How Writing Made Me a Better Reader

My attention span is limited, much like my generation, the millennials.

If I were to describe it, I would liken it to the attention span of a 7-year-old kid at a birthday party held at a petting zoo — and I want to pet ALL the animals. Mainly, I want to pet the wary goat that won't approach anyone. I've been carefully throwing bites of birthday cake at him to win his trust, and now I can't fixate on anything else. I digress.

Many folks found 2021 to be complicated. Even worse for me has been 2022. I won't go into details. If you're interested, you may read some of the continuous flow of poetry I've written about being in a glass case of emotion this year.

Early on, to deal with my circumstance, I adopted the approach of attempting new things. I am proud to say that I am doing much better than I was after early struggles with a grievance. Obviously, writing is one of those things. For a variety of reasons, I am not a terrific writer. English, particularly writing, was never one of my strong suits. I am prose-less, I sometimes write in odd ways, and my vocabulary is limited in scope. Furthermore, it is not unfair to compare my grammar and punctuation to the level of that goat mentioned earlier.

Of course, all those are fine reasons to be bad, but I’ve recently realized the most logical reason. I have never been a good reader, which perfectly explains why I struggled early on in my attempts to write. I like to read, but how I read was not good. I skimmed. I skipped. I scanned. I was the student in high school, AP English ironically, who looked for Sparknotes to complete his book report. I completely ignored the author's reasons for writing the story. My short attention span prevented me from really appreciating the journey.

And although these bad habits are not yet erased, they are much improved. Because I have a renewed respect for writing, I take my time when I read now. I enjoy the actual process of reading. With writing top of mind, I pay attention to the ability of other writers to start and stop sentences. I absorb like a sponge other writers’ styles. To better understand how stories should flow, I look forward to breaking down articles and chapters in books. Each and every time I pick up anything to read, it is an opportunity to improve how I write. I never saw it that way previously.

I continue to write with more to be desired, though less so. People can finally comprehend what I'm attempting to say. Like when a child shows you drawings, and you can tell they tried to draw a human for the first time, as opposed to random lines of yellow, blue, and green because they lost the red crayon a while ago but didn't tell you. You later found it crushed into the carpet.

I am aware of how vain and self-absorbed our culture has become due to "influencers" and the development of social media. “QUICK! LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT WHAT I AM DOING!”

But alas, I'm not here to complain. I'm here to express appreciation. Appreciation to other writers who share their tips. Appreciation for other writers who allow us small fish to swim in their waters. Appreciation and a big THANK YOU to my friends and family for your encouragement, constructive criticism, and love. Appreciation for people that took the time out of their day to read my writing. Whether it be a short story, only one chapter, or a poem I dared to finally publish that might be 15 years old (caused by the emo music that wrecked me as a teenager or my current endeavor).

I am happy to report I recently finished my very first short story. I am wrapping up a children's novel, and it appears as though that I won’t be pumping the brakes anytime soon. My therapist actually inspired me to start publishing after she read some of my poems, so a big thanks to her as well. She told me about Vocal which gave me the medium to get started.

My only regret is that I did not start writing sooner.

Now, if you excuse me, I have a goat to feed. 😊