My advice is to do whatever makes you happy.

[SusanJillParker]

I worked as a staff accountant, full-charge bookkeeper, and then as a controller for small companies, a custom cabinetry maker, a large printer, a furrier, and a modeling agency.

Even though I have a degree in Business, have a gift for numbers, and was good at protecting their money, I hated my job. Then, I started writing and never stopped.

I thought by earning my degree in English that would make me a better writer. It didn't. Other than class papers, I didn't write a thing in college, I just read, read, and read, usually a book a day, sometimes two books a day.

Oddly enough, I can't write when I'm reading and conversely, I can't read when I'm writing. Weird. One activity turns off the others. Reading stops my creativity.

Yet, even though it didn't make me a better writer, I'm proud of the English degree that I earned from Northeastern University in Boston. If anything it broadened my mind and made me aware of how much I don't know and still need to learn. I'm glad that I minored in English Literature and Creative Writing.

Suffice to write, writing takes more than an English degree. It takes not only natural talent but also it takes discipline and dedication. How many would rather stay locked in a room to write than to go out with their friends? Yet, that's what I do. I'd rather write than waste my days drinking and dating men I don't like.

Now that I'm creating stories, I'm the happiest I've ever been. I write every day, 7 days a week from 4:30 am until 11:30 am. I never look at a blank screen. I always know what I'm going to write. I never write less than 6 stories at a time. My writing is always inspired.

If ever I get stuck, which is rare, I take the story to bed with me. My last thought before closing my eyes is my story. I allow my brain to percolate my story while I'm sleeping. Then, when I awaken and am sitting at the keyboard, I can't type fast enough before forgetting all that my brain told me to write.

I earn my living by writing custom, creative, and personalized stories for fans. The best thing I ever did was to exchange a calculator for a keyboard. The best thing I ever did was to not only become my own boss while working from home but also by doing what I love to do.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm glad you are so happy and I agree with your overall point, but I can't wrap my head around someone thinking that reading doesn't make you a better writer.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm glad you are so happy and I agree with your overall point, but I can't wrap my head around someone thinking that reading doesn't make you a better writer.

I used to read like a fiend. In my teens I would go to a used bookstore every Friday and by 3-4 novels and have them read by my next trip the following week.

As an adult of course you slow down, job, wife, kids, life...but I was still killing a book a week and for years.

I started writing ten years ago. Since then I'm lucky I can make it through a short story. I have difficulty reading others words. They stick in my head and screw with my writing. TV/Movies do the same thing if its anything along the line of my EH novels.

I joke that I spent years absorbing words now I'm purging them, but in reality I think I just shifted into wanting to create and not bother with getting caught up in other people's creations.

 

[Jada59]

I'm glad you are so happy and I agree with your overall point, but I can't wrap my head around someone thinking that reading doesn't make you a better writer.

It's the opposite for me. I generally turn to writing when I don't like what I'm reading. I know I can write better than whatever it was I was reading.

That's not the only reason I write. Sometimes I just want to write.

 

[SusanJillParker]

I'm glad you are so happy and I agree with your overall point, but I can't wrap my head around someone thinking that reading doesn't make you a better writer.

In the beginning, before finding your voice and your style, indeed, reading makes for a better writer.

Yet, once I knew what I wanted to write, instead of helping, reading became a distraction. Perhaps, reading helps those more who don't write fiction. The last thing that I wanted to do was to write someone else's thoughts by copying their ideas and style.

I started reading seriously when I was 8-years-old. Because of all that happened to me early in life and because my living situation, I'd lock myself in my room and read.

By the time I was in Junior High School, I was reading college level material. My favorites of course, were the classics, Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, Steinbeck, Twain, Joyce, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Cummings, Tolstoy, Emerson, Hawthorn, Flaubert, Dickens, Austin, Wharton, and so very many others.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I used to read like a fiend. In my teens I would go to a used bookstore every Friday and by 3-4 novels and have them read by my next trip the following week.

As an adult of course you slow down, job, wife, kids, life...but I was still killing a book a week and for years.

I started writing ten years ago. Since then I'm lucky I can make it through a short story. I have difficulty reading others words. They stick in my head and screw with my writing. TV/Movies do the same thing if its anything along the line of my EH novels.

