I've been an avid reader all of my life. However, when I began to write my own novel, I could no longer just read. Something an author writes triggers a line or idea for my own novel and immediately I'm digging around for a scrap of paper to jot down a note for my manuscript. Reading has become a forensic exercise - I dissect how other authors communicate/structure action and emotion, how they pace the story and what devices they use to move it along. I have become a student of the craft of writing as much as I am a fan of literature. That push and pull, reader/writer- writer/reader, can make the continuity of reading a book a challenge.
There is also the guilt. Read something that's off of my novel's topic and I feel guilty because I should be writing/researching/editing/building a platform - anything and everything related to my book! It almost feels like I'm "cheating" on my manuscript. Sounds strange but writers know what I mean.
Even with these distractions I must read, it is as necessary for me as breathing. I still quiz my friends about what they're reading, exchange books with my daughters, I pour over the NYT Book Review and source new reading material from places like NPR and the apps I found on Galley Cat that tell you what folks in the WWW. are reading. Life was simpler when I was just a reader.
But I am a writer. A writer with a 400 page manuscript that I'm aggressively seeking an agent for. And, I've got two novels working their way out of my head and onto paper. Even with complications and compromises, nothing beats capturing your own characters and their stories on a page for readers to read or other writers to analyze. I may have reader's envy but I am ever so grateful to have a writer's life!
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