Writers who don't read

Another blog I've been following is fantasy author Glenda Larke's:

http://glendalarke.blogspot.com/

In today's post, she addresses a (presumably fairly recent) phenomenon of people who want to be writers, but who don't read. Glenda says many wise things in response, but the one thing I'd like to add is that I don't think people who don't read can be good writers.

Maybe these people love stories (presumably visual ones from TV and the film industry, since TV is such a fixture in so many lives) and assume writing a novel is somehow easier than writing a screenplay. Or perhaps they're part of that percentage of people who think authors are all automatically rich, and how hard can it be to write a novel, after all?

This theme even came up this week in a library based comic strip I read, Unshelved:

http://www.unshelved.com/

In the past week's strips, a mother drags her teen son to the library, because he doesn't like to read. The librarian tries mightily to interest him in one genre or the other, and fails. When he finally asks, 'but why don't you like to read?" the teen reveals he doesn't have the time -- he's too busy editing his manuscript. (Which, according to the librarian, is 'really good.')

I don't buy it. I don't think you can develop the necessary facility with words that writing requires if you're not actually reading them. It's that simple.

But perhaps a caveat is in order: one NYT bestselling author I know of is dyslexic. She types her stories, but has an assistant check for misspellings and typos, and while I think she does read, most of her story intake comes via audio books. But I'm certain she considers herself a reader.

So...thoughts? Comments? Can you write a novel without being a reader and loving books?

Playing catch-up

Well. I've had A Week. Insert just about any adjective before 'week' and it would probably work ('busy,' 'insane,' 'good,' 'exhausting'...)

But I've got a new place to live, the lease is signed, and I have six weeks or so before I actually have to move. This means, among other things, a chance to sort through clutter, catch up on various tasks, and maybe even get some writing done.

One of the catch-up tasks is some follow-up posts on this blog. I realized just this week that several people replied to one of my early posts on characters. I didn't respond because I didn't know the comments were there -- I thought I'd set things so I'd get email updates when people responded, and apparently hadn't. (I believe I've done so, now, but have been checking for myself rather than trusting Blogger to do it for me.) Anyway, sg1jb, Lex, and Marina all said interesting things I want to follow up on, and I'll do so once I've finished posting about the writer's conference.