I joke that I spent years absorbing words now I'm purging them, but in reality I think I just shifted into wanting to create and not bother with getting caught up in other people's creations.

I get that, but surely, the influence of all that reading is part of what made you the writer you are now, don't you think?

 

[MelissaBaby]

It's the opposite for me. I generally turn to writing when I don't like what I'm reading. I know I can write better than whatever it was I was reading.

That's not the only reason I write. Sometimes I just want to write.

In my way of thinking, that is the same thing. If I am inspired to step up my game as a writer by reading something I think is very good, or if I do so because I don't like what I've read and feel compelled to write something better, I am still motivated to improve because of what I've read.

 

[SusanJillParker]

In my way of thinking, that is the same thing. If I am inspired to step up my game as a writer by reading something I think is very good, or if I do so because I don't like what I've read and feel compelled to write something better, I am still motivated to improve because of what I've read.

After a while, reading becomes a distraction.
After a while, reading creates white noise in your head. After a while, you start hearing voices but not the voices of your characters but of someone else's characters.

After a while, forget about reading, you just want to write, have to write, and must write. I can't imagine going a day without writing. Yet, hard to believe, believe it or not, I answer my e-mails than I write stories (lol).

 

[ChloeTzang]

After a while, reading becomes a distraction.
After a while, reading creates white noise in your head. After a while, you start hearing voices but not the voices of your characters but of someone else's characters. ..... After a while, forget about reading, you just want to write, have to write, and must write. I can't imagine going a day without writing.

Not me. I love reading. And I get all sorts of ideas from other writer's books and stories. A word, a scene, an idea, an image. A thought that sparks something new. I love immersing myself in a world created by someone else, and the best writers to me are the ones that can draw me in so that reality fades away and I'm in their world. Everything and anything, it's all input and the weirdest things come out of that.

 

[SimonDoom]

Not me. I love reading. And I get all sorts of ideas from other writer's books and stories. A word, a scene, an idea, an image. A thought that sparks something new. I love immersing myself in a world created by someone else, and the best writers to me are the ones that can draw me in so that reality fades away and I'm in their world. Everything and anything, it's all input and the weirdest things come out of that.

Me, too. I can't imagine writing without reading. It's a constant source of material and inspiration for ideas. In particular, I like studying other authors' prose styles and seeing the different ways they put words together. I always learn something from doing that.

 

[SusanJillParker]

Not me. I love reading. And I get all sorts of ideas from other writer's books and stories. A word, a scene, an idea, an image. A thought that sparks something new. I love immersing myself in a world created by someone else, and the best writers to me are the ones that can draw me in so that reality fades away and I'm in their world. Everything and anything, it's all input and the weirdest things come out of that.

Since I'm more of a character writer and a novelist more than I am a short story writer, I receive more inspiration from sitting on a bench at the mall and watching people.

I enjoy imagining different scenarios while seeing someone's face while watching their interactions with others.

In that regard, you're correct. A word, a scene, an idea, or an image is plenty enough to inspire a story.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Me, too. I can't imagine writing without reading. It's a constant source of material and inspiration for ideas. In particular, I like studying other authors' prose styles and seeing the different ways they put words together. I always learn something from doing that.

Yes, especially that. I look at writing styles and the way other authors write and their plots all the time. "How do you do that?" is one of those questions that's always there. I'm a huge believer in reading best sellers to see why they're so popular. Aside from the plot, the words and how they're strung together. Dialog, narrative, all that stuff.

 

[KeithD]

I don't have to write everyday, but I do try to read every day.

 

[GrampsIsHard]

Hi SusanJillParker....

 

[Seadog777]

After a while, reading becomes a distraction.
After a while, reading creates white noise in your head. After a while, you start hearing voices but not the voices of your characters but of someone else's characters.

After a while, forget about reading, you just want to write, have to write, and must write. I can't imagine going a day without writing. Yet, hard to believe, believe it or not, I answer my e-mails than I write stories (lol).

Yes, and reading for more than half an hour at a time gives me a headache.

I still read, though my jobs limit my time.

 

[MsNatalie99]

I read everyday. Mostly for school, eating away just about all of my free time. I rarely have the time to dedicate to a novel length work. However, in order to write, I have to indulge in at least a few pages of recreational reading. Otherwise my screen stays blank. I'll also abandon my writing, temporarily of course, if it feels like work.