Thursday, April 21, 2011

R is for Reading

According to my mom, I started reading when I was four years old. From then on, I always had a stack of books at my bedside. I read everything from the classics ("Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Patterson) to popular series by Ann M. Martin and R.L. Stine. [Side note: What is with authors and initials?]

But even though I was a reader, I wasn't much of a writer during my teen years. While I could craft decent sentences and could spell (more important in the years before word processing programs became the norm!), I didn't consider myself a creative writer.

Luckily, I kept reading. Even though I wasn't writing stories, I was internalizing the shape and language of novels. Today it feels like a gift--trying to emulate these authors I've loved yet developing my own ideas, my own style.

1 comment:

Kristen Mira said...

While I haven't been as avid as a reader as you sound, I am more motivated recently. I think the process of reading for a writer is quite amazing, like you allude to "internalizing the shape and language of novels." I feel a bit like a writing factory sometimes, where if I input good reading, then my mind is stimulated and goes into overtime with this fodder to output better writing.