I read. I read a lot. I always have. I gain so much from reading. Insight into the lives of others. Insight into the minds of writers. Massive escapism. Understanding. Being understood.
Some have it that to be a good writer one needs to be a voracious reader. My jury is out on that one. I would like to hear the other side of that argument. As a voracious reader and voracious writer I link the two processes. But how I would I know? I've always read. Since I was four, thank you Daddy.
In mid-July I finished a large tome: "The Novel" by James Michener.
And he put into words something I'd been mulling about for a while.
P4:
As so often happens with writers, my imaginary terrain had become more real to me than the physical one that surrounded me.
I have exactly that feeling with one of my unpublished (but complete) books. When I am back in the town in Ireland I write about (but disguise)I see my own imaginary characters on the roads and in the houses and churches.
I know these people.
They walk with me.
I lose myself in reading all the time.
ReplyDeleteI write things down, memories and ideas but never seem to do much with them.
I'm sure there is a good story out there and others would be interested to read it all, no doubt.
Just a question of getting organised.
Maggie x
Nuts in May
MM:
ReplyDeleteVery difficult to get all the notes and papers together, I managed to do that with one of my books recently as publisher has shown an interest.
Only other writers know how terrifically hard work writing can be.
Good luck with yours!
XO
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I set one of my books on my grandmother's property, although she was not a character in the book. When my siblings and I went to clean out her home after her death, I felt so disoriented. It was as if a world I had created had come to life, rather than me having appropriated a setting that already existed. I kept waiting for my characters to appear. We do live in those worlds we create. I, too, have always been a voracious reader, and I feel that I write better when I'm reading a superb book, as if I aspire to write as well as that other author. I do try, however, not to read a book similar to mine in theme or another important element. I'm always afraid that I'll appropriate something of the writer's just as I (deliberately) appropriated my grandmother's truck farm as the setting for one of my books.
ReplyDeleteI meant that I'm afraid that I'll inadvertently appropriate something of the other author's, not that I would do it deliberately. Yikes! I hope that was clear when I said I avoided reading similar books.
ReplyDeleteOne lives with invented characters until they become real.
ReplyDeleteOne also lives with characters invented by others and mourns their loss when their story (i.e. the book) is finished and done with. These then become fiction again.
Linda:
ReplyDeleteOh I got it the first time. I know: Head. Shake. stuff. I had that experience in a town church as I had created this huge scene in the church and could hear the voices in my head.
I felt I should be locked up :)
XO
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Friko:
ReplyDeleteSo very true, but only in really good books. I love the feeling of them coming alive.
XO
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I've read a lot of Michener, but not that one. I'll have to look for it. I'm not a writer, but I know that reading enriches me.
ReplyDeleteSAW:
ReplyDeleteI forget who recommended that particular Michener to me (I'd gone off him quite a few years ago)but I found it fascinating.
XO
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Catching up with you again. I hope I'm in time to wish you a wonderful Irish vacation. You certainly deserve it after running ten miles. I like to think I'm reasonably fit for my age, but I'd struggle with that. Well done! (But don't go overdoing it).
ReplyDeleteI don't know about fiction making too much sense. Sometimes it does, but at other times it makes no more sense than everyday life. Some fictional characters are just totally implausible, you can't believe they would do any of the things they're credited with doing.
ReplyDeleteRJA:
ReplyDeleteThank you fine sir, not leaving for another couple of weeks, but I accept your good wishes with gratitude :)
XO
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Nick:
ReplyDeleteI suppose the addendum "good" would help but then again good would be in the eye of the reader and maybe the mind of the writer.
XO
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I think I got the message long ago from writers that it is incredibly hard work and I think this is what has held me back. I tinker a bit with themes in my PC when the mood takes me but, ooo, a whole novel....frightens the living daylights out of me.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me with any artistic endeavour, one's whole focus would be on that - eat. sleep and breathe it - and I'd need a housekeeper to sort out everything else.
I too have been a reader since the age of 4 - got taken to the children's library. I know when I've read what IMO is a really good work of literature I wouldn't have it in me to write as well as that. And the sneaky feeling I have nothing new to say.
Thanks again to you for always providing your Books Read - a source of inspiration.
Thanks Pamela!
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking "outside the page" lately and it's a struggle but worth it....I think.
will go and read Doris now :)
XO
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