Quick, what are you reading right now?
Aside from this blog post, I mean.
What is in the buffer of your reading RAM? What book invades your dreams from the comfort of your nightstand? What novel takes up precious space and weight in your laptop bag? What magazines and periodicals live in a neat little pile on the top of your toilet tank? What websites sit in your navigation bar for quick and easy access?
If you expect to be a good writer, you should have answers to these questions ready to spring from your literary lips. Mine are, respectively: The Love of Hops by Stan Hieronymus, Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, Smithsonian/Nat Geo, New York Times/The New Yorker/The Atlantic (and to a lesser extent, for the social aspect, Fark.com).
To channel and butcher Jack Lalanne – “Writing is king, reading is queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.”
Reading is fundamental.
It is also mandatory.
Fortunately, most writers find the reading side of craft the “easy part.” We’re often guided into the world of writing by the gentle hand of reading, wanting to emulate our favorite authors, tell our own stories. I even know some writers who have the reverse problem to mine, they read significantly more than they write, and have a hard time making the transition from consuming to creating.
I admittedly do not read enough, even though I feel like I read a lot. It took going to grad school and interacting with other aspiring writers to realize that I was woefully under-read. Despite my years of studying literature in undergrad and reading for fun and self-edification in my free time, I discovered that I had so much more to read. I had missed out on champions of our art – Joan Didion, John McPhee, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese – and my writing was worse for it. I thought that the amount and quality of what I was reading was perfectly satisfactory until I realized how much more successful, published writers were reading.
I came to accept that if I wanted to really take my writing from rookie to veteran, maybe some day earn a coveted MVW (Most Valuable Writer) award, I needed to start reading with purpose and artistic abandon.
But if you’re like me, brain packed and racked with obligations that push reading further and further from list of things you have time to do, you’re forced to be picky. You try to only read the best of the best, but deciding what is objectively best can be challenging, especially if your tastes lie outside the spectrum of the usual New York Times bestselling fare. It takes careful research and meetings with other readers to find what is worth your time and will best improve your own writing.
Our go-round on this planet is tragically short. Even if we devoted our entire lives to turning pages, we couldn’t even put a dent in the total text available. We’re forced to make choices about what we read, or if we should read, in a world filled with infinite distractions and alternatives to reading. Some stuff will get left behind. You won’t be able to read everything you want to read. But if you’re going to be a serious writer, you’ll have to make some hard choice, and you’ll have to turn yourself into a serious reader.
To try otherwise is just silly. It’d be like a chef who doesn’t taste what he’s cooking or an athlete who never practices outside of her events.
When you read a book, you’re not just taking in another writer’s opinions and style. You’re actively digesting the culmination of the entire writing process. A published book has been written and rewritten, edited by outsiders, edited by the author, marketed and branded, labeled and decorated, hammered into a work of gradable quality. Each and every essay and article in a periodical passes the probing eyes of an editor, and has suffered the torture of countless revisions.
When you read you are learning what it means to write in a publishable way, inhaling the intoxicating ether that billows up from writing deemed strong enough for public consumption. It is this ether that you should cherish and bottle, taking little sniffs of it every time you sit down to write. You have to appreciate the magical convoluted voodoo that goes into a completed piece of writing, and be able to break it into its baser parts.
And really, you should be reading because it is the reason us crazy writers spend all this time at the keyboard in the first place. We (with a few exceptions, I’m sure) write to be read, and reciprocation is just the decent thing to do. You can’t expect other people to read your stuff if you refuse to read other people’s stuff. It’s writing community service. Most other writers are just like you, laboring diligently, sweating in their fields of text, hoping they can sell their goods in their little roadside stand on the internet.
Be a good member of the community and read. Your art (and your friends) will thank you for it.
Struggling to finish Karamazov Brothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hang in there! You’ll be glad you read it!
The gathering darkness by Lisa Collicutt is the book that is currently keeping me entertained. Great post and nice blog.
Nice! Thanks for reading.
I am a prolific consumer and it definitely cuts in to my creation time. I can’t get a new book while writing or I fall behind on my writing. Maybe I need to start a reward system. 😀
Yea, I used to be like you. Now I’m the complete opposite. Setting goals is probably a good idea!
Reading: The Hour I First Believed, Toilet magazines: Zymurgy, Make, and Food
I love Zymurgy! Did you see that thing about making your own Keezer? If only I had room in the basement…
I did, and now that my we’ve bought a house, I’m dreaming up some big plans for the garage. Eventually, we’d like to build a brewhaus in the back yard, but I’ll settle for keezer for now.
BRAVO! I’m posting this on my Facebook page.
Sweet! Glad you liked.
Well written piece Oliver! As you probably know, I’m one of those opposites you talk about. Recently I’ve read four books in as many weeks and have written maybe 1000 words towards my fiction. I’m attempting to consciously slide the scale towards more writing this week in the hopes that it will stick.
It’s hard. Took me a long time to slide the scale, and now I feel I’ve slid just a little too far. Complaining about the balance between time to write and time to read seems like the definition of a “first world problem” though, so maybe I’ll just be glad I have time to do either 🙂
I love the “Getting Your Book Published for Dummies” and the fact that you apparently have TWO copies of clockwork orange on your shelf (right next to each other too, in a “oh, yeah, I know it” kinda attitude). I need to read more, and I need to be reading more beer related stuff. I was thinking Steele’s IPA book. I just need to get on Amazon a pull the trigger I guess.
My old boss gave me that “Getting Your Book Published for Dummies” and it has some surprisingly interesting stuff in it. I have NO idea how I got two copies of CWO though. High school, probably.
The hops book I’m reading is fabulously researched, but also excruciatingly scientific. You gotta REALLY like hops (or be studying them for some reason) to make much progress in it. I’m going to check out most of what Brewers Publications has to offer as soon as I have some non-school reading time.
Currently reading through ‘World Without End’ by Ken Follett. Have been reading it for just over a week, and am up to page 1135 of 1243.
I agree with your idea of keeping your reading genres wide-ranging. I realised how Fantasy-heavy my bookshelf was last year, and decided on mixing it up with some historical fiction. My current book and its predecessor ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ were the start, and I am yet to start the ‘Aubrey and Maturin’ series by Patrick O’Brian or the ‘Khan’ series by Conn Iggulden.
This year’s focus is Science Fiction, the first series to be read being the ‘Fall Revolution’ series by Ken MacLeod.
Which genre have you read which is most out of your regular reading comfort zone?
I read a lot of nonfiction, especially essay and what I’ll lump into “informational nonfiction” (heavily researched books about specific topics). I also read a lot of classics (early British Lit, world mythology, the stoics, etc.), with science fiction zooming up to pass that if I keep up my current habits. I’ve been running through all of the Orson Scott Card stuff for about 2 years now, but I get sidelined by other books pretty easily.
I can say without a doubt that contemporary realism is my weakest/least comfortable genre. I’ve read some great stuff in school (like A Visit From the Goon Squad and Charming Billy) but it’s not usually stuff I pick up on my own. I guess I’m just a sucker for fantastic worlds and creatures. I get plenty of real life in my real life. 🙂