To Read or to Write? Tis my Dilemma

           One of the most unfortunate side effects of my blossoming creativity is that I have hardly read a page of recreational reading in months. I don’t think I've gone this long without reading a book since I first learned to read.

I typically am a book a week reader, if not two. I love diving into stories and not wanting to come up for air. It allows me to escape my real world and become a wizard, a detective, a lady in waiting at King Henry VIII's Court, or a time traveling companion to a mad man in a blue box. Reading lets me appreciate the craft that I cherish so deeply and drags me even further into the literary realm that I have always found to be a place of comfort.

You would think that such joy would be something I’d go back to as often as I could and up until 12 months ago I would have told you that was exactly how I was spending my days.

But more and more writing has become a requirement of my recent life that takes a lot of my time and attention. Writing lets me empty my mind of the all the thoughts that are constantly buzzing and banging around in my brain. Where reading allows me to escape, writing allows me to create. I can create a world where things make sense, I can type into reality a place where things are fair, people get what they deserve, or where the wildest of wild dreams are possible.

As much as escaping gives me a chance to catch my breath, writing gives me strength and helps me believe again.

It’s ironic how the act of reading which made me fall in love with writing in the first place is the one thing that I cannot do simultaneously. I’ve found that if I read and write in coinciding time frames I start to blend the two things together and it muddles each of the individual parts. The words I read I start to examine for language and lost the emotion and the words I’m writing start to take on some of the characteristics of another writers tone and verbiage.

In order to be true to both processes I need to do them separately. I need to read only in between writing projects or write only when I have walked away from the bookshelf for a while. As I continue putting effort into becoming a better writer I need to never neglect nor forget my first true love of reading.

One helps the other but only when they are given the attention they deserve. I plan to give both what they need, in their own time.

 

Write on -T