“...reading provides writers with their intellectual orchestra” is really beautiful phrasing, Kevin. I actually just checked Writing to Learn out from the library today! I find that I have the opposite problem: reading plenty but not integrating those ideas through my own writing practice. I’m aiming to change that for the coming year. I might borrow from your reply to Shari and start keeping a notebook of striking sentences I encounter in my reading as well.
Thank you for the kind words, Mina! I hope you enjoy "Writing to Learn," and good luck with your writing. I have also been focusing on some habits to improve my own writing this year (hence the article 😅). Wishing you the best in that endeavor!
I so appreciated reading this this morning. I just finished reading The Goldfinch (somehow it took me this long to commit myself to it) and I was in a trance the whole time reading it. I was blown away (metaphor not intended :) by her prose and depth of character and place. As a native New Yorker I relished and smiled at every intimate reference to the city I grew up in and no longer live in. As someone who writes to learn (Zinsser style) I found myself highlighting so many passages--for both language and ways of being human--which deeply resonated at this time.
Also, you made me think about being more intentional in connecting the lyricism and language of writers I love with my own writing, especially fiction. I read a lot of non fiction and keep reading journals where I take notes--writing the key ideas out by hand and rereading later helps me retain and form connections between ideas/knowledge. But after reading your post I think I should keep notebooks for fiction too---I want to have Donna Tartt in the back of my mind as a model as I write --but if had my notes with some of her passages to read more closely and unravel--I might be able to better metabolize what I love about her language--and have it fortify my own.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Shari. You make an excellent point about taking notes and journaling that I didn't consider for this article, but definitely fits in with the idea of extended cognition.
I also keep a notebook of the brilliant and beautiful sentences I encounter during my reading so I can unravel them later. It not only helps me with my own writing, but helps me appreciate what the accomplishments of the writers I read. All the best!
IMHO, If one (or potentially more than one) chooses to cautiously examine the given facts which had already been seriously, if not surreptitiously pre-determined, yet altogether randomly as such, then it only stands to reason that in sum: "Ippum soapum ippum toopum foppum ippum up up up."
OTOH, IF that prior "predetermined" assessment could be, would be--entirely--or even partially invalidated, there must needs be--at the VERY least--ONE if not far more than one alternative methods of examining the issue on the face of it, directly or indirectly
“...reading provides writers with their intellectual orchestra” is really beautiful phrasing, Kevin. I actually just checked Writing to Learn out from the library today! I find that I have the opposite problem: reading plenty but not integrating those ideas through my own writing practice. I’m aiming to change that for the coming year. I might borrow from your reply to Shari and start keeping a notebook of striking sentences I encounter in my reading as well.
Thank you for the kind words, Mina! I hope you enjoy "Writing to Learn," and good luck with your writing. I have also been focusing on some habits to improve my own writing this year (hence the article 😅). Wishing you the best in that endeavor!
I so appreciated reading this this morning. I just finished reading The Goldfinch (somehow it took me this long to commit myself to it) and I was in a trance the whole time reading it. I was blown away (metaphor not intended :) by her prose and depth of character and place. As a native New Yorker I relished and smiled at every intimate reference to the city I grew up in and no longer live in. As someone who writes to learn (Zinsser style) I found myself highlighting so many passages--for both language and ways of being human--which deeply resonated at this time.
Also, you made me think about being more intentional in connecting the lyricism and language of writers I love with my own writing, especially fiction. I read a lot of non fiction and keep reading journals where I take notes--writing the key ideas out by hand and rereading later helps me retain and form connections between ideas/knowledge. But after reading your post I think I should keep notebooks for fiction too---I want to have Donna Tartt in the back of my mind as a model as I write --but if had my notes with some of her passages to read more closely and unravel--I might be able to better metabolize what I love about her language--and have it fortify my own.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Shari. You make an excellent point about taking notes and journaling that I didn't consider for this article, but definitely fits in with the idea of extended cognition.
I also keep a notebook of the brilliant and beautiful sentences I encounter during my reading so I can unravel them later. It not only helps me with my own writing, but helps me appreciate what the accomplishments of the writers I read. All the best!
Excellent essay! I love to read to see how authors do it! Hope I'm absorbing technique.
IMHO, If one (or potentially more than one) chooses to cautiously examine the given facts which had already been seriously, if not surreptitiously pre-determined, yet altogether randomly as such, then it only stands to reason that in sum: "Ippum soapum ippum toopum foppum ippum up up up."
OTOH, IF that prior "predetermined" assessment could be, would be--entirely--or even partially invalidated, there must needs be--at the VERY least--ONE if not far more than one alternative methods of examining the issue on the face of it, directly or indirectly
>"must needs?" (go figure).