Tag: twitter

Do you need to read to be a writer?

On By kepagewriterIn Reading, The Writing ProcessLeave a comment

This is a response to the frequent appearance of the question Do you need to read to be a writer on Twitter. At least once a week, this question appears in my Twitter feed. The last variation – As a writer, do you feel obliged to read – really annoyed me. The use of the word obliged suggests that reading is a chore. If that is how you feel, I’d have to question why you’d want to be writer in the first place.

There are two reasons I find this question irritating. First of all, to me it seems absolutely natural that reading and writing go together. For me, both are essential to the smooth running of my psyche. It’s not only that. You learn from the one how to do the other. When I first started teaching, there was a fad for teaching reading and writing as separate things. It soon transpired that this was impossible. You need to read models of good writing to know how to do it yourself. This is still true if you are writing a novel and not a letter to an editor of a newspaper for your GCSE exam.

The second reason is I can think of no other medium where people would think they could just go ahead and do it without studying or gaining skills first. Would a musician say do you have to listen to music to know how to write music or a film director suggest you could just go ahead and direct without ever seeing a film. Of course they wouldn’t and people generally recognise that you have to practise and learn skills before you can be good at these things. For whatever reason, we don’t think about writing like this. People think that everybody has a book in them and that they can just sit down at their notebook or keyboard and magic will just happen. This is not the case.

Of course, it’s not for me to dictate how much someone should or shouldn’t read. No one should feel obliged to do anything they don’t want to. Equally, I don’t understand why you would be interested in creating something for someone else to read if you don’t enjoy reading. Furthermore, how could you possibly write a book that might make them think reading is amazing and fun if you don’t even like reading yourself?

Another week goes by…

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and informationLeave a comment

It has been a strange week. I have now read Shattered Reflections three times. Just when I thought it was almost time to move to the next step, approve the proofs and then it would be the excitement of sales and marketing. Then, some inconsistencies were pointed out to me and I realised I needed to check through it all again. Square one, hello, here I am again. Starting to wonder how I ever thought this manuscript was ready for public consumption. Hello, also, nerves.

So, I have neglected everything else. No twitter. No facebook. Barely read my e-mails. No writing on exciting new project. No working on website.  No point in having a snazzy website if I have no book to sell. That makes sense, right. But I worry that having taken the first tentative steps towards marketing myself that I am now instantly disappearing. Its taking too long. Furthermore, Shattered Reflections is starting to feel like a piece of coursework that I have marked too many times. I’m thoroughly sick of it. I want to work on something new.

Still I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This next week should see the proofs ready. The website should be up. Facebook page should be ready. Hears hoping, anyway.

A strange exercise in self promotion.

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information4 Comments

So it is a week since I started this strange exercise in self promotion and I have to say the net result is I am a bit rubbish at it. Others seem to excel at it. Easily sharing opinions, keeping the public aware of them. By contrast, I worry about every tweet, every word and letter until I lose momentum.

I posted my blog and people liked it. If I sound surprised then this is because I am. Perhaps you wonder why I wrote it if I didn’t expect this to be the outcome. Well, of course, I hoped. But in reality, the pessimist in me expected it to languish lonely in cyberspace. It’s strange to me that people I don’t know might randomly come across my blog and read it. Of course, this is the very definition of reading a book but walking into a book shop and plucking something off the shelf seems natural to me. It has taken me a while to realise that I could treat the Internet in the same way, that people treated it in this way. It makes me feel old to think that reading a book you have physically in your hand is becoming increasingly old-fashioned. Old, and a little depressed.

It has taken me a while to realise how the Internet works – I don’t mean the nuts and bolts of it, I don’t think I’ll ever understand that – but the way people treat it, think of it, work with it. I always vowed that I wouldn’t use Twitter or be the sort to post every thought on Facebook. And even now when I realise the usefulness of it, I still find myself hesitating. At heart I am a quiet person. (Okay, all those of you reading this who actually know me, you can stop laughing now.) What I mean is, I have never really put myself forward. It feels a little like volunteering information that no one asked for. So even as I am typing this it still feels strange.

As for the rest of my week, it has been spent in anticipation. The proofs of Shattered Reflections are ready and I am just waiting for them to arrive so I can start the project of editing them. Excitement bubbles under until they arrive.