In a few places, you've essentially gotten into the opposite of my views, but I don't feel any visceral disagreement or "interrogation," so I think this was well-stated! (Plus, I still am of the belief that novels can do what some mediums cannot, so I perceive not reading them as losing something, even if I can't quite define the quality at the moment. And yet, I can also concede other mediums can do what novels cannot, so it's fine if people prefer other mediums or are novel-less writers—they would still be writers after all.)
I agree with you there and believe we’ve agreed before (on Tumblr)! A young writer still has to read novels if they want to write novels, but that doesn’t require consuming a whole bookshelf. Reading isn’t enough if you want to grow as a writer—you need to understand what you’re reading and how things work to create a compelling story. It sounds obvious, but there’s so much pressure to read, read, read when we really ought to slow down and sit with one book for a while at a time. So many novels are lackluster precisely because writers are more focused on publishing than storytelling, and many stories are stretched beyond their limits to accommodate novel-length word counts. Publishing is a business, not an art, and it’s done more damage to reading than we’d like to admit.
In a few places, you've essentially gotten into the opposite of my views, but I don't feel any visceral disagreement or "interrogation," so I think this was well-stated! (Plus, I still am of the belief that novels can do what some mediums cannot, so I perceive not reading them as losing something, even if I can't quite define the quality at the moment. And yet, I can also concede other mediums can do what novels cannot, so it's fine if people prefer other mediums or are novel-less writers—they would still be writers after all.)
I agree with you there and believe we’ve agreed before (on Tumblr)! A young writer still has to read novels if they want to write novels, but that doesn’t require consuming a whole bookshelf. Reading isn’t enough if you want to grow as a writer—you need to understand what you’re reading and how things work to create a compelling story. It sounds obvious, but there’s so much pressure to read, read, read when we really ought to slow down and sit with one book for a while at a time. So many novels are lackluster precisely because writers are more focused on publishing than storytelling, and many stories are stretched beyond their limits to accommodate novel-length word counts. Publishing is a business, not an art, and it’s done more damage to reading than we’d like to admit.