Comments on: Time spent

By: Joelle

Joelle — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:50:37 +0000

Reading. I’d love to say writing, but really I probably read 3-4 hours for every hour I write. And I will respectfully disagree with the idea that by the time you’re 25 you’ve read most of what will influence your writing. EVERYTHING I read affects/influences my writing. And for years I was on the cusp of landing an agent and it was an intensive self-designed 3 year reading program that helped me make the leap. I learned to structure a book that an agent wanted and was eventually published. Chris Crutcher says, “If I don’t read, I can’t write.” and while that may not be true for others, it is absolutely true for me.

By the way, as a writer, we get a series of the same questions and suggestions every time too…Do you have any books out? Did you get to pick the cover? You should get on Oprah.

By: Rusty Allen

Rusty Allen — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:29:16 +0000

In the first two decades of my life, the preponderance of my time was towards reading — as I think is true of most writers — despite all the writing in school and university and grad school. Since then, in my fully adult life as a career writer, of course, it has flipped, with the vast majority of my time toward writing. So, ironically as a writer, one often doesn’t have nearly as much time to read.

But some sage once said something that I think is particularly true of fiction writers, basically to the effect that: By time writers reach age 25 or so, they have already read 90 percent of what will ever affect their own writing.

Well, I hoped it worked! ☺ It’s why I have such an important query into Jessica Papin, right now!

By: Luna

Luna — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:50:08 +0000

I definitely spend more time writing than reading. It’s kind of why I read this blog – to see if any of you might be interested in something I’ve written. But of course, it might have something to do with the fact that it can take me up to a year to write 70 000 words (at least when I have to do it outside working hours) and only a day to read a book of 70 000 words.
So I do spend more time writing, but during a year I will have read much more words than I have written.

By: Clix

Clix — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:43:24 +0000

Reading, definitely. I hate writing. I don’t even particularly enjoy writing posts for my blog, and that’s about as low-level as you can get.

By: Stephen King

Stephen King — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:05:04 +0000

It’s about even, really, as long as you don’t count the writing I do for my day job (and I don’t–it’s not creative writing). I have a huge backlog of books I’m looking to read, and I feel guilty for not making more headway on that, but I also have a huge backlog of things I’m wanting to write, and I feel just as guilty there. I’d look forward to my next vacation from my day job for the time to read and to write, except that I’m taking the vacation in order to go to a writer’s conference where I’ll do a lot of neither.

Ah, well. If only I had 32 hours in the day for a while….