-Med major, with plans on being an endocrinologist, anesthesiologist, or dermatologist depending on my mood when you asked me, I was lost in the contemplation of my future and I found solace only in my writing. Eventually, while using writing as an escape from the pressures of pre-med, I realized how much I loved it and wished I could do it for a living—sharing my words and stories with the world, allowing them to hopefully inspire and captivate the minds of my readers. That’s my goal, for those that are curious, to write and have my stories published—I dream of seeing my name, or perhaps a pseudonym, on bookshelves everywhere and knowing that the world will not easily forget me when I'm gone; because I'll leave my words for them.

In interest of having transparency between writer and reader I’m going to let you guys in on a secret early on, I am guilty of using, and overusing, sparknotes. To all my former English teachers, I’m sorry; because I did not use it as supplementary material, but I used it instead of the books you told me to read. It is funny though, because I love reading, and many of the required readings in school were ones that I wanted to read, but I was stubborn and refused to read them, oh how I wish I could go back and yell at my former self. This stubborn attitude of mine has left me with never having experienced the books that our society considers essential. So many novels, wonderful novels, which most people have read, or in many cases, should have read. All of that to say, I am now on a journey to become a more well read resident of this world. I have many reasons for wanting to read all of those “classic books,” the main one being that it will help with my writing in the future—“you can’t be a good writer without being an avid reader” I was once told.

That will be the content of my blogs here. I have a gauntlet of books (the list is somewhere over 60 right now) that I will be reading in the coming months and I will write about them here as I get through them. I hope you all will read these books and embark on this journey with me; because I think these books, or books in general, are a vital part of living and an art form we all need to cling to. The first book I read for this was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and my article about it will be coming shortly, so I’d encourage you all to go grab a copy and get reading, so we can discuss it. I think that’s about it for this not-so-short introduction, but if you have any book suggestions or want to discuss the books I am writing about you can email me at [email protected] or comment below, and if you like my writing I have my own website where I write about all sorts of random things that you can check out at brittonthagard.com.  See you all again soon and I hope you enjoy!