Catch 22 (the book I haven’t read)

I haven’t read Catch 22. In fact, there are many books I haven’t read. But Catch 22 is one of those oft-quoted books that I think sums up my own problem of the ‘writer’ vs ‘time’ vs 'being well-read.’

When I started this blog a couple of years ago the biggest revelation, and a shocking one for me, is how little I read. For a writer, that’s quite unforgivable. Between the years of 1997 and 2005, I would read between six to eight books a year – if I was lucky. Considering the number of books published a year that’s like reading 0.0001% of books published per annum, not counting all the books published over the last two hundred years.

It wasn’t always like this. During my university years I would read a book every two weeks, either from the recommended reading list for the course, or of my own choosing. This regime stopped when I graduated, blaming the downturn on “literature-blindness” or “reading-saturation”.
They seemed like good excuses to me.
The real reason I stopped reading was something more serious: time. Or rather the lack of it. And it’s a serious problem because there isn’t really a viable remedy.

Time is the killer of reading, because let’s face it, reading is anti-social. Just like writing. You can try holding a conversation with someone while reading a book, just as you can while writing, but the results are often fractured, and in the case of reading you just end up re-reading the same passage over and over.
Having more than one anti-social hobby is not conducive to relationships and friendships, especially if you have a day-job. In the past I’ve opted for writing, but I’ve learnt over the last few years you can’t write without reading.

So the Catch 22 situation is this: a writer needs to read more, and read more widely to help them learn their craft, yet if they are having to support themselves by taking on a full-time job, then where does the writer find the time to write and read? Throw in a family, and you’re forever crawling forward rather than taking mighty strides towards being published, and even then, achieving any modicum of success as a published author will be a miracle.

Over the last two years I’ve started reading more. And more widely too. I haven’t reached the ‘dizzying heights’ of reading a book every two weeks, but I get through about 15 books a year depending on my own writing projects and the lengths of those books. I’m also a slow reader – I can’t speed read, and my reading time is limited to the ten minute commute and maybe fifteen minutes before I go to bed. That’s barely more than half an hour a day.

It’s not enough. I’d like to read twice as many books as that. I’d like to see that pile of “to-read” books diminish rapidly, replaced by others, but I just don’t have the time. And I think that will impact on my writing. As an apprentice author, I’ve learned a lot about my craft over the last 18 months - since my reading regime has stepped up a gear - but not enough to stop the feeling that I’m missing an opportunity to progress as a writer.