When I was a newbie at this writing thing I worried a lot. (Editor's Note: Unlike now, you mean?) What should I wear while writing? Computer or longhand? How many spaces should
I indent? These are the things all writers worry about when embarking on the
scary path of writing because they are the easy. You can fiddle with these
details endlessly, never committing to actual writing.
But the biggest worry I let consume my mind before writing my
first book: Should writers read while writing? What if the amazing book I’m
reading seeps into what I’m writing?
The argument goes something like this: What if I’m reading American Gods and suddenly I write
something incredibly Neil Gaiman-esque? Or worse—and more likely— what if I
create a pale facsimile? Or if I plagiarize?
It seemed too dangerous to read anything at all, like a
novitiate on her way to the nunnery who, driving past a happy hour sign and thinks,
“Maybe I should go in and have one last rum and Coke?”
I made the mistake of not reading while I was writing my
first book. No books AT ALL while writing my first draft. Keep the book pure. No
rum and Coke for this How-Do-You-Solve-A-Problem-Like-Maria.
Maybe this works for some people, I don’t know. For me,
reading is a combination of writing fuel and those mind expanding mushroom-y
drugs I’ve never tried but read a lot about when I was fifteen, during my
William S. Burroughs phase.
Reading does
things to me. I can see patterns of meaning, filaments of connection between
the made up worlds spilled out onto the page and my own life. If reading is
doing that kind of good to my mind and soul, how much more good can it do to my
writing?
I wrote that first book on the no-reading-regime and it was
bad. It didn’t perform any of the magic that books should perform. The
coalescing of thoughts and feelings, the sharp acknowledgement that someone who
has never met you could understand something about your life that you’ve only
just discovered. This book was just a bunch of characters standing in space
saying words. That’s a bad book.
Looking back on that fallen-soufflé of a book I think it was
down to two things; it was my first book and I didn’t know what I was doing
and, I consciously choose not to read while writing.
That’s like going on a grapefruit diet before running a
marathon.
So, I worked out a recipe for how to combat the reading
while writing seepage problem.
Step One:
Read a sh*t ton of books. Saturate your brain with words
from a variety of different places.
Step Two:
Have your bullcrap meter turned all the way up to eleven, so
you know if you are unconsciously pilfering.
Step Three:
If you are writing in one genre, read in a wholly other
genre. Or don’t read genre at all – read non-fiction. Or read books you have
already read and loved.
Step Four:
Choose books that compliment what you are writing. Remember
the color wheel from art class? Complimentary colors are opposites. Yellow and
Purple. Red and Green. Historical Fiction and Sci-Fi Romance.
Step Five:
Read what challenges you. Read books that poke at you, so
you can poke at your own work-in-progress. It’s no bad thing to feel a little
off balance while writing.
Step Six:
Beta read for other writers. When you beta read or crit,
you’re firing up your critical faculties. Then you get to bring your sharpened
critical mind to your own work-in-progress. Win for them, win for you.
While writing my last manuscript, a YA contemporary, I read:
- · A biography of cancer
- · A high fantasy
- · My favorite Chronicles of Narnia book, The Silver Chair
- · Two beta reads for writing friends who kick ass and write in vastly different styles.
- · Golden Age Mystery Not by Agatha Christie
