“Let it all marinate Simon! It will make the end result tastier.”
It was sage advice from my good friend Holly last week, after I posted about the difficulty of sitting down, reading and feeling like I’ve accomplished something.
Over the past weeks I’ve realised the enormity of amount of material I need to get my head around. After months of delay I’ve finally decided to launch into Sexy Capitalism and am trying to do so with gusto. I’m working on the first few chapters, developing a proposal to send to publishers.
This, I’ve realised means a lot of reading. Actually, I knew this already, but the scale required has probably just dawned on me.
This is not a complaint. I love the fact that I can spend most of my days reading interesting books and call it work. I am very lucky to have that luxury.
But sometimes it’s hard. Reading feels so unsatisfying at times. It’s difficult to feel like you are making progress when words are simply marinating in your brain rather than being put onto paper. I love to write things down, get them published, hear feedback, and then do it all again. There is a quick thrill to all of that — a thrill that reading does not provide.
But it must be done, and over the past week I’ve realised one other thing — when I read, I write. It’s good to be constantly putting things on paper, but if I really want to get into depth, to make something really tasty, I need to let things marinate properly. Reading gives me the inspiration to keep going. It gives me new ideas, new quotes, new thought bubbles — the very things good writing depends on.
So to the books! I’m sorry if there’s fewer things published in the coming months, but the end result will be much tastier!