Reading to write

The oth­er day some­one said to me, “Here, read this. It’s exact­ly how I feel, but I can’t write it.”

So the ques­tion of the day is why do some peo­ple become writ­ers? The short answer: I do not know. That said, I have my own idea. 

1. It begins, I think, not so much by an indi­vid­ual read­ing, as by being read to. It can­not begin too ear­ly. It can­not end too late. Many a high school teacher has told me how their stu­dents love to be read to. It is hard for young read­ers to read. To hear read­ing is to pro­vide a gigan­tic jump-start. 

2. It is cru­cial for kids to see their par­ents read. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant that boys see men read. There is a long his­to­ry of the fem­i­niza­tion of read­ing cul­ture (in all aspects) which deters boys from reading. 

3. It is mean­ing­ful when a child has his/her own library card. Our soci­ety is replete with card trans­ac­tions. More often than not, these cards are used only by adults. How pow­er­ful when a child can do some­thing with their own card. 

4. Kids who are read to, kids who see adults read­ing, kids who have access to libraries, will often become read­ers themselves. 

Now, it is my belief that when an indi­vid­ual becomes immersed in the writ­ten world (not the TV world, not the movie world, not the video game world) minds begin to struc­ture thoughts in writ­ten forms. That, I think, is the way peo­ple become writ­ers. All such peo­ple? Of course not. In only this way? No. Nev­er­the­less, when I hear writ­ers talk about how they became writ­ers I hear much of the above.