{"id":193,"date":"2018-10-16T23:13:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T22:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/denverharrington.com\/main\/?p=193"},"modified":"2019-04-17T23:09:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T22:09:17","slug":"reading-as-a-writer-your-inner-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denverharrington.com\/main\/reading-as-a-writer-your-inner-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading as a Writer (Your inner community)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So, you\u2019re a writer \u2013 and certainly, you\u2019re going to have to read. Lots! Read daily \u2013 as much as you can, if you\u2019re not already in the habit. If you\u2019re a young person reading this then reading is going to be a lot easier, since the luxury of time ought to be more available to you. For me, reading was a pleasure I did daily. I used to read at night before bed and on the bus going to college. Am I still in the habit? Of course \u2013 but how I budget time<\/em><\/strong> today is very different.<\/p>\n

What we find when we read is that we are informed on our writing. We consult great voices who share with us their humour, their outlook, their wit. What we have collected is perspectives!<\/p>\n

When American novelist Jonathan Franzen interviewed Professor of English and Linguistics Shirley Brice Heath at Stanford University, it was made clear that a reader (an isolated person in this particular conversation, who as a child believed they were different and thus sought inclusion in imaginary worlds) can form a dialogue with authors.<\/p>\n

What happens is you take that sense of being different into an imaginary world, but that world, then, is a world you can\u2019t share with the people around you \u2013 because it\u2019s imaginary. And so the important dialogue in your life is with the authors of the books you read. Though they aren\u2019t present, they become your community.<\/em><\/p>\n

Steven King says this even more imaginatively. In his chapter On Writing, titled: What Writing Is,<\/u> Stephen King says:<\/p>\n

Telepathy, of course\u2026All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree\u2026 <\/em>(After elaborating examples on description and visually relative variations, he goes on to say) This is what we\u2019re looking at and we all see it. I didn\u2019t tell you. You didn\u2019t ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We\u2019re not even in the same year together, let alone the same room\u2026except we are together. We\u2019re close. \u2013 We\u2019re having a meeting of the minds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Other writers are <\/em>your community. Their voice is with you and instructs you. Reading is part of the dialogue or opening your mind to their work, their voice and their dreams.<\/p>\n

Those lonely and pained and often isolated people, those who have felt different and never really fit in, they are speaking with you if you feel the same. (Like mine-craft <\/em>is a digital community, reading is the mind-craft <\/em>community. We expand our dreams through the inspiration of others, we read \u2013 we\u2019re guided, and improve our imaginative vision).<\/p>\n

If you want to be a healthy writer \u2013 you\u2019re going to need nutrition!<\/p>\n

How much of what I write am I ripping off?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was younger \u2013 I wanted to be truly unique and original. I wanted to deliver something totally unheard of before, create something totally weird. Alas, that\u2019s impossible, of course I didn\u2019t know it then. There are limits to how we are informed. Sure, a heavy dose of LSD might blow your mind into a new dimension but putting that into words might be difficult since language is a limited and time-consuming process, not to mention the workings of human imagination are simply not always categorised by words \u2013 so we move slowly as language changes and evolves with us. Evolution is necessarily slow. We are influenced by our environment and what we know. What we do about those elements is all down to how we play with them (bending, blending and breaking!)<\/p>\n

American novelist John Updike famously stated: \u201cMy purpose in reading has ever secretly been not to come and judge but to come and steal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the nature of consumption, contemplation and reproduction. Artists take ideas \u2013 sometimes counter ideas and to use the Hegelian term, synthesise <\/em>them. Hegel\u2019s philosophical idea was that when an idea is lying around, a thesis<\/em>, then its very nature calls into existence its opposite, the antithesis, <\/em>so those two conflicting ideas merge and forge a synthesis. <\/em>The birth of this new idea (or synthesis) <\/em>itself becomes the new thesis<\/em> and calls into action its counterpart and so on.<\/p>\n

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So, how much of what I create is me? Probably not a lot. Even to the very small minimal you\u2019ll find that your inspirations and your guides are leaking through.<\/p>\n

John Gardener argues:<\/p>\n

All great writing is in a sense imitation of great writing. Writing a novel, however innovative that novel may be, the writer struggles to achieve one specific large effect, what can only be called the effect we are used to getting from good novels. <\/em><\/p>\n

Look at your most beloved books and synthesise ideas! What is it you love about them? What compels you to keep coming back and reading them?<\/p>\n

Making Sense of Lit<\/strong><\/p>\n

A student of literature is trained in critical vocabulary necessary for analysing texts and taught to interpret and seek out themes and tropes and stereotypes and meaning for a deeper understanding to literary theory. It is of course possible to do this without being a student of literature. Generic texts such as horror <\/em>and science-fiction <\/em>will have some underlying thematic topics such as mystery <\/em>or dystopian <\/em>and they normally explore ideas using nature <\/em>as description or life and consciousness <\/em>and so on. What we as writing readers need to learn to do is to discover the sub-text, the hidden meaning, the metaphorical picture, the cryptic problem the writer struggles with and expresses in their prose. Once you have learned to decode the writer, you have found the proverbial easter-egg <\/em>of their problem.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, writers aren\u2019t looking for challenges, sometimes they\u2019re looking to plug a generic market gap and are writing simply to cash-in. Christmas is coming, or maybe it\u2019s romance time? (Actually, we’re close to halloween at the moment and if you want a creepy, Lovecraftian horror novel, check out The Crawling<\/a> – Promotional Offer starts 26th of Oct and runs until the end of the month.) But not all literature has a double meaning, but one could argue even the commercial and surface literature is telling as to what popular and cultural attitudes and tastes are in swing during a certain time and season. (Often the phrase sex-sells <\/em>is always true no matter the season…I’m looking at you E. L. James!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

The timeless literature is something you know how to look for as a broad reader, remember, experience informs intuition!<\/p>\n

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates believes that:<\/p>\n

Our reading is a part of our preparation for writing\u2026Every book, every sentence we read is a part of our preparation for our own writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reading and analysing literature is in this way a part of a writer\u2019s apprenticeship!<\/p>\n

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Included in this article is a resource pack for vocabulary useful for analysing text. (From the Ilfracombe Academy English Department<\/em>. I wouldn\u2019t worry about getting academic about this. Actually, this is worth reading simply so that you are familiar with terms and themes writers often unconsciously employ, and the vocabulary literary critics employ to break it down.)<\/p>\n

When it comes to your work as a writer, and lets say you didn\u2019t study creative writing or literature \u2013 don\u2019t worry about it. Get on with it. This is not outside your realm of understanding. This is your <\/em>world, and you can make it any way you like. How you show it, is down to what you want to say \u2013 and what you learn not<\/em><\/strong> to say. Sometimes, a silent key brings depth to a piece of music \u2013 and in writing, less <\/em>is more. <\/em>But more on that one another time. To conclude today, I would like you to consider some elements of craft:<\/p>\n

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