Reading Leads to Writing

I love reading, and always am in the process of reading a book. I’m a slow reader, but that doesn’t bother me. Lately, I’ve picked up a few books that I’ve gotten hooked on, and I’ve spent more time reading in the last few months than I had in the previous year.

I went on a reading bender, from Into Thin Air, into The Shining, a book called Now & Then, Doctor Sleep (the sequel to The Shining), and then The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I hadn’t had a streak of addictive books like that in years, if ever.

All of this reading, has had two effects on me. First, it has really kick started my own brain, which isn’t often a problem I have, but I’ve been firing on all cylinders when it comes to writing. Each book helped me realize something that I want to do with my writing.

The second effect, was that it seems to have inspired my son to read. He’s eight, and he’s at a good reading level for his age, but up until recently, reading wasn’t really something he did for fun. However, somewhere in the range of when I was reading Now & Then, or Doctor Sleep, he started reading the second Percy Jackson series. He had read the graphic novels of the first series, but we had the second series and so instead of waiting for us to get the graphic novels, he picked up The Lost Hero, and started sitting and reading with me.

This is has been a rewarding experience, as I’ve read all of the Percy Jackson books, and so he would keep finishing sections, and wanting to talk about them. He caught the reading bug, and I’m very happy. He’s half way through the second book, and reading the Wild Robot for lighter reading.

His love of reading, has started to become a love of writing. He’s begun writing his own novel, a book about children chosen by the greek gods to champion a war for them. He works diligently on it, a bit every day. He asks for my help with editing, and formatting.

I didn’t think that me getting sucked into a few good books, would create so much creative energy for me, but I definitely would never have guessed that it would have rubbed off on my son. I gotta keep reading.

In case you’re wondering, I hit a wall after the Southern Book Club, and got about 100 pages into a book that wasn’t doing it for me. I put it down, and started reading The Grapes of Wrath. It’s good, I don’t know if I’m hooked yet, but it’s certainly paints a picture.