Some Thoughts on Reading and Craft Assessment

Some business: I thought I had written more for this blog than I see on line. If I do discover that I have, then I’ll repost them or post them here. So there may be some unexpected posting in the next couple of days.

I’ve always tried to assess my place in the literary universe, as writer, author, public, fan, etc. As a fan or public, most of these ruminations take the form of wondering whether I should read this author or that genre for my personal entertainment. I love Stephen King and up until the Gunslinger Series, have read most of those books. I’ve read many of Alexander Duma’s books, and so forth. I like the Science Fiction Genre and some Fantasy and find myself being pretty selective along those lines. Heinlein, Niven, Tolkein, Rowling, fulfill most of those needs.

Once, while reading Dean Koontz’s The Watchers, a fan of Koontz interviewed me to see what I thought of it. We discussed the book – which I absolutely adore – but when I discussed the idea of Koontz’s management of Jungian archetypes within the book (spinster, adolescent child, 007 type bad guys) she suggested that I probably wouldn’t want to read any other Koontz book – that the majority of his work had the same feel and that The Watchers (up to that point 15 years ago) represented the best of what he did. True or not, I set him aside as a choice for author’s to read. I’m not inclined to read that way anyway, so no one should be too surprised.

In assessing my writing craft needs I kept hearing the twin scenario: write write write read read read. For an artist, the two must come together.

I am no reader, by any stretch of the imagination. and it wasn’t until my third year in the bachelor’s program that I was finally able to get up speed and comprehension. This is nice because it means, quite simply, that I can read more books, learn more things, have more mental tools – something that is very important to me. Then came the Master’s and the goal of not only writing novels, but publishing them as well.

I will take years, I realized, to get my chops up and to produce work competently and proficiently. To that end, I began to realize that I was still deficient in the area of reading. I am not well read.

One of the courses needed for the MFA is a creature called Directed Reading. Each genre has a Directed Reading program. It’s a grueling 16 weeks of (usually) reading a novel or work a week. In some cases, such as Children’s Lit, we could be assigned two books a week. What then happens is that the books are analyzed and explored for numerous things. Such as structure, voice, syntax – any number of things.

Last semester I took two Directed Reading courses: Memoir and Narrative Poetry. I survived. By the end of that semester I was reading three times faster and had acquired great comprehension skills. But the point is this: I took these courses together because I needed to become a reader. I do not think that I can achieve my goals without paying attention to these skills and reading in general. After taking these courses, I can see that READ READ READ is just as important as WRITE WRITE WRITE