I don’t know about you, but I can’t help reading as a writer. I’m always lifting little clues, catchy phrases, unusual word choices. It’s a compulsion, I guess. And I love to get lost in books. Sometimes, I liken it to walking through a forest. You see something pretty, you pick it, you see something distant, you take a picture. Sometimes you may find something sensitive and rare, like a deer frozen and unsure about your intentions before prancing away into the foliage. And those things sometimes stay with you.
Reading as a writer still isn’t writing
But then – when all is said and done, you want to take those moments and put them down. And the problem sets in. You know the problem, right? The fucking gears feel like they’re jammed. There’s the page, I want to write but…nah, not that. That’s garbage. Nope – doesn’t work. Did I leave the tap on? Suddenly, focus is impossible. The page haunts you – like the loading console scene in the Matrix just before Morpheus loads the red chairs and analogue TV set. The pain is real, burned into your damn retina. I suck. I can’t do this. I’m fucking wasting my life. Should you force it? Yes. And then…no.
Reading as a writer is reading like an oddball
Remember those scenes that stick in your head? Find the words that make you feel something about them. Jot down 2 to 6 feelings to anchor a good conceptual grounding. These are like little pebbles you find in the forest. Suddenly, you remember where you are, what you liked about it, how the air was, what the weather was like. This will help you avoid the screen later, I promise. For now, fold them away, sit with them a moment. Open a book and read more. I like to use a highlighter to pick out nice phrases or scribble in the margins of my books. (Be fair to library books, people, that’s public property, don’t be evil.)
Now, remember those words and definitions? Pop them in a book or something and close it away. You’re going to take a walk or do yoga, or jog. Our brains work through muscle memory and our language is grounded in movement and orientation. Exercise the body and your writing brain will be grateful. What? Don’t like exercise? Try Wall Pilates, or check out my buddy from Revolutionary Health & Fitness, who has a ton of helpful advice on basic movement without the intensity of ‘oh merciful Christ, I’m dying.’
What does exercise have to do with reading as a writer?
Kudos if you exercised today! The hard work sucks to start but it’s worth the ride – and you grow to love it! Shower, juice (orange, grape or whatever you like) and I bet you’re ready to take on that blank page. (Unless you’re reading this at midnight, but for you people, try this another time, this advice serves you.) Healthy mind, healthy worldview.
Open up that book of definitions, catchy phrases or scribbled notes with those 2 – to – 6 feels on them, and take a moment to reflect. You’re going to spread those feelings like branches. If the concept is happy / happiness, then you’re going to branch out 6 more keywords that relate to happiness. I can’t do this for you, but think of a braincell spreading out and calling for memories to attach to it. These 6 new words can be anything you associate with the root concept. So…what’s next?
What am I writing?
You have a core concept (or a few of them) then you have worked outwardly to associate a few more words so that you can bake that concept in. Take it to the screen, and make a sentence out of them. I’ll try it first as an example:
CONCEPT (ROOT): refreshed
ASSOCIATIONS (FRAMES): clean, energetic, positive, confident, optimistic
SENTENCE: Look at that perky, refreshed fucker, wandering in here all clean and bullish. ‘Hi boss!’ Said Dan, the little butt-lick. He waved but his flailing arm did nothing to draw attention from upper-management, save a slight, albeit reserved nod of recognition. Dan turns to me, confident, and returns to the task of lifting the pallet. ‘See,’ he said, ‘you need to be energetic to get promoted.’
And here, from this little sentence, you have a story. You have characters. You have dynamics, relations and stakes. It’s almost like, dare I say it, magic?
Are there writers who don’t read?
Apparently. But I don’t know any, because even as a reader I was inspired by the stories I read and discovered, to write. However, I have stolen some of my favourite stories and inserted my own characters into the narratives, from people I dislike to people I admire. These “linguistically pure” writers exist in the digital wild, but I’ve never personally met them. Only a blind writer would ever write and never read. It’s like taking on a rap battle without dedicating your delivery to timing. I honestly pity them, because the attention they seek would have been consoled 1000 times if they simply decided to read.
For me, books have solved all sorts of problems and given me all kinds of insights and life lessons. Take parenting, for example. A good parental ideal for me was the little mouse Mrs. Frisby, in Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. She took on a huge risk to save her sick child, faced the wise rodent-eating owl for information, ventured out to the human world and everything. Her motivation was unconditional love. Basically, if you have a story that hurts you and isn’t comfortable to present, say it with animals. Xeno-fiction is a winning theme for trauma and from what I know, always has been in England. Watership Down was no joke, life is brutal.
Why can’t writer’s read like normal people?
Because Reading is mostly Put Upon people. Reading should be a leisure, not a chore. Sometimes, it’s like a duty or routine to gauge what’s happening in the world. But writers are explorers. We’re curious creatures, we tend to drift and wander, we are the cats of the literary world, both owned and seeking owners – now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure Heisenberg involved way too many observational metaphors about cat beliefs and uncertainty into his scientific philosophy.
Also, for the most part, a Reader lifts a book, has in mind a to-do list that takes care of the brain, and is left, hopefully, feeling achieved. In some cases, the Reader is pulled so deeply into the literature, they are willing to accept it as their new reality, having forsaken the shit that is their tedious, quotidian lives. Does our survey say Fantasy? Yes, whatever haunts and follows and urges you to put down, write on!
