I recently started reading a book that I bought over a year ago. It sat on my bookshelf patiently waiting for me to pick it up and read it. It did not yell and scream for attention but just sat and waited knowing that I would need to find solace in it one day. It watch as for the first nine months that I started writing my own book I got caught up in just writing my book. I didn't waver except to do my job and take care of my son. I focused on writing, writing, writing. Then I hit a point where I felt pulled into so many directions and I took a bit of a break. My work load increased which also took up a lot of my time and brainpower. I wasn't able to fit my story into my head when I had politics and meetings and newsletters locking the door to my own creativity.
The time off from my writing was not all bad though. I started to read some of the books on my bookshelf again. In reading the books by other authors who struggle though the same issues, as well as different unimaginable ones in writing their own novels, I finally realized that to be a good writer you first have to be a good reader. I once heard a therapist friend of mine say that the best therapists are the ones that have gone through therapy themselves because they can relate better to how difficult it is to bare your soul to a stranger and share all the bizarre, weird and heart-wrenching details of your life that may be hidden away from the people closest to you. It is the same with writing. In order to be a good writer you also need to be a good reader.
Then one evening I was so mentally drained I could not do anymore work and didn't want to do anymore writing and I walked over and picked up that book that lay on my bookshelf, patiently sitting there. I opened the book and let the words fill my head. I felt my mind instantly relax as the story formed and worked through my mind. After reading for a long while I finally lay down the book feeling relaxed and realized all I wanted to do was write. I got a better sense of my own story. My mind which had been lost without a map suddenly felt as if the navigator was turned back on and the words were indeed there. I could again write what I wanted.
The book I was reading did much also to show me how we as a reader can relate so much to the writer and that is what a writer really wants. We want to entertain of course but we also want to make the story relatable so that it is like hearing a story from a good friend or sitting with someone in comfortable silence where words are not necessary because they are already shared mentally. I know at times I have laughed out loud in my reading or cried over a sad, poignant scene or felt scared by a mystery or angry over an insult or injury. I shared with the writer these emotions on the pages of a book.
Another reason to be a good reader is that when we come to a point in our story that is frustrating or not coming out as we want or need it is often good to sit quietly and read a book and almost be shown another way to look at the problem. Books are teachers and friends and references and spas all rolled into one. They can be exciting when we need a little stimulation and fantasy. They can be relaxing when we no longer want to be the one to think. They can be informational and inspiring and relatable. At the end of reading a book a writer can then go back to their writing with more of an understanding of how they want their work to be perceived by the reader because reading a book is a contract between writer and reader. We all put our own signatures on a book just as much as the writer does with what we come away with in understanding from the story.
The book I had left for so long that I was now enjoying amazed me with how much I related to the story. I felt as if the writer was inside of my head or sitting next to me through my own life experiences and here they were on paper. I found a book that felt like I was sitting having tea with a friend that already knew me so well. So after I finished reading, I smiled, took out my pen, thought about the imagined reader of my own words and started to write again.
