This is where it all began, when I learned how reading is writing. When an infatuation with reading bloomed into a full-blown love of words on the page. It’s a love I have yet to shake.
I was 12 years old when Mrs. Herlinger, the librarian of the middle school I attended, pulled me aside and said “Here’s a book I thought you might like.” Then she placed A Wrinkle In Time in my hand.
This marks the day I learned what it means to fall in love with an author’s writing. I read A Wind in the Door, then A Swifting Tilting Planet. Then I read every book I could find written by Madeleine L’Engle.
I opened one book, and thus I slipped down the rabbit hole.
You know how that is, don’t you? The mention of a new book inspires joy in your heart, and you feel sad when you’re finished reading for the first time. So, you read the books over and over and notice something new each time.
Books transport you immediately to a new world, one where impossible things happen and fear and anxiety are easily conquered.
I didn’t yet know, though, that reading is writing. That this book would spark a lifelong love of stories, and imprint in me a desire to tell my own.
Without reading there is no writing.
The moment Mrs. Herlinger handed me that book was the moment I became a writer. Reading nourishes the soul of a writer and sparks the imagination. Reading conjures new worlds where we can be inspired to push beyond everyday limits and create that which doesn’t yet exist.
At some point after first reading her books, I had the opportunity to hear Madeline speak live.
She described the process of writing children’s books. “Don’t write as if you’re writing for a child,” she told us. “A storyteller writes for a child as for any audience. If you do it well, a child will adore it as much as her parents.”
Why? Because the best books, no matter what the topic or audience, will represent a truth. Those are the books that leave you thinking “Yes, this is it! That is exactly what it all means.”
This is how reading starts the writing process.
When in college, I found the same book sitting on a table on the sidewalk near Columbia University. Mr. Levin, a large man whose bulbous red nose sported enormous pores and sat above a twirly mustache, unloaded his books every day from a white van. I watched as he lay them down one by one, reading each title with his booming voice.
The Wrinkle In Time he placed in front of me had worn, tatty edges, It was yellowed, the cover ripped, and barely worth the dollar he charged for it. I bought it anyway, with the excuse that maybe one day I’d read it to my children. I was barely 20 and had no intention of having children.
Truth is, I bought it because just seeing that old yellowed copy recreated fantasies I’d imagined as a child. It took me soaring through alternate dimensions and flying on the back of a winged horse. Once again, I watched time stop. I imagined sitting in bed reading bedtime stories to a little girl with long dirty blond hair and eyes like mine.
The book took me back in time. It took me forward. When I remembered the magic of all I loved as a child, I saw my own writing in a new way. It reminded me how words transform us, they stick with us, they inspire us. And I hoped to do the same with my own stories.
Re-reading a beloved book from my childhood reminded me of all I wanted to do with my own writing. Reading is magic
Writing is the truth that steals and lies
You know how they say all authors steal? It’s true, and that is why you read. We pilfer Ideas, ways of transitioning from scene to scene, and plot changes. We steal structure and characters. Then we take it and make it our own.
In real life, theft is a crime. In writing, it has a much prettier name. Allusion. Instead of harming a writer with our theft, we honor them. We thank them for helping shape us.
Another thing writers do? We lie. Because the real world doesn’t tie up as nice and neatly. We change names, shuffle dates and create lies. This, too, has another name in the writing world. It’s called creativity.
Reading opens you to the possibilities of the universe. That in turn allows you to write without limits.
What are your favorite books to read and write?
There is no better gift than to give a writer a book she can add to a list of favorites, because then you have given that writer a new way of looking at her own writing.
Love in the Time of Cholera. I love everything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez — even the one about the general that is only one long sentence — but Love in the Time of Cholera is my favorite. I moved to South America with the hope of becoming fluent enough in Spanish to read his writing in the original.
I devoured Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age for the impossible, technological future world it creates. This book would make perfect reading for 15-18 year old high school students, especially girls. It’s a rare book that has a strong, capable female protagonist. A girl who does things.
I recently posted a list of favorite books recommended by friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Thank you to the person who suggested The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s not easy to write a book where Death narrates. This one succeeds brilliantly.
I read fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction, the self-published of friends, and the books of authors I hear interviewed on the Daily Show. I read imaginative young adult fiction and travel sensual short stories brought to me by my clients that make you want to pack a bag and leave right now to go anywhere. I fall asleep at night with a book in my hand, and I love rainy cold days because it’s a reason to hide under a blanket reading.
I am a reader in every sense of the word. When I read, I write more. As I write more, I read more.
The moment I began to read was the moment I became a writer.
An inheritance of reading is writing.
Last night, my now 9-year-old daughter Lila and I began reading A Wrinkle In Time together. This book, the one that made inevitable my future as a reader and writer, is my gift to Lila from before she even existed.
I held my breath as we turned the first page.
