Friday Question: How Much Do You Read?
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Stephen King advocates that you must read in order to be a writer, and I agree.
I can’t see how it can be any other way! You need to be able to understand how words can be used to create emotions, to paint pictures, to build worlds and to manufacture life.
So….
How Much Do You Read?
Do you read every day? Maybe at the same time – before you go to bed, or even as soon as you wake up?
Perhaps you always have your nose in a book – at the dinner table, walking down the street, waiting in line for your coffee.
Maybe you struggle to find the time to read. Maybe you don’t read at all!
Please let us know!
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Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
Image courtesy of Bucikah.
Christopher Jackson is the Editor for Fuel Your Writing and a creative copywriter. He is currently working on Project: Snotbook, an interactive children’s storybook for iPad.
I read everyday. Right now, I have Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire on my bedside table. Next is the Fifty Shades of Grey.
I try to read often. I usually read in the evenings. Now I am reading in my computer and from time to time I read real books.
I try to read as often as possible, but definitely spend a little time reading every day! I make sure to fit it into my schedule. It’s so worth it.
Every.Day. All the more when I’m in a writing slump, like now, or when I’m ruminating on a new project. Automobile, writers, fashion, style, health and home magazines, cookbooks, reference books, novels, bios, memoirs, and signs and labels when I shop .
I’m like Johnny 5 in the Steve Gutenberg-Ally Sheedy 80s movie ‘Short Circuit’ — “I need input.” Just completed the latest James Lee Burke Dave Robicheaux novel, am determined to complete the well-written I.O.U. Why Everyone Owes Everyone Else and No One Can Pay by John Lanchester, re-reading the Autobio of Angela Davis, next up, The Price of the Ticket by Fredrick C. Harris. Headed to the library to pick up Mr. Lanchester’s latest novel, Capital, and The Garner Files by Advice to Writers dot com’s Jon Winokur.
For me, reading is really FUNdaMENTAL.
Here’s how much I read: my husband tells everyone if there was no written material in the house but the phone book I’d read it cover to cover. :) My nose is ALWAYS in a book – I read between working, while waiting at red lights, every night after dinner and in bed. I read too much. If I’d spend half that time writing I’d probably have some of those goals accomplished by now. :)
My bookshelf, (on my nonfiction site), has a short review of the books I’ve read this year: http://writingwonder.wordpress.com/deannas-bookshelf-2012/ and there are pages for the past two years too. Right now I’m reading Jenna Blum’s The Stormchasers, and a horror anthology, Dark Delicacies, with some of The Masters of Terror, (both books are terrific).
I read constantly. I always have a several books going at once because I have so many interests both fiction and nonfiction. I also read literary magazines, National Geographic, and home magazines. I’m an English teacher so reading and writing is what I do, but I also make the time for both. When my husband is away on business, his side of the bed serves as my side table with books and notebooks that usually occupy the floor making their way up beside me during his absence. I would be lost if I didn’t or couldn’t read!
I have a morning book, a work lunch break book and a back-at-home book. Today they are: Find A Victim by John Ross Macdonald; The Story of Somebody the Sailor by John Barth, and Burley Cross Postbox Theft by Nicola Barker.
Nowadays I read at least 2-3 times a week…mostly blogs and web news
I usually read in the evenings, but sometimes , if I need to, I give it a try in the mornings.
You know what I’ve found about writing? It’s that, no matter how many “you must dos” you read (and there are A LOT), the only thing you MUST Do is WRITE. That’s it. The rest is up to you.