The balance between reading and writing
albionidaho asked quite some time ago if I would amplify my comments on the balance between reading and writing. Since I am currently Not Writing a novel, and am currently doing a fair amount of reading, I thought I'd tackle that.
When I first starting writing at a professional level, around 2001, I found that I could not read a book while I was writing. This wasn't much of an issue with short stories, really -- with rare exceptions I write those in one to three sittings -- but it cropped up with longer work, like novellas, then my forays into novel writing. To a large degree this was a matter of attention span, but it was also a "plot engine" problem.
Initially I only had one plot engine in my head. If I was reading, it was occupied maintaining that story. If I was writing, it was occupied maintaining that story. Somewhere along the way, the plot engine underwent mitosis and I could read and write (though not simultaneously). At this point, I have something between three and five plot engines in my head, along with the aforementioned "novel bubbles" and "book soup." This has allowed me to read and write in parallel, if I so chose.
There's another issue in the balance between reading and writing, and that's filling the well. In fiction, damned near everything is recycled. We all draw inspiration from many sources, capture technique, are impelled by competitive urges, are influenced in a hundred different ways. That means, read a lot. Read in and out of your (sub)genre. If you only read what you're writing, you'll wind up sounding like the average voice of your field. At the same time, if you don't read what you're writing, you won't know where your field is going. In either case, new words from outside fill the well so new words can come from inside.
For me, it comes down to time balancing. For example, while writing Stemwinder, I did very little reading, and almost none of that in book form. I think I read the second half of Anna Tambour's The Tulip as I was starting up, that was about it. Stemwinder took a lot of room in my head, and even though I have multiple plot engines percolating, I wanted to focus. On the other hand, last summer when I was writing Madness of Flowers, I did keep reading. It depends entirely on my internal need for concentration and how I wish to focus.
In other words, there's always a balance, depending on your internal needs. The key is not to abandon reading, and not to microfocus it.
What do I read? Hundreds of unpublished short stories per year, due to my editorial activities. A smaller batch of prepublished novels and short stories for blurb and review, either as ARCs or as manuscripts. A few novels per month inside genre, fewer outside genre. MIT Technology Review, Fortean Times, Newsweek, a bunch of genre magazines, a bunch of Web sites and newsfeeds, some other business magazines.
In other words, I don't read nearly enough. And that might be the hardest part about working professionally as a writer. It's really cut into my reading time.
How do you handle the balance between reading and writing? What are your preferences and commitments?
When I first starting writing at a professional level, around 2001, I found that I could not read a book while I was writing. This wasn't much of an issue with short stories, really -- with rare exceptions I write those in one to three sittings -- but it cropped up with longer work, like novellas, then my forays into novel writing. To a large degree this was a matter of attention span, but it was also a "plot engine" problem.
Initially I only had one plot engine in my head. If I was reading, it was occupied maintaining that story. If I was writing, it was occupied maintaining that story. Somewhere along the way, the plot engine underwent mitosis and I could read and write (though not simultaneously). At this point, I have something between three and five plot engines in my head, along with the aforementioned "novel bubbles" and "book soup." This has allowed me to read and write in parallel, if I so chose.
There's another issue in the balance between reading and writing, and that's filling the well. In fiction, damned near everything is recycled. We all draw inspiration from many sources, capture technique, are impelled by competitive urges, are influenced in a hundred different ways. That means, read a lot. Read in and out of your (sub)genre. If you only read what you're writing, you'll wind up sounding like the average voice of your field. At the same time, if you don't read what you're writing, you won't know where your field is going. In either case, new words from outside fill the well so new words can come from inside.
For me, it comes down to time balancing. For example, while writing Stemwinder, I did very little reading, and almost none of that in book form. I think I read the second half of Anna Tambour's The Tulip as I was starting up, that was about it. Stemwinder took a lot of room in my head, and even though I have multiple plot engines percolating, I wanted to focus. On the other hand, last summer when I was writing Madness of Flowers, I did keep reading. It depends entirely on my internal need for concentration and how I wish to focus.
In other words, there's always a balance, depending on your internal needs. The key is not to abandon reading, and not to microfocus it.
What do I read? Hundreds of unpublished short stories per year, due to my editorial activities. A smaller batch of prepublished novels and short stories for blurb and review, either as ARCs or as manuscripts. A few novels per month inside genre, fewer outside genre. MIT Technology Review, Fortean Times, Newsweek, a bunch of genre magazines, a bunch of Web sites and newsfeeds, some other business magazines.
In other words, I don't read nearly enough. And that might be the hardest part about working professionally as a writer. It's really cut into my reading time.
How do you handle the balance between reading and writing? What are your preferences and commitments?