I have to start this post by giving many kudos to one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, both for his writing and for his work ethic. The Stand, The Shining, The Talisman (which he wrote with Peter Straub) – oh dear, I need to stop listing books now or I’ll never stop – are some of my favorite American novels. If you’ve never opened a Stephen King novel, do give him a fair shot. It’s not horror, blood, and guts; he has an amazing ability to create real people trapped in awful situations, true dialogue, and dead-on dialects.
That being said, he’s also written several non-fiction books, some on baseball, many on writing. One of my favorites, a very well-read staple by my bedside, is On Writing. It’s divided in half, with the first half being more of a memoir/how he came to writing as a career and the second half about writing, the art and craft of the trade.
I wanted to mention this book, not just to recommend it as an excellent inspiration/resource for other writers, but because he make a valid and important point in the beginning of the writing section. I have no wish to plagiarize Mr. King; I want to give credit where credit is due.
That being said: If you want to be a good writer, you must first be a reader. Not just a page here or there reader, or a trashy novel for the beach/pool/mountain retreat reader (although a little marshmallow fluff reading is always a welcome vacation for the brain cells), or because some celebrity told you it was a good book reader, but a passionate, obsessed, gotta-read-a-book like I- gotta-breathe-air kind of reader. In On Writing, Stephen King stresses this to no end, and I can’t agree more. Trying to write well without ever reading is impossible.
I have to read every day, something, anything. Not just the newspaper, or Yahoo’s latest news finds, but a real, live, page-filled book. I only have time to read late at night, before I turn in for bed, but even if it’s 1 am, I’m flipping open my latest story. I do try to control my addiction; I keep a lot of easier reading by the bedside instead of novels that are so good that I literally can’t put them down. (The last one I read was The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. I warn you, this book will absolutely blow your mind! Don’t pick it up unless you can stay with it for a few hours!) Otherwise, I’ll keep reading until I fall asleep with the book on my face.
My point: the only way to know good writing is to read read read. If it’s good, you’ll be so far gone inside the story that you won’t want the demands of everyday mommy life to rip you away from what you’ve discovered. And, if it’s bad, you get to close the book and walk away with the certainty that if something that bad can make it onto a bookshelf, your writing can, too.
Quick tip: save moola on books at PaperbackSwap. It’s so easy and smart – swap your paperback books (the ones you can part with, at least!) for other books using a credit system. All you pay is postage on your book when another member requests it. I discovered this site about a year ago, and it is a great way to make some room on your bookshelves and save yourself some $$ on new books.
Write on, writing mommies!
WM
Writer-Mommy 