September 20, 2006

• Advice for Writers

  You can’t read everything.  In the old days, maybe, maybe you could read everything you had, or could afford; books weren’t available like they are today, so if you wanted to read you might read everything you could get your hands on and when you ran out you would read War and Peace again (or something) by candlelight over the long cold winter that you suffered through without even a TV.  But now, there is way too much to read “everything” by any measure and the best writer is not going to be the best reader, not the one who wins the contest for who reads the most.

   

  My advice, what I believe works best for me, and maybe you too, is to pick the stories that you like best and read them again and again.  If you can’t fathom reading something twice, then you didn’t like it enough.  If you can’t stand the thought of reading anything again and again, then you shouldnt' be a writer.  Musicians listen to the same music over and over.  They practice the same things over and over, and if that would bore you too much to suffer through it, then you don’t have enough interest to be a musician either.

   

  I’m not saying everyone should read things more than once, just writers.

   

  So if you want to write, read what you like until you know it like you would know yourself, make it you, quote it, come to tears or laughter, just to think about it.  Know even one thing that well, and you will understand the writer and take an importent step towards seeing youself as one.

   

  Some stories I enjoy enough to read again and again:

   

  1)      Cathedral by Raymond Carver

  2)      Neighbor Rosicky by Willa Cather

  3)      The Old Man and The Sea by Hemmingway

  4)      Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

   

  • 7:57 am
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