PART THREE: You gotta read if you wanna write

Reading is writing too, and that bookstack is your fuel.

Does this sound familiar?

“I don’t have time to read, I’m working on my book!”

Yep, I caught myself saying that this week. You see, when I started into the planning for my next memoir I knew books from the “before” were going to be wayfinding markers throughout my book. In fact, I decided I was ready to write while I was doing a 700-book purge of my personal library before the move north I made in June.

Some books were gone, so I went online and found used copies. Out of print remaindered, retired from libraries, and former text book set volumes arrived on my doorstep. The best packages! (I love giving books a new home.) By the way, I donated the 700 books I purged to a literacy charity because of that.

I knew that every book that arrived was me clapping for myself as I pitched headlong into writing Rambles (working title). I labelled the shelf with the gorgeous mini label maker, and I lined them up by author, and then I realigned them by pub date (you know the drill.) The noise began…the nagging voices I know too well…the bitchy puppies (my darling little furballs inner critics, those shoulder sitting little heart stoppers) started: Where you gonna start? Which one do you need to read the most? If you start one, it might be a waste of time if you don’t need it yet. You should be writing, not notetaking on these 30 year old (or 200 year old) books! The more cranky and critical of the puppies kept on, but thankfully I have two critics…one goes a little softer on me. Puppy #2 had suggestions:

• Reading is part of writing - you have to keep your tank full
• Writers of nonfiction, we always need source material
• Making space for fuel is like a lunch break, that’s writing too
• Reading is a restful action for a creative mind,
• Reading is a passion, not an obligation so don’t turn it into a bad thing.

So I created a process that is ESSENTIAL to my memoir build out by making a list of what questions I need answered, what epigraphs I need to find, what principles I need a refresher on.

And the guilt of reading stopped. This was an ESSENTIAL part of the work on my next book, not INSTEAD of my next book.

If you want to hear me talking more about my bitchy puppies, the inner writing blockers, here I am in conversation with my friend Marion Roach Smith on just that topic and others around “Self-Sabotage”.

Writers, what good thing are you turning into a bad thing and blaming it for your stuckness …

You’ll see part FOUR in a couple of days…