Does reading *really* help you write?
No doubt, you’ve heard this before: one of the most important things a writer should do is read a lot.
Great. Fantastic advice, and easy to follow too, since how many writers don’t like reading? (I don’t know the actual number; I think its approximately most-to-all.)
“But wait,” you cry (and yes, I can hear you, fellow-part-time-writer and I’m nodding along with you), “…how do I find time to read if I should be using every spare moment to write?!”
or, vice versa:
“…how will I ever become a writer if I’m expected to read every new book that comes out in my genre?!”
Well, good question.
Writing without reading
As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m currently splitting my writing time between what I WANT to do (write my own fiction!), and what I NEED to do (write other people’s stuff while getting paid well to do it).
(Alas, recently, it’s been more of the latter and not enough of the former. A writing career with zero income is no career, sadly, so I do as I must.)
Since focusing on my ghostwriting, I’ve learned that I CAN write without reading! At first, things went well – I was busy gathering clients, writing and editing for them, and getting paid (not quite so) well for it (yet)…
As this went on, though, I started to feel different. Writing for other people became like staring at a plain white wall, stuffing myself with dry, unsalted crackers. I could do it. I like crackers! And I’m used to staring off at nothing while stuffing food in my face (but that’s a whole other issue I won’t be tackling today).
But cracker after cracker after cracker, and nothing but a blank surface to stare at… it numbed me after a while. There’s a blankness now – a rote-ness – to my writing. And it’s not good.
Reading without writing
Before I decided to become a writer, I was a Reader (intentional capitalization). Boy, could I read. I was voracious. My visits to the library would be the equivalent of a 1-hour strength session at the gym, with all the squatting to read titles on the bottom shelves, and the lifting of the dozen-or-more books I’d lug around as I perused the shelves…
(that work-out reference is for you, Trevor!)
Now that I consider myself a writer, however, reading has changed for me.
I’m sure many of you fellow-writers are familiar with this: we now read with a critic’s eye. And it can ruin a good book.
…Ok, maybe I should say it can ruin a bad book, but one that wouldn’t have been ruined back before you were a writer.
What tops my critic’s eye, though, is that I now grow anxious each and every time I sit down to read. I’m anxious to be in front of my keyboard; anxious to be writing my own story. Great twists in a novel no longer simply satisfy me – they inspire me. And if I don’t drop everything and get my inspirations down, I’ve lost them forever.
Reading *and* Writing!
Writing without reading is mind-numbing. Reading without writing causes anxiety.
What do we do as budding writers? Well, we do both, of course. Just like they told us. But here’s the real reason why we should:
Writing drains you. It’s like you’ve got a reservoir of ideas up there, and you squeeze them all out through your fingers when you write. What comes out at first is pure magic, but by the time you’ve been draining that pot for a while, all that’s left is the dry-cracker dregs.
Reading fills you up. You read and you read and you read, and you’re brimming to overflowing with what you’ve read. Your reading bladder is full-to-bursting, and you gotta… well, you gotta let it out.
So, you write, until you’re back to nothing but dry crackers.
Then you read again, to the bursting point.
Rinse and repeat.