Talia Lavin: if you are currently writing a book my best advice is to start reading like a fuckin maniac. doesnt matter if it's related, just try to cram as many books into your brain as you can like it's a race. for me at least, swimming in a surfeit of words always helps

if you are currently writing a book my best advice is to start reading like a fuckin maniac. doesnt matter if it's related, just try to cram as many books into your brain as you can like it's a race. for me at least, swimming in a surfeit of words always helps

doesnt matter if it's good lit or bad lit (in fact anything that feels like heavy lifting will slow you down). it's a volume game

Ok, but where do the swords and sandwiches fit in?

between the pages

Your bookmark game is badass.

gotta load the hopper!

lubricate the word chute

Put that on a shirt and take my money

This sounds… threatening.

prime the proverb pump

Whenever I read my writing brain goes: cool let’s write like that author but shitty! I see now the solution is more authors and faster

yeah cram them inside your head like you got a fever and reading is the cure

Been reading between 6 and 8 sci-fi books each month as my fire-hose-research-process and it’s been enjoyable and made me a better reader and writer!

I believe strongly this is why my students hate writing so much. They don't have time to read anything good.

I don't have time to both read and write and I hate reading, what should I do

read trash you like. no chore reading. find what you like and then devour it

this helps me too. disparate styles have a way of shaking your own prose loose.

I used to read 80-100 books a year, but I've noticed my numbers have gone down in recent years. Then it occurred to me that I've been EDITING books; I haven't been counting them as "reading," although obviously, I've read them. That made me feel a bit better about my totals.

I don’t know about that, but reading tweets just got me the title of my next novel: “Surfeit of words”

Audiobook, book on Kindle, and then one in dead tree format.

So is it just me who cannot read while I’m writing? My head is too full. Can only read between my own writing projects. Wish this wasn’t the case.

I can’t begin to state how important this is. Anytime I get stuck, I just read for an hour and . I’ve been in writer settings and was blown away by how many writers just don’t read and it really showed in their writing

It seems to me that this is good advice for non-writers as well. For me it feels like cramming lots of stories and ideas into my head helps to keep me on an even keel: calmer, more at ease in the world. Maybe silly? But that’s how I phrase it to myself: I need to cram some stories in!

Do you find your writing style is impacted if you read a lot of the same author in short succession? Like borrowing words or turns of phrase?

more when i was younger. these days for better or worse my style is more fixed. but a strongly stylized writer can definitely make an impact

Sometimes when I'm journaling my thoughts will stall. Picking up the nearest book for even ten minutes will basically always fix that.

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