Writers Unbound

I am amazed at how many writers don’t spend time reading. I’ve been that kind of writer before, and I produced mainly shallow, meaningless stuff I kept regurgitating and rephrasing from a shallow, meaningless pool of my own snot.

Some writers (usually not very good ones) are afraid that if they read, they’ll lose their own voice and simply become mimics. I say, better to mimic a great voice than to coddle your own not-so-great one. Of course we want to grow past mimicry. But let’s be honest, guys, we’re not all great writers. I know my prose isn’t sparkling; about 95% of the time it’s muddier than it is anything else. I get wordy. I use the same examples over and over. I get preachy. I irritate myself sometime.

So if I’m ever going to grow as a writer, I had better start being a good reader. My own voice might get squished sometimes. You might notice choppy sentences. Or fragments. Or perhaps I will become verbose, dangling word after word before you, throwing down metaphors like peanut shells at a roadhouse restaurant, stretching each point out to the very limit of human attention until all you want to do is reach through the computer, grab my wordy neck, and shake it until I spit out the point, the meat, the only thing you started reading the stupid sentence to find out.

Whew. At least it won’t be boring.

So read! Get a book! Sit down. Find time. Make time. Carry a book in your purse, or briefcase. Keep a couple in your car. Use your lunch hour. Listen to audio books during your commute. Turn off the television and pick up a book. Read a chapter every night before you go to sleep. What the heck, read two chapters! Get books into your life, somehow, some way, every way.

And your own voice? The one you sit down and hope will speak to you? The one that hides behind excuses before it finally comes out? The one that’s a little weak, a little timid, a little confused still? It will grow in the company of many clean, strong voices. It will stretch out. It will expand. It will still be yours; it will just be better.

More:
Paul Combs at Suite101 provides a list of books every writer should read. A great list to start on if you’ve been slacking in book life and don’t know where to begin.
And here’s a rather different perspective on reading from the accomplished writer of Word Munger.
And from Stuart Evers, a post supporting writers who read: in particular, writers of contemporary fiction reading the same. He doesn’t buy that “lose-my-own-voice” argument, either.