Do you read above the level you write?

When, well over a decade ago, I heard I’d won my first short story competition, I was bursting to tell someone. It being a weekday, and Mr A busy at work, I phoned a certain person I knew would be at home. Her reaction? Perhaps you imagined it! Well, I do find it hard to tell the difference between fiction and reality sometimes.
 
This is the person who informed me, shortly after I began to try to write for publication, that she’d stopped reading novels because she knew she could write better herself. She had attended a creative writing class, but hadn’t attempted a novel and probably never would. She wasn’t happy when I told her she must be reading the wrong things. But it seems to me essential that, if you aspire to write at any level, you should be reading better than you write.

Although I read for pleasure, it’s never for pleasure alone. I read to get a sense of the contemporary market, and to improve my own writing, hoping some of the sparkle of literature I admire will rub off on me. Of course, it’s also possible to learn from work I don’t admire, asking myself how I’d do it better. It can be uncomfortable, however, when there’s a gulf between how I rate a book and its endorsement by the marketplace and, yes, I’ll admit to envy of that success.
 
I’m envious too of those better-than-me writers, but generally that’s a positive kind of envy, that can motivate me to raise my game. The thinking that goes into writing reviews can help me identify more clearly what makes the novel special and, both consciously and unconsciously, feeds into what I write myself. Even so, there are times when this reading-writing gap feels overwhelming and I know I need to take extra care of myself.

In a better frame of mind, I have to laugh at myself in bookshops where, whether the customer appreciates it or otherwise, I can’t help recommending novels I’ve enjoyed. It happens even if I’m there to promote my own books and, if they stock them, I’ve found myself ‘selling’ Peak District maps.

Reading above the level I write – or aspiring to – reminds me of learning a foreign language. When I travelled in South America, I understood most of what was said to me, as long as the person didn’t speak too fast. But conversations were still excruciating, I’d be nodding away when they were talking, only to stumble and stutter through my reply. Mind you, I’m the woman who once asked for the bill in a Parisian restaurant in a single sentence containing words of four different languages!

Each of my favourite reads from last year was a novel far better than I could write, and I’m looking forward to sharing my hits from 2019. Until then, there are a couple of stars – one literally – among the books I’ve reviewed this month.
 
The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay, published by Grove Atlantic, is a beautifully narrated debut about a privileged young woman who has her fingers burnt by turbulent politics when she travels to a remote part of Kashmir in a vain attempt to recapture the essence of her recently-deceased mother.
 
At a party in Berlin, a photographer captures Anna May Wong, Leni Riefenstahl and Marlene Dietrich in the same frame. In her beautifully accomplished debut, Delayed Rays of a Star, published by Bloomsbury, Amanda Lee Koe presents the personalities behind the performance, entwined with the politics of prejudice and the murky world beneath the cinema glitter.

Click on the image above to find out more. I doubt you’ll notice, but I’ve arranged the books in a different order: until now, I’ve snapped them as I shelved them, in order of the posted reviews, but these appear in rough order of my personal preference. Let me know what you think. You’ll find my other posts on reading here.

I had this post ready to go when this week’s flash fiction challenge came in. Could I ever have foreseen a better fit? Charli’s post is about writerly comparisons, and the fear and envy that might prevent us putting our efforts out. The theme for this week’s 99-word story is winners: mine is a mash-up of a little piece I got published several years ago and a mix-up at a big prize ceremony (I think the Oscars) more recently. And I’ve taken the title from the beginning of this post. Because I can!

Must have imagined it?

As the compere brandishes the envelope, I rehearse my routine. Feigned surprise, a single tear, a never-expected-this speech. Out comes the card, my name announced, a hug and I’m on my feet. Squeezing past knees, deafening applause, fake smiles. Too busy balancing on five-inch heels to glance up at this stage.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry!” A sweaty hand on my bare arm, why has the clapping stopped?

Another starlet rises, is rushed along the rows. Some tuxedo guy explaining they must have mixed up the cards.

Of course, no problem, it happens. My aching chest. My frozen smile.