Well so much for our literary salon! It was a lovely idea, but prepping for dinner rather got in the way. It happens. We have to learn to let go of things, to be flexible enough to modify ideas and plans, to kill our darlings: in writing as in life.
So just what is the connection between reading, writing and the imagination?
Do you think that reading helps your writing? Can you be a writer and not be much of a reader? And how do both reading and writing connect with the imagination?
Here are three authors who express the view that reading and writing are necessary bedfellows:
‘Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.’ – William Faulkner
‘Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.’ – Margaret Atwood
‘If you want to write, and get your work read, you need to know about the process of reading, about the excitement and fascination a reader can get out of a book, you need to learn about that connection.’ – Cressida Dowling
What do you think?
Psychologists suggest that reading and writing take place in different parts of the brain, which would suggest that losing the ability to do one doesn’t affect the ability to do the other. Perhaps in these days of multimedia, there are many ways to dive in to language and to be excited by the imaginative possibilities of story.
Share you thoughts below!
No responses yet