Why Reading and Writing Are More Alike Than You Think
I might not be a detective (yet) but I have a strong intuition.
Happy Sunday everyone!
I hope you are enjoying your weekend and killing it with back-to-back writing sessions. The dream of every writer, right?
Not my reality right now…
My rants may not have an end, but a tl;dr version is that I have not done some praise-worthy writing sessions in the whole week.
Like, not—at—all. I haven’t written a single article on Medium this week. Though I have published one, it was written a week earlier.
That made me think: why am I not able to be consistent with my writing? It isn’t impossible after all.
If it were, then how are some of the most proficient writers able to write so much? And that too with the consistency of a hundred people like me combined.
has confessed he doesn’t use ghostwriters. And I don’t think many of the other writers we follow use one for their articles.I was wondering and wondering a little more and when I still didn’t want to write anything, I picked this book up.
I have wanted to read this book ever since I was in class 10th. Finally, I will be able to check a box on my wishlist. Yay!
As I am writing this, I have read 25 pages… out of a massive 500. But it didn’t feel like a chore in any way. An interesting read so far.
From the very beginning, this book has me clinging to the plot, story and the thought of what’s going to happen next.
Look, I have never read mystery genre or the likes of Sherlock Holmes ever. I have seen movies and most of them were so-so. (Never seen Sherlock Holmes movies; I wanted to read it first, from the very beginning.)
I wanted to read more, but my head started to feel a bit dizzy. I took a nap and out of nowhere, I wanted to write something.
Something a little more conversational than a Medium article, and a bit more thoughtful than a Quora answer.
So I logged into my Substack account!
Sorry for being inconsistent over here. Will try not to be in the future.
Writing and reading
I am writing this to say that both reading and writing are the opposite faces of the same coin. They go hand in hand.
That’s not to say that every writer is a reader and every reader is a writer. But if you take into account the OGs, most of them are indeed voracious readers.
Now that’s something we all know. But do you know there’s more to it?
Just like we read so many different genres, then why do we tend to stick to writing in just one, on the name of “niching-down”?
The best niche is YOU.
Just as we need to read new genres to explore more and appreciate the huge amount of diversity that is out there, we need to write on a variety of topics to explore our true selves.
what do we truly like?
what are our interests?
what are our skills and area of expertise?and so much more…
That’s what reading and writing have in common—apart from the fact that most good writers are readers if not all.
Both provided us with new insights about our own selves. One of the best forms of introspection.
Read. Write. Discover.
Here are some informative articles I have published lately:
>>> What Can We Learn From Top Writers’ Boring CTAs?
>>> Don’t Make These 3.5 Mistakes While Marketing Your Writing
The playlist I was listening to while drafting, writing and proofreading this letter:
If you want to listen to a good mix of slow and calming English songs, this playlist is for you. Maybe you are able to write a longform article in a single go just like me? Who knows?
See you soon at White Space! Till then keep writing.
This is great. Totally agree with the concept that the best niche is you. Writing from a personal perspective is only going to matter more as AI makes general writing completely automated