Why reading is your greatest writing tool
Sorry for not posting last week! It was my two-year anniversary with my boyfriend, and I simply neglected to write anything of interest. On to this week. What’s good.
Photo by Matias North from Unsplash.
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
I feel like I’ve touched on this subject but never devoted an entire blog post to it. I’m your typical, burned-out gifted kid, who devoured books from elementary school all throughout high school, but come college and the swift entry into adult-life, I’ve been less diligent about reading. It’s been just recently that I’ve started to have at least one new book ready to go at all times. So what does this say about writing?
Well, obviously, a lot.
One of my greatest character flaws is that I don’t read poetry. I read almost exclusively fiction novels, barely any short stories, and very rarely a good memoir here and there. This is something I’m trying to change with time because, in order to grow as a poet and a writer in general, I have to read a wide variety of authors, genres, and styles.
Photo by @2photopots from Unsplash.
This impacts my writing in several ways. First and foremost, it shows me where and how my writing needs to develop in order to reach the place I want it to be (including in plot and character development, my voice, etc.). It also shows me what I don’t want to do.
Simply, as one could expect, there aren’t books I want to emulate. There are aspects I love from certain books (Murakami’s storytelling, Acavedo’s poetry, Mitchell’s depth of connection), and I definitely learn something from every book I read. I recently read They Both Die at the End because I thought it had an interesting premise (and some people on TikTok recommended it if you wanted a good cry), but it just ended up being a kind of cheesy teen romance, where, you guessed it, they both die at the end.
No tears were shed in the reading of that book.
That’s not to say there weren’t elements I didn’t like. I’ve just read books that have created more meaningful, more powerful relationships, that made me feel...more. So I examine how the author did (or didn’t) do that, and learn from it.
Another thought I’ve had - Stephen King has claimed that television is the enemy to creativity. While I agree with this on certain levels, I also believe it’s a great source of inspiration (esp. For imagery.) There’s a lot to think about on that subject - and I’ll save it for a later blog post.
It’s been a rough few weeks for poetry (I have several documents named “The Rough Patch Continues.”) But here’s one I wrote that I actually liked a little. Let me know what you think in the comments.
The poetry I almost wrote last night
It sounded like this -- like a tangerine-tinged
nightmare, veined sickness
flossed against my gums, like a water demon
with fresh-plucked orbs from
my head, to stop me from waking to see the
worst of it. The poetry I almost
wrote was precluded by sleep, by a necessary
pigmentation or figment or blessing
in the shape of my back breaking against
hardwood floor. I do not remember
what came next, but it sounded like this --
like my mother begging for a
second chance, like my father forgetting
what original sin is, as if my
skin was pure from birth, settled against
the flesh that once held me in
her womb, and it sounded like him crying,
like a fearsome buckling of
sensibilities, and this is how I knew I was
asleep. The poetry I almost
wrote was halted by dreams, by a fatigue-
induced stupor born from an
anxiety-fueled beforehand, by the waking
wonder of if this is when we’ll
say goodbye, or after.
