I posted a list of the top one hundred novels. I’ve only read four of them. I’m holding up that many fingers on my left hand. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro. I have about twenty of them sitting on my book shelves. I’ve seen at least another ten of the novels as films. I’ve received general details about many more from friends or the Internet. This is not what a man who wants to write for a living should be doing. He, I, should be reading them. I speak passionately, sometimes frighteningly and confusingly, about writing, about creation and development and the birth of an idea. It’s usually the only thing I can be passionate about, that and the woman I’m with. I am a man of singular focus. It sometimes pains me, or angers me, or arouses me, especially when something I’ve written comes out better than I could have hoped. And yet, I don’t take time to read enough. Never enough. I focus too much on doing and speaking and not enough on paying attention.
Two of my goals this year are to read at least fifty books and get one short story published. Did you know it’s already the middle of May?