Reading Strike
I've hit the point where I stop reading.
This happened during the last stretch of writing My Summer of Southern Discomfort. Rather unknowingly, I had stopped reading: fiction, non-fiction, magazines. I was in the zone and singularly focused on the goal of finishing the book.
Since I learned to read I have not gone more than a few days without reading (usually books, usually fiction). Until that is, the damn finish-the-book cycle kicks in.
Well, it's last stretch time for book #2, which means that until I finish the draft I am not going to read anything longer than a magazine article. On the one hand, it seems right to keep outside influences at bay, and on the other hand I practially drool everytime I walk past my local bookstore. Books! Sweet, forbidden books!
There's plenty of debate on whether writers read while writing or spurn reading alltogether. For me it seems to be that I read outside material until about the last six weeks. It's like some odd timer goes off inside my head. Stop reading, it tells me. Thankfully it doesn't go off earlier than six weeks. My reading addiction runs deep and detox, while good, also hurts.