{"id":305,"date":"2012-04-23T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/?p=305"},"modified":"2012-04-23T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T20:35:00","slug":"nothing-in-nothing-out-im-not-reading-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/nothing-in-nothing-out-im-not-reading-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing In, Nothing Out: I’m Not Reading Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I did the DFW Writer’s Conference<\/a> last year, the keynote speaker said, in part of her keynote speech, “Stephen King reads four hours a day and writes four hours a day.  That’s fundamental”*  The quote got posted to Twitter, and then retweeted like crazy until it reached the level of public consciousness that my wife** quoted it back to me.  Of course, upon hearing this, many complained that they, unlike the esteemed Mr. King, do not have eight hours a day to devote to their craft.  This misses the point: it’s not the total hours, it’s the ratio.<\/p>\n

Of late, my ratio has been off.  Very off, and I think that it’s had an impact on writing the rough draft of Way of the Shield<\/i>.  It’s not quite<\/i> writers’ block, but it is a sort of slow-as-molasses drip of words that isn’t coming as easily as I would think it ought to be.<\/p>\n

And I think the problem is I simply haven’t been reading like I should.  The Writer Brain is a hungry beast, and if nothing goes in, nothing comes out.  I’ve been justifying this to myself in saying that I haven’t had time to read, but I know that’s really not true.  The truth is I hadn’t managed my time of late to make reading a priority.<\/p>\n

That’s got to change.  <\/p>\n

So I went to my bookshelf and took down all the books on my ever-growing shortlist.  Here it is, in no particular order***: <\/p>\n

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