I disagree. One learns their own craft much better by experiencing others' own creativity.

One doesn't teach in a vaccum, why should one learn in one?

Theoretically they go hand in hand but Mozart was deaf and did ok crafting his musical talents.

Beethoven was deaf, not Mozart afaik, and he only became so after many years.

One of them was deaf.

Helen Keller was blind and deaf and did ok writing on her own. I know I got that one right.

Both are obviously special cases either way but there are always exceptions to every theoretical rule.

I have always found that the more I write the more I desire reading but not necessarily the other way around.

I find that the more I read, the more I understand choices those authors are making to present arguments, create descriptions, describe

emotions, etc, that I can then turn around and use in my own writing. It's like I get a little glimpse into ways of doing things I might not

have thought of on my own. Or if I had, I would have had to reinvent the wheel to achieve.

Besides that, writing is creating something that belongs in a kind of continuum or network of ideas. Thinking that their work isn't valuable

to me because I want to write and not read means that I'm not contributing my best writing to that network. My ideas will become

superficial or repetitive, and not really connecting with the conversations I claim to be interested in.

Besides, how interested can one actually be if they're not motivated enough to see what anyone else has to say on the matter? And should I

as a potential reader invest my time and interest in someone like that?

tatteredpage: I guess that is why I like to write first. My ideas are my own and I like to put them down first and THEN feel inspired to

read what others have said. It might inspire more writing or it might not but in the end my original work is my own.

Some new writings are inspired by readings but most are not. Most of my favorite writings are inspirations from life and those don't have

to be connected to any sort of other writing to feel original or even reactionary to other forms of life.

I've never considered anything I've written as other than original, regardless of what I've read. For me, it's not just about reading for

In the end for me writing does not only come from being inspired by other writing.

inspiration. It's more like reading for technical skill.

How does Hemingway invoke so much character and emotion in his novels with such sparse diction, for example?

Why are Martin Luther King's speeches so inspiring?

I would have a much lower vision of both of them if they could only find inspiration solely in the work of others.

Surely they did but what makes them great is their ability to stand out on their own and act rather than simply react.

but of course you saw that I wasn't talking about inspiration for ideas, right? However, they both did connect with colleagues, and to say

either of them weren't readers would be inaccurate, at the least.

But those connections didn't have to be just written. And in some cases their best work came from life experiences.

Reading isn't reactionary and writing doesn't need to be. If it is, it's because the writer wants it so. Being informed or connected doesn't

BTW I really do think they go together but don't like absolutes in any way shape or form.

lessen one's capacity for original thought.

But the best of life comes from living it not through simply reading about living it. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been significantly

I agree. A person can write something and be completely ignorant of the literary world. But I believe it will always have that marker of

being completely on its own. And that's not as good a thing as it might seem to be.

less prominent if he grew up in a less controversial time.

I wonder, on that last statement, how much longer that will hold true overall (VERY sadly).

It may not seem it but it's hard to say because we don't know what the world would have been like had he not been when he was.

Yeah, I know what you mean

In this digital age ANYONE can be a "writer" and be published at any time and at no time be forced to read anything that makes them think.

I read something a few months back about how the overflow of information has actually isolated more people than it has informed.

In a way it makes sense. We tend to spend more time in our own little digital bubbles now than in the past. I read a similar article talking

about that in terms of facebook friends and how it's killing off real (meatspace) relationships.

But is it the medium or the message that's doing it?

If we think about the amount of information a person can actually consume, compared to the amount available, has that rate actually changed?

Consumption rate, I mean

At least I can't actually watch or read more news than I did 15 years ago, but there is more of it in my face. So the overflow itself, which

a product of the medium, might be more to blame for the isolation than the information itself.

I think being a reader broaden's a writers vocabulary and ability to describe what he/she sees, experiences and feels.

Wow, great conversation! Lots to take in and think about.