Being a better reader

While I’m working hard to get get my writing out there, trying to create more fiction for the world to read, trying to prove my professionalism, and just trying to get known as a blogger (ha!), I have to remind myself that it is a two-way street:

I have to read.

That’s not to say that I don’t like to read, because I absolutely do dig it. I’m posts of the past I’ve made vows to read x amount of books in x time because I just don’t do it enough. In fact, way back when I started this blog, in the before school times, I said that I wanted to go for an English degree in part because it would make me read more.

I wonder what it is that has deterred me for so long?

This is in part the reason why I’ve committed to writing bi-weekly book reviews. Not only am I now held accountable for reading, but I’m really looking into what I’m reading and I have to be kept to a schedule. It’s a good thing. I thrive on deadlines.

But there’s something more important that I should be doing that I’m not doing nearly as much: reading fellow writers’ blogs. I subscribe to so many of them, but I rarely actually go through my WordPress reader feed and click on the entries. How can I expect to learn and grow as a writer if I’m not reading the work of my blogging peers as well?

This is something I intend to work on. However, it’s finding te time that I’m struggling with. I’m so busy trying to be supportive on social media, the online writing groups, the newly published authors whose books are recently released, the news, and writing my own things and participating in self promotion, as well as working full time, entertaining family while they’re visiting, and the rest of life–where do I find time to read and support my fellow bloggers?

As I stand in the ice cream shack that I manage, scrolling numbly through my Facebook page, I wonder what on earth i can give up to make me a better reader.

There’s an obvious solution here, you know.

So! Instead of scrolling through Facebook while waiting for customers, I chose to write this post on my phone. See what I did there? An ample opportunity to be reading and instead I’m working on my own thing, complaining about how I’m promoting the work of others!

I promise I am going to change this, hopefully.

Hold me to it! Make me accountable!  A slacker, poke me with a hot stick and tell me to knock it off! You have my permission.

• accountability
• blogging
• blogs
• reading