Dr. Catherine Schaff-Stump

Mornin', kids.

It's Wednesday. I'm sitting here, dressed vaguely like Jackie Kennedy, with the intention of going into work at one. It's the pearls and the three quarter sleeves.

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Today's first world problem? The thickening of my to be read stack.

There are four sources of my reading these days.

1. Books and stories by authors I know--both the books that are completed and published, and the books I am reading for critique.

2. Books I would read because I am interested in the topics and stories.

3. Books I read for book group, which expand my overall view of the field.

4. Books I read for research for my own work.

This TBR stack is beginning to look...suspiciously like a working writers stack. I'm not sure how many writers belong to book groups, but I'm pretty sure that most of us hit 3 out of those 4 criteria on a regular basis.

I used to have a pretty rigid rule for the TBR stack--no more than the width of my writing desk. If it got over that size, it was time for me to lay off buying books for a while. That worked for about a year.

Now? Well, people have begun giving me books. I've been winning a lot of great books. I received my first ARC out of the blue because of Writer Tamago: Factotum (book 3 of D. M. Cornish's Monster Tattoo series. YES, I do want that book, but it does make me think.

There will always be books I want to buy. There will always be books I buy on a whim. I will always want to see what my writing peers are doing, and offer feedback. Is this going to continue, the free book rain of the universe? How will it affect my book buying habits?

It seems to be another marker of the writer. Reading breeds reading. Getting books breeds more books. The karma of the universe senses your book needs instantly and sends them your way. And you just keep getting more and more books.

How do you guys keep up? Do you even try? Do you abandon writing, and set up a book review site? Or do your books become articles of furniture?

Eh. I've got to finish up interneting, and move on, so I can become a problem in someone else's to read stack.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.