It’s People, People!
I don’t know about you, but this has been a difficult challenge for me. I had some medical crap going on for the last couple of months, the cumulative effect being that I had the energy of a slug. Not a happy place to be. Not only did it hit my physical energy, but my mental energy. I was idea-less. Creatively? Zilch. Basically, I stopped working for longer than I have since I became a professional writer.
It’s been horrible. As much as I’ve wanted to write, as I’ve needed to write, mostly, I just had to be a lump in bed. The one thing I was able to do was read.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s why it happened. Of course, it would have been sweller if my reading other people’s books would have generated some income for me, but that’s beside the point. The reading has been glorious.
I know it’s been said that we writers need to read to fill the well. I know this and yet what always seems to fall by the wayside as my writing fills the days? Sadly, I tend to put off the reading portion of my life.
Fool!
The reading, I’ve rediscovered, is essential. It’s is the lifeblood. The marrow. I read widely, from thrillers to Harry Potter, to mystery, to romance, to futuristic. I read some books that I thought were so-so, and some that made my heart skip and my tears flow.
It made me realize once more what an incredible thing it is we do. And it made me want to do it better.
I’m feeling better now, and I’m starting in on a new project. This is how my deep, long swim in novels has changed me: I’m looking at my plot from a completely different angle.
I’ve gotten to the point where the book structure is something I don’t have to worry about. Especially in the books (Blazes) I’ve been writing for so long. But what I saw when I pulled out my outline was that while everything was in place, and everything made sense, I had shunted the character development to the background. I trusted I’d get it. I’d write, and the characters would develop and evolve. I knew their flaws and their goals and their strengths, and that had been enough. Only it’s not enough.
In every book I read that I loved, it was the characters that made all the difference. It was being with them - in them - when they screwed up, when they tried and almost made it, when they reached out - that had me transfixed.
I’m not even sure I can put down how it’s all changed for me, not eloquently, at least. Maybe not even simply. I just know that the way I look at them isn’t that they’re these two characters who are blond or brunette or tall or short, and they’re on an adventure or that they’re searching for love, but that I love them before they take their first step. I already see them as whole, as complete, before page 1. This new view has given me a completely different approach to character flaws and what they mean.
Okay, I’ll stop babbling about this because it’s not all neat and tidy, but man, I can not wait to get to the book. Of course I have no idea whether this new angle of vision will change my writing, or if it simply means I’m even crazier than ever, but it sure feels like one gigantic aha!
So - in addition to asking yourself if you’re doing all you can to write your pages - are you doing all you can to read? To give yourself the opportunity for an aha! moment by reading brilliant stories? I hope so!
January 4th, 2008 at 1:22 am
This is a great post. I too had set aside reading time because of too many life things, but picked it up again while I was away. I read three books in a week and realised how much I had missed it. And it did inspire me.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Hope you’re feeling better, Jo!
And Amen. Reading is essential for a writer. I let mine fall by the wayside a couple years ago to concentrate on my writing, and it really hurt me (emotionally and career wise). Never again. I make time for reading, and it makes me a better writer plus fulfills me in so many ways. I love reading…it’s part of why I became a writer in the first place. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
Stay well!
January 4th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I completely agree, sympathize and share your feelings there. I’ve rediscovered reading and through it, I can see where I was going wrong. I thought my hero had a problem. Boy, was I wrong. It was the heroine who didn’t work.
(Especially after a beta reader told me much the same thing)
But I only realized *why* she didn’t work after reading a few more books. She had no life. So now she’s being jump started
January 5th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I know I don’t read enough, and it’s partly because some of the books I’ve tried reading lately haven’t been very good. I think I need a break from my genre (urban fantasy) and read a couple of non genre books, maybe a few national book award winners. The genre books I’ve been reading (or started and given up on) seem to be more high concept than good writing, which is probably a result of my bad luck in book choices.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Ok Jo, I’m in need of an infusion. What the heck have you been reading? Great post.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
[…] at least. Frankly, I need to refill the well. This is particularly salient to me in light of JoLeigh’s recent post. I want to love my characters that much–ALL of them and I’m not quite there right […]
January 10th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Jo, since I’ve been in a huge writing slump and have been hiding from Sven the last several weeks, a friend had to direct me to this post. It was excellent. My head is in such a bad place, that I’m not even enjoying reading. I’m not interested in the things I usually am, and even when I pick something up, nothing pleases me. But this too shall pass. What I really wanted to say was: you should never stop babbling. I hope you’re feeling better and writing lots.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Michelle = writing, I’m convinced, is the chicken soup for the writer’s blues. It also helps if one can read in a very favorite place and with a cup of tea at the ready.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Jaci - what is it about losing sight of things that are so good for us? I would think those would be uppermost in our minds, but it’s not like that. Since my “rediscovery” I’m putting the next book to be read within eyesight, not in the bookshelf. I want to be reminded daily that this is my touchstone.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Silke, that’s wonderful! Didn’t we all, really, learn how to write by reading? It makes so much sense, at least to me, that books are my continuing education. Thanks for sharing!
January 10th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Honestly, Karen, I primarily read outside my genre. For me, that frees up my mind enough (no comparisons, no wanting to edit or thinking “I wrote something like that” etc.) to really absorb new approaches and new ideas. My rec? Start out with some books you loved before the thought of writing came to you. Then wallow.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Seanachi, I’ve read the last two Harry Potter books, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s Mount Dragon, assorted books by Neil Gaimon, Emma, HEartsick by Chelsea Cain, Nelson DeMille, Twilight, the back of cereal boxes, fan fiction, Dirty by Megan Hart… I’m sure I’ve left out a bunch. But yeah, kind of eclectic mix. Oh, The Green Mile, by Stephen King - one of my all time favorite books.
I hope you find your fix!
January 10th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Thanks, Susan, and yeah, I so get it. Seriously, go back in time. Don’t even try to read stuff you “should.” Find books that you adored when you were fifteen, or eighteen. Or just read To Kill a Mockingbird. Reconnect with those words that changed you. I really do think it’ll help. I’m rooting for you.
August 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Team Rosalie…
OMG… did you see that Team Rosalie is almost as big as TE and TJ!?…