Writing, Self-Publishing, Book Marketing

This past weekend, I must have said, “Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to read that book, but who has the time?” on a hundred separate occasions, before I broke down, stepped outside for a cigarette and asked myself, “What’s the point?” 

Personally, I subscribe to roughly 30 literary magazines (such as The Missouri Review, Ploughshares and Denver Quarterly) and I have a fondness for the Best American Anthologies (my favorite being The Best American Mystery Stories), not to mention the novels by my favorite authors, all piling up on my nightstand, mounting faster than I can read. It’s a great deal of reading to say the least, which only becomes a greater deal with each passing day I simply can’t spare the time. 

What with our day jobs, friends, families, brunches, movies, our new albums by our favorite bands and our beloved DVR’d television shows, DIY publishing, just to name a few, no wonder we can’t perfect our literary minds. Time for reading is in short supply, made shorter by the massive amount of good books published every second. 

Don’t even get me started on writers! How writers manage to find the time for new publications is beyond me. Good writing takes eons, hours upon hours of research, philosophic examination, psychological understanding, typing, phrasing, developing characters, revisions and restructuring. How can any serious writer spare even a single moment? Save for the miracle of cloning! 

Take me, for instance. Though I’m no writing wonder, I enjoy (sometimes!) devoting time, my legal pads spread out in front of the computer, transcribing what I’ve jotted down during the lunch hour. But after roughly four hours this last Sunday afternoon spent pecking away at my novel-in-progress, the last thing I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and read. Would you? At that point, reading was out of the question.   

But there has to be a balance as well. Reading not only inspires writers, but it keeps the music of language, the literary craft and the energy of writing at the forefront of our minds. Can you imagine a world without reading? Writers spewing forth antiqued ideas, juvenile feelings and misguided facts?  

Unread writers?  

Imagine the Benny Hill rendition of Hamlet and you might not be far off, which I believe might be one of the many signs of the literary apocalypse. 

Count me out. 

So what then? Are we doomed to an eternal juggling act, always short on time, reading when we have a spare afternoon, writing when we’re not feeling too guilty about the books we haven’t yet read, ad infinitum?  

In many ways, literature is like a boxing match. In one corner weighing in at 4,000 years of tradition and growing exponentially every moment, the enjoyable, the frightening, the daunting Reading! In the other corner, the master of all creation and description, a legend in its own right, referenced in the bible, the cutting, the biting, the ever-illusive Writing! And as they square off, as blows are exchanged in this unending, ongoing battle for the spotlight, consider how pointless the struggle has become. 

For a writer, this struggle is probably the most taxing. The more time we spend reading the less time we spend writing, and vice versa. Yet the less we read, the more inaccurate are our facts, our arguments, our relevancy and, most importantly, the articulation of our experience.  

As a graduate student, I used to read and write simultaneously (or try to at least), as in I would have a notebook out at the same time I was reading, stopping to jot down the occasional thought or sentence as it popped into my head. In a word, kill two birds with one stone. Though I haven’t been able to shake this notorious habit entirely, I no longer believe it’s the correct approach (for most). To be honest, this approach only divides your focus and splits your enjoyment, so you end up half-focused and only mildly enjoying yourself.  

Here’s my humble solution: compartmentalize!  

Which is really to say – keep your reading time and writing time separate, and make sure you devote time to each. Of course they’ll always influence each other, but you can’t continue feeling guilty for those books you’re neglecting, nor the writing you should be doing. You’re bound to have a psychological breakdown if you stress over the books you’ve been meaning to read. 

There’s no reason to divide your time or fret over your priorities, especially when it comes to reading and writing. Both challenge us to grow into fully-formed human beings (if possible even), but they don’t demand that we step away from our real-time lives and pay attention to them. That’s the beauty of books – they wait for us! 

Still – it’s part of the writer’s job to read, isn’t it?  

Maybe, yes. And if you’re significantly bothered by your neglect of reading or the attention you owe to your writing, then buckle down and get a schedule going. Read for two hours before bed and devote four hours on Saturdays to novels. Write for an hour in each morning and set aside a few hours on Sunday to your work-in-progress. It’s important you log the hours, but however you work your schedule, breath easy. Remember that literature doesn’t mean to make you feel stressed or guilty. It’s waiting on the nightstand like a refreshing glass of water, like a lamp that clicks on when you most need light. 

This is Justin Dimos, Blogcasting from Wordclay, signing off.