Balancing Writing with Literature

 One of the things that I've learned most over the years is that writers have to write continually to do it well. They can't write every so often and expect to do well at it. With the possible exception of 2014, when I was focusing more on theology than anything else, most of my life I've focused on writing every year since at least 2011. However, writing often is not the only charge for authors and aspiring ones. 

Knowing the literature of the past is arguably the most important aspect of being a good writer. Knowing good composition and the essentials of storytelling may work for some who are ignorant of literature, but for most writers, knowledge of past literary works such as the Iliad by Homer and Hamlet by William Shakespeare should be expected. By knowing the literature of the past, writers will more naturally pick up on themes of storytelling, good punctuation, and the smoothness of the classics. In many ways, writers can do this even if they are not grammar experts. 

That said, the literature of the past is not all the writer needs to know. They must understand what is interesting to people in the present. Reading contemporary fiction is also important because the styles of some older books are sometimes not appealing to modern audiences. As much as I could say otherwise, Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott's novels would likely be less popular today if they were just now published than they were in the early nineteenth century. 

As Stephen King once noted, writers ''Read, read, read.'' The same is true for writing. Good writers must write frequently (I don't consider Facebook and Twitter posts as either professional or creative ''writing.''). Learning to balance how to read both literature and stay in one's own works, is one one the most important aspects of a writer's life.