Reading to write

I’ve had a personal goal to write 750 words each day. It’s fun. I’ve enjoyed getting back into regular writing the last few months. Each day (or in my case each work day) I sit down and think about something to put to the page. Some days I’m quite proud of what I wrote, other days I feel I could do better.

Some of my writing comes from the ether, my mind, the life around me.

But often I’ll take inspiration and quote from the writings of other authors and add my own thoughts. Using the Reeder app I bookmark RSS posts that come across my feed. Currently I’m sitting on 133 bookmarked posts. The number usually hovers between 100 and 200.

Now here’s the challenge I’m facing. I genuinely want to just read more things. I’m on pause from social media, so my mind desires new information. These posts are the perfect way to address that itch I have for new.

But I’m finding that I’m skimming more than digesting. Since I want to quote others and add my own thoughts I’m often tempted to breeze through a post and then sit down and write my 750 words attached to that post. The result is sometimes quite good, but other times I haven’t truly absorbed the words of the other author. It’s like being in a conversation and only half listening to your friend because you’re planning what you’re going to say.

Tying my reading time to the daily output of writing causes this sort of conflict. I’ll see a fantastic post that I really want to absorb, but I also want to get my writing done, and so I compromise.

At the end of the day I think it’s better to still have the goal of the 750 words. It’s better than the alternative, which is me going back to rarely writing. But I want to find a middle ground here, where I just read for its own sake, then occassionally post quote what I’m reading.

If this is ever you let me know. I’m trying to figure this out.