Two Ears to Listen

Growing up my father always told me that I have two ears in order to listen twice as much as I talked. From that point on I always tried to remember to listen more. Clearly it didn't always work out. When I thought I was over learning those wise methods from my father, I quickly was reminded once again in college. At Oswego State I took a course called Living Writers. It was a requirement as a Writing Arts Major and basically covered how to get your work published, agents, publishing, different avenues for each and current books, authors, what's hot, what's not, etc. It was in this class, taught by one of my favorite professors who preferred to be called Ira and would give us extra credit if we could figure out how to spell his last name....Suka....Suka...Sukarungrung (I think the spelling is correct). Ira was born in Thailand but lived in the States since he was young. He was quite a large man who loved his cocker spaniels, adored his wife and loved the candy aisle at Wegmans Grocery Store.

It was during his class the old saying was brought up. Clearly I was wondering how this would play into the Living Writers course and the answer was quite simple, in order to be a successful writer, you should read twice as much as you write. At the time I thought it was crazy, because I just wanted to write and write and write some more. I did know, however this theory is correct. It was stressed that no matter what, you need to sit down every day and write, even for five minutes. Therefore it means I have to read for ten minutes a day....interesting.

As I think about my husband I often reflect on how often he studies his programming, programming lanuages and then finally sits down to brainstorm and finally starts programming. He does this in school, outside of school and I'm pretty sure in his sleep. Being a mom of a toddler I find it's hard to write and let alone read. I have decided, however, I can write often but am I really listening? The answer is no. Well sort of. Currently I will read some blogs, magazine articles but in all honesty I need to listen more.

The concept of the whole listening thing is to learn what's hot in the writing world and what' not so hot, like everything else it continually changes. Another writing professor had said to write verbatim what another author had written. By doing this exercise you learn to write like them, gain the same techniques they had. This will only improve writing skills.

Finally there's encouragement. My husband is a constant source of encouragement for me to write. My parents are too and sometimes my brother but no one encourages me like my husband. He reads all of my blogs and will comment on them all to me personally. He reads them when I least expect them to be read. The whole reason for me starting to blog was to get "practice" for my book, which has been a dream and goal of mine since I was a young child. I wrote a book when I was in middle school and sent it out for publication. It wasn't published but an editor at Dell Publishing Company actually read it and sent it back to me with an encouraging letter. I still may have it somewhere, not really sure where though. I will never forget my first rejection letter. It isn't something that brought me down but uplifted me and encouraged me to write even more.

I still have more reading to do, and planning, but the book will be on it's way shortly, this I know. Until the book is done I probably won't discuss it anymore other then frustrations of writer's block or too much in one section or another. Until then I will read the encouraging comments on this blog, which I will continue writing in as well. Your comments encourage me that one, two or more people actually read my work. I often have unexpected people call and tell me they read my stuff. Clearly only a few comment in writing, but regardless it encourages me to think some things are worthy enough to be read by others.