Hi all, and welcome to the first weekly editorial column of the new Calliope website.
I'm a full time web site and magazine writer for a university media team. Creatively putting pen to paper (or more specifically, less evocatively: finger to key) eight hours a day, five days a week, is a career I've dreamed of for years, and I love my job. But there is one downside to being a full-time writer: a little problem I like to call "creative fatigue". I'm stricken with this syndrome in the evenings, when I might like to consider doing a little personal writing. But I find my creative juices zapped. I picture it like a daily word quota, and by 5pm I've used them all up – the word bank is closed for the night.

So what can a full time writer do to get a nice fat creative overdraft? I don't actually have any strong ideas about this, just my instinct that reading is the cure-all for any intellectual and creative problems. Injecting yourself with words, even the words of others (or especially the words of others – the best way to learn), is such a valuable writing tool. It's sad that reading is so devalued in our society now. I remember one incident, living with some girls in college, when this became glaringly apparent. One of the girls was a tall, athletic blonde who is probably one of the smartest girls I've ever known but she rarely exercised her intellectual muscles as much as she did her physical ones. She noticed me reading a book one day, and looked at me like she'd just seen me stick my own hand in a blender, and asked, "What are you reading for?"

Well, I'll tell you now why I was reading. Because I needed a mental boost. I needed to see how another writer composed their sentence. I needed to learn, to breathe the words of someone else, to discover another life and viewpoint. The best way to grow as a real writing community, like Calliope, is to also be a reading community, which is why I want to start a monthly book club experience. We'll be announcing the October book choice in the next issue (October 15th) of the magazine. As such a vital companion to writing, let's discuss Calliope's reading, as well as writing! If you have any particular suggestions about a great novel you want to read, contact me at: contact@calliopewriters.byethost14.com.

 

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