TS: Reading vs Writing

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What a rubbish question! But for people who write either professionally or as a hobby - which do you prefer?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Sunday, 21 December 2003 23:41 (twenty-two years ago)

depends; i can read for pleasure and knowledge and other times i study the mechanics of the structure that the author had devised. tense, tone, etc.

― griffin doome, Sunday, 21 December 2003 23:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i do the above more with masters of the short story - i.e. salinger, o'connor, jackson - because the art of the short story is so damn tricky. not just rambling on for ten pages and calling it too a close because you've run out of steam.

― griffin doome, Sunday, 21 December 2003 23:49 (twenty-two years ago)

To misquote the great Noel Gallagher, when reading great writers we not only feel we are sitting 'on the shoulder of giants', we also feel we are writing along with them. Is it the literary equivalent of playing air guitar, or is reading really closer to writing than, say, watching TV is to making TV?

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 22 December 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

writing and caring about it as writing has rilly changed how i read things. sinker's thing on musicians and nonmusicians appreciating music differently seems rilly pertinant actually. but maybe i was always headed towards writing coz of how much i cared about style in writing in the first place.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 22 December 2003 04:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I am a better musician than I am a writer, and I am very glad of this fact with regards to reading. When I lisen to music part of my head is always wrapped up in analysis, and what I would do in the same situation, etc. Reading I can just enjoy and appreciate...I'm glad I don't have any self-esteem issues wrapped up in it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 22 December 2003 04:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Reading. There's a great bit in 'Atomised' by Michel Houellebecq about this - I wish I had the book so I could quote it, but it's something about how if only he could have spent his life reading, he would have been happy, but that's impossible, and he writes a bit but it doesn't really do the things it's supposed to do, like bring order to existence or make sense of emotional states (I might have just made that bit up). It doesn't sound particularly clever put like that but I was just glad he said it.

― darling, Tuesday, 23 December 2003 07:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Reading's the pleasure. Writing is what you do to pay other authors back. I love it, I can't imagine not feeling compelled to do it, but writing's a BALL-BUSTER if you do it right...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 23 December 2003 22:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree with Ann. Reading anything well-written is a guaranteed pleasure. If it is not a pleasure, often you can just stop - the main exception being bad writing you must read as part of a job.

Writing, when you can see where you are going and know exactly how to get there, can also be a pleasure. It is rarely as easy as that. Much more often the thing you want to capture in words is elusive and you must toil at it long and hard before the right words appear in the right order. If you succeed, there is sometmes a sense of accomplishment as your reward. Sometimes even that is lacking, when your conviction of success is uncertain. That is when writing is, as Ann said, a ball breaker.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 00:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I never studied Eng Lit so can't really attempt the argument that the two are co-extensive. I'm always reading because what I'm planning to write necessitates that. However, that act, writing, is always deferred.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 5 January 2004 10:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Writing.

But sometimes it becomes harder to write. Time changes and winds blow.

― the litfox, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

oh writing. should i say more?

― david. (Cozen), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I choose editing, because it involves both reading and writing! Ha!

― quincie, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Having only recently started seriously trying to write has affected my reading. I find myself enjoying (or not, as the work may be) discovering the writer's strategems while I read as well as the language and story. Previously, it was the just the latter two aspects. I wish I could turn my attention to this additional level on and off, as sometimes I would prefer to experience a book the way I have for most of my life.

― Michael Jacobs, Sunday, 11 January 2004 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

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