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October 2 question – It’s been said that the benefits of becoming a writer who does not read is that all your ideas are new and original. Everything you do is an extension of yourself, instead of a mixture of you and another author. On the other hand, how can you expect other people to want your writing, if you don’t enjoy reading? What are your thoughts?

Ah. Well… ah…

Okay, this question is a little on the irritating side for me, right now. Maybe it’s because I’m in a mood or maybe it’s something else. But I am a little grumpy-moody today, and I can’t seem to get into the next bit of my writing, which is also irritating.

Okay. Let’s say you don’t read.

If it’s because you don’t like to read, then why are you writing? Seriously. Your only option here is to write a screenplay, and chances are you’re being influenced by movies and TV, which will influence your screenplay.

“I don’t read because I want my work to be 100% original.”

I got news for you, sugarsticks, it ain’t gonna be.

Every story has a plotline that has already been told. The only thing original is how YOU tell it, and – guess what? – something is influencing you. That something doesn’t have to be someone else’s words – it could be a picture off Pinterest, a vine, a phrase from a discussion you plucked off tumblr, a movie, a tv show, a commercial, eavesdropping on a conversation, seeing a pair of shoes in a window at a dying mall, or even random brain floss that occurred while you watched a landscaper heartlessly eradicate a dandelion as you were stuck in traffic because someone decided to release a herd a platypi on southbound I-25 as a birthday prank.

The only way you will be able to produce anything that is 100%, absolutely original that isn’t influenced by the world around you is if you were raised and still live in a total vacuum, having never once interacted with anything remotely approaching media or even another human being. No one read you stories. No one sang you songs. No one tried to bargain with you to eat your lima beans and no one has taught you how to speak or think in words that are understood by ANYONE, including that weird guy whose PhD was in translating 13th century BCE Sanskrit.

And that will still be influenced by the fact that you, as a sapient individual, are pondering the same question that every other writer ponders:

What if…?

Check out the Insecure Writer’s Support Group to see more writers dish about their concerns, their solutions to various problems, or just general monotremaphobia.