Fred White - The Daily Reader: 366 Selections of Great Prose and Poetry to Inspire a Productive and Meaningful Writing Life

In his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), James Boswell noted, with little exaggeration, that a writer will turn over half a library in order to make one book. To put this nugget of wisdom another way, the act of writing is the act of entering the formal (in the sense of leaving a permanent record), never-ending conversation of humankind. As is true of informal, oral conversation, the more familiar you are with what has already been discussed, the likelier your own contributions will be substantive and valued, and stimulate further conversation.

Writers, then, must be readers. They must be constant readers, passionate not only about the subjects they're interested in (which should be many), but about the act of reading itself. Reading enlarges the mind and the possibilities of language and thought. Reading takes us beyond our limited range of physical experience enables us to journey through space and time to discover the best of what has been achieved in the arts and sciences, in history, law, politics, and commerce.

How does one even begin to choose from the millions of books that have been published since Homer first picked up a stylus or dictated to a scribe nearly three thousand years ago? You might begin by asking yourself which subjects fascinate you the most, or make your imagination soar, or help you to better cope with a complex world. These will be the subjects that will help you grow as a writer.

As a writer, you must also be an absolute sponge a glutton for a great many subjects, not just the ones that fascinate you the most. All knowledge is interconnected. If you want to write psychological thrillers, you should read deeply in psychology, medicine and health, anthropology, all sorts of literature (after all, literature is about the human condition, and psychology is central to human behavior), and of course, mystery and thriller fiction, if only to learn how the pros do it.

The books and occasional shorter works from which I've selected passages for your writerly reflection inevitably represent a personal choice; but I hasten to add that I am an educator, so I took pains to select works that are considered classics in their respective genres and/or disciplines. The selections are short enough to serve as a teaser to get you to read the work in its entirety and are just long enough for you to learn something from, whether it be a single concept from a philosophical work or a suspenseful moment from one of many suspenseful moments in a mystery or science fiction novel. Most importantly: I've selected passages that should make any writer veteran or newbie want to start writing. And just in case the selections themselves don't get the words gushing from your pen, I've added a reflection on the passage together with a writing prompt after each selection.

There are at least two ways to use this book: One, use it to sustain a daily writing regimen. The most important step you can take toward becoming a successful author is to cultivate the habit of writing every day. Spend three weeks with The Daily Reader, writing in response to three weeks' worth of prompts, and you will very likely have that precious writing habit established once and for all.

Two, flip through the book and more-or-less randomly select an entry that piques your curiosity. Read it, reflect on it, and use it as a springboard for one or two hours' worth of intensive writing. Before too long, something will start to congeal: a premise for a novel or a play, a theme for a sequence of poems. I suggest you write your exercises on loose-leaf paper and keep them organized with index tabs in a binder. Arrange and rearrange the writings as you see fit. And, just as importantly, revise them on a regular basis. Remember: Reading begets writing and writing begets even more writing, and more reading.