Why Reading is Critical to the Writer

Considered one of the best books on writing, as well as one of Time magazine’s top 100 nonfiction books published, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft delivers plenty of honest and helpful advice on the craft of writing, including this gem: “If you want to be a writer,” explains King, “you must do two things above all: read a lot and write a lot.” And many successful authors would agree: there are no shortcuts. King continues: “[We] read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experiences helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in order to experience different styles… Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life… The trick is to reach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long wallows.”