What’s the number ONE reason you aren’t writing?

Because you aren’t reading.

The bar for entry for writers is so low that it might be better described as a line in the dirt. Got something you can type on and an internet connection? Then you can be a blogger. Or a Kindle indie publisher. Or @JohnDoeFantasyAuthor. But the washout rate for writers is up there with US NavySEAL training. So why is it so many bloggers end up with 3 readers a day (all of them Google search bots) or flatlined Kindle sales, and just up and quit? Or never get started at all?

“Books aren’t your pets any more, they’re your raw materiel, and you need to look at them in the same way a butcher looks at a cute little baby lamb.”

The British horror author (and comedy creation of Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade) Garth Merenghi often noted that he was the only author he knew who had written more books than he’d read. Sadly, that low bar to entry means I’ve encountered no end of authors who fall into the same category. Worse yet, in the internet age the totally clueless are able to form self-reinforcing cliques (see the Sad Puppies), echo chambering one another towards their doom.

But those who stick around soon hit an entirely different wall. You can have killer story ideas, and think relentlessly about one day writing them down, but if you aren’t reading you’ll find yourself completely unable to actually follow through and do the hard work of writing. And when I say reading, I mean consuming books in the way Olympic weightlifters eat potatoes…in bulk and with lashings of butter!

Forget the butter, but hold onto the point that as a writer it’s actually part of your unwritten job description to read all of the things, all of the time. It doesn’t matter that you USED to read a lot, any more than a pro.tennis player will win tournaments because they USED to be fit. Your brain, the engine that’s going to be doing the writing, needs to be constantly marinated in books, or it stops thinking in the bookish ways a professional writing brain needs to.

Garbage in, garbage out. There’s some benefit to reading bad writing so you can analyse the negative. By mostly you need to read books that are good at being books. Great sentences, good storytelling, brilliant characters. High nutrition health books to keep your brain WRITING FIT.

Television in, television out. Xbox in, Xbox out. Other things that are also stories do not count towards your book quota. Binging three seasons of Game of Thrones is not research. Chin stroking analysis of Pokemon Go doesn’t change the fact you’re wasting valuable reading time hunting Pikkachu. “I don’t have time to read” is code for “I can recite the URLs of every Hentai site on the internet”. Yes you do have time, but you also have many other pleasures you choose to prioritise ahead of reading.

If you want to make the writerly pro.leagues you need to move reading from the pleasure category of your life and into the professional category. You can still enjoy reading that book, but you need to read fast, read lots, and analyse every word. What’s the narrative style? How are the sentences paced? Where are the set-ups? What does this character want and how are we shown that? How many scenes per chapter? And the list goes. Books aren’t your pets any more, they’re your raw materiel, and you need to look at them in the same way a butcher looks at a cute little baby lamb.

Read new books. Read old books. Read shorts. Read novellas. Read experimental lit fic. Read commercial bestsellers. Crucially, track down and read writers who are better than you are. Better stylists. Better storytellers. Better anything. When you find books that do something great and you don’t know how? Read them again and again until you do know.

And this doesn’t stop if and when you turn pro. I’ve watched some of the world’s best and most famous author read through waist high piles of stories at the Clarion writer’s workshop, because they were genuinely interested in what talented younger writers might know that they didn’t. The whole point of writing workshops is to READ dozens of stories, in progress, by your peers. There’s literally no better way to learn. Except teaching itself, which is really just a way for experienced writers to immerse themselves in reading and analysing stories.

So pick a book, any book, and get reading.

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