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Daily Dosage for Writers: Our RX
If you want to write, you've got to read. And, if you're a a non-fiction writer, you've got to pay attention to the world. So here's a recommended list of sources that you should check in with EVERY day.
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#1. Read a daily newspaper. Don't buy into the seductive fiction that TV news will give you what you need. Writers require a certain amount of time each day wandering through the labyrinth of words, new and unfamiliar. Find a newspaper you enjoy, one that challenges and surprises you (yes, they DO still exist). Make the daily diet of journalism the main course in your intellectual canabalizing of world.
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#2. Read at least a few pages from a fictional work every day. Novels, short stories, plays...these forms will keep your mind alert to the possibilities of language, to the nuances and beauties of your mother tongue. The men and women whose job it is to move you often do it very well. Give in, be moved, and emerge from your immersion with a new slant on what it means to live, and to write about the experience.
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#3. Find a website that's just for fun -- and treat yourself daily. Are you into bird watching? Antiques? Professional hockey? The Music of Shostakovich? Gardening? Congratulations -- you found something you like. Indulge that passion! You don't have to always "write what you know," but as you'll soon discover, those who DO often write with greater passion, freedom and unbridled love of their subject. And when someone cares -- really cares about their subject -- they often have a way of making you care, too.
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