Reading to Write

Last weekend I didn’t manage to write a blog post because I found myself out of my house more than I usually am. This is not a bad problem and in fact it’s a good problem to have sometimes. I often think of Nicole Kidman in the role of Virginia Woolf in The Hours talking to Leonard on the platform as she waits for the train to London explaining to him how Richmond is death: “I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs but the violent jolt of the capital”. If you don’t know what I am talking about see here.  I think of this scene because Woolf expresses how she can’t be happy in only the quietness and how important it is to be surrounded by what inspires you and allows you to do what makes you happy. Quietness has its benefits to be sure but it can’t be an always condition. So going out with friends and talking is often exactly what is needed when you need to write.

The same goes for reading. I read a lot. I am often questioned by my friends about just how much I read and why. And it’s a fair question. My usual response is I read to write- which is true. There have been studies, like Stotsky’s 1983 review that synthesizes how more reading can actually improve writing. Literacy is complex and being immersed in discourse and building your own research frameworks and outlines by exposure to others’ research is a good way to spark connections and ideas. The same can also be said for reading fiction or reading poetry. Seeing how language is used, how authors and poets choose to connect lines is certainly inspirational. I know I have been pretty inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein that I just finished this morning. She wonderfully weaves historical narratives while also foregrounding trans embodiment.

There’s also that fine line however, a fine line that those who have done dissertation research know well, where one has to stop reading and just write. Sometimes that line is hard to determine, but sometimes that line makes itself apparent when you encounter the same names or texts over again in your research. I remember a joke one of my doctoral cohort mates made about how she wished that people would just “stop producing research” so they could catch up on their reading. That’s the paradox of academic writing, it keeps being produced so that we can read it and in turn we produce more to add to that body of work.

I have been writing all afternoon, checking off “to dos”, but also with the awareness that pacing and reflecting are important to the process as well. Balance is a valuable; we all need time to talk, time to read, time out of Richmond, time outside the house. “You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard” says Virginia Woolf in The Hours. As academics we should strive to make our world and our life as big is you can- give ourselves as much space as possible so our work can have great reach.