“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every book on writing that I read begins with a memoir of the books the author has read. If not, the exact books in a list, it carries the weight of the words read by the author. The sentences, good and bad, that they have read that got them here, got them writing. The words and the works that brought the author to the point of teaching. Writing requires reading.
"I'm one of the few authors I know who's written more books than he's read," -Garth Marenghi
There's something to that: the consumptive journey required to create. How is there fire without fuel? Fire burns without teaching, but humans cannot. We burn with learning. We burn by repeating and expounding on the works of those before us. I've read in more than one space you are what you eat, and in the day of the printing press the food of humanity is words. You are what you read.
None can create without this food. It takes years of work, hour after hour of toil, to take that food and turn it into something that isn't simply mashed food. The first things anyone creates, and that anyone should create, are copies: imitations of the inspirations that got you to the point of wanting to create. Crochet from a pattern before creating a scarf, paint by numbers or photos, develop photos with the methods of your favorite prints, write with the words that you have read. Tell the stories that you have heard.
Layer in your life on the food you have eaten and you begin the veneer of creation.
This veneer thickens over time. Layer after layer. But the center of creation is the food that began it all. The words on the page that brought you to exhale words in a new order and way out into the world.
Reading begets writing. Reading may have no children. Many read without writing. But writing cannot be born without reading.
“’Try it, said the students. ‘Read the first page. If you don’t like it, stop.’ And the clever students turned and walked away” – Ray Bradbury.
The systems feed each other too. Reading inspires me to write. The ideas of an author make my mind race with thoughts. This isn't theft. Ideas are there to inspire. Humanity is an amalgam. Writing is an amalgam. The themes and feelings and words of another are there for the learning of the reader. If I wish to write a story in a style or genre, I dive into reading that genre wholeheartedly. I dive in to learn the words and the worlds and the trails walked before me. I walk those trails with the authors of the works and note all the directions they chose not to go. When I walk the trails on my own, typewriter in front of me and a blank page staring at me, I know the paths to go. Sometimes I walk with those before me, a hand in ghostly hand, but as often as I can, I walk my own trails. I'd have never found those trails were I to ignore the works from before me in some vain attempt to avoid theft.
"Art is Theft" - Pablo Picasso
I am not writing a western, but Project Carving is set in a ranching town. Would it be so if I had never sampled Louis L'Amour and Lonesome Dove?
A character's journey in my first novel (forever in the desk drawer) involved a walk through the frigid north. Without shelter and without knowledge of the land, that character felt the cold and lived the pain of the harsh winter. I know these things. I've spent many a night camping in the cold of the northern forests of Minnesota. That is writing from life. This writing and description expounded on my life though, through the familiar words of Alfred Lansing describing the cold of Shackleton’s adventure or Jack London building a fire. I’ve lived a life in the cold and I can describe it. But I have lived more than one life in the cold. I’ve lived dozens, through the words I’ve read. In my writing is the description of voyages sailed and time lived on the sea. I have not lived those, but in a way I have. Patrick O'Brien and Ernest Hemingway and Alexander Dumas have taken me through many a voyage on the ocean in their words, written across books, read across a lifetime.
I may be seated on my porch, baking in the sun, still and silent. But I have a book in my hand and I am living in another world in my mind.
These lives are as important to my writing as my own. Maybe more important.
I write with books at my table.
I live with books in my hands.
Writers and readers alike. Read more. Live more. These are naught but symbols printed on a screen. Magic is here. Lines of ink and pixels, arbitrary shapes, you stare at them and they are more than words in your mind. They are life. They never leave the page or screen, but they never have to. They are already there, in your mind, in your sight, dancing with the thoughts you’ve created and fed on before.
“The only power source a book needs is you. If you have to leave for a few minutes, you have not lost the story. It is waiting for you when you return. You can pick up a book and resume reading at any time, after a few minutes, a few days, even a few years. A television picture or a movie might be lost forever, but your book is waiting.”–Louis L’Amour
Write often. Read more often.
Some books I've been reading recently that you should check out:
The Stand - Stephen King
Truly the American Lord of the Rings. Epic in all the correct ways and an unforgettable journey through words.
Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz
The pinnacle of throwbacks to the golden age of Christie murder mysteries.
Hothouse - Alfred Bester
The greatest worldbuilding through non-human characters I've read. Magnificent and bite sized read. If its humid out I think of this book.
Tortilla Flat – John Steinbeck
A light, literary, journey through the adventures of a few rascals north of Monterey after the first World War.
Something Wicked this Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
See my thoughts on Bradbury here and here
That's all I've got for you now, folks. Thanks for reading and thank you all for the feedback I've received on my stories so far. I've been taking a bit of a writing break, so less progress on the items below than usual, but I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad you're here too.
Love ya.
Max
Writing progress:
I’ve been jamming on some essays and shorts for this here newsletter, so some of the bigger projects have slowed down, but I cannot wait to share what I’ve got for ya!
Project Lighthouse (Novel): Draft – 5%
Project Carving (Novel): Draft 1 – 95%
Project Free Novella (Coming Soon): Draft 3 – 25%
Non Fiction Writing Jam: Outline – 90% (Wingin’ it, I guess)
Draft 1 – 50%
Photo by Engin Akyurt