Read to Learn

Unexpected and life-threatening illnesses or situations can challenge anyone, at anytime. When this happened in my family recently, my astute daughter-in-law simply said, "Bad things happen to good people."

Such is life. Sometimes there is no explanation, so we adapt. We learn to live with what we've experienced. And, if we allow ourselves, we are given the opportunity to grow and change. Hopefully for the better.

Such is the opportunity in reading. As wordsmiths, opportunities abound--for us and our audience. As wordsmiths, we challenge our characters and our readers and turn the ordinary topsy turvy. Through our characters, their words, their situation, their take on life, our audience experiences life through a different set of eyes.

As writers, how do we learn to do that?

Read.

Read.

Read some more.

Whether the writing is well-penned, or not-so-well-crafted. Both give insight to crafting your own stories. Also, read in the genre you write. Read that in which you don't write. Just read.

"But who's got time to read?" Well, I sometimes don't make time to do laundry, but I do it. And not just because I'd run out of my writing attire (pajamas mainly), but because I'll have something different and fresh to wear. And my husband will be forever grateful not to see me in the same old attire. Even if it is my best pair of ratty PJs.

Reading is the same. Reading gives us, as writers--and readers--a fresh perspective on life. One that may spark a different, maybe a bizarre take on the ordinary. A take we might not have otherwise explored, imagined, or even wanted to imagine. But we owe it to ourselves and to our audience to put it out there. To think about. To chew on it. To spit it out and examine it.

Whether a story leaves you feeling good, bad, or just blah, it doesn't matter. The end result is still good. You've read. You've learned. You've experienced life through another's eyes.

Plus, when you enter another's world, you get to travel--perhaps on ships, in rattle-trap cars, on foot, or just around the block--without ever leaving home! And sometimes that's just as good. Sometimes better.

Food for thought:

In life, we experience death.
In death, life.
In fiction, we experience life, death, and everything in between.