I just finished reading my thirty-first book for the year. It’s mid-May. Unlike the more common New Year’s resolution, mine was to read less. Well, unless I drastically change my trajectory, this is one resolution I’m not going to keep. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with reading. As a writer, reading is what I do for knowledge and inspiration, for learning about the craft, and for keeping up with new trends. It’s also one of my main sources of entertainment — not to mention a major source of procrastination.
When I’m reading, I can always tell myself that I’m doing research, I’m filling the well, I’m keeping informed about the market. And of course it’s all true. But unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day, and most of them are already filled with things like a day job, battling entropy, and idle luxuries like, y’know, sleep. If I want to fit in writing in a meaningful way, something’s got to give. In my case, the usual suspects are out. I don’t watch TV (or any of its online iterations) and I’m not active on social media any more than absolutely necessary (here’s food for another musing). Reading is my personal poison, and by cutting down on it, I could easily free an hour or more a day.
And yet I resist paring it down. For one, reading is easy. It’s comfortable. It’s what I’ve been doing since I was four years old. It’s so much a part of me, so much of a habit that sheer inertia keeps drawing me back to the books. I get it. It’s much harder to create than it is to consume. It can also be a lot more uncomfortable.
In fiction writing, we have to get close to our characters. Really close. We have to immerse ourselves in their world, but that’s just the beginning. That’s the easy part. Getting into their heads is where it’s getting hard. To make characters consistent and believable, we’ve got to think what they would think. Feel what they would feel. Of course, we can go about it logically and rationally. It can be a pretty cerebral undertaking. But if we really want to go deep, this rational empathy isn’t enough. We have to access our own emotions, mine our own quirks and hang-ups and fears. And that’s a scary proposition.
No wonder it’s so much easier to grab a book and consume what another author has so painstakingly created. They’ve already done the work. I still have to do it, and no amount of reading will get it done.
So I’ll put the books aside. Not completely, of course, but enough so they won’t get in the way of what only I can do — write my books. It’s time for another Not-So-New Year’s resolution.