Re-Reading Makes Me a Better Writer

This Year’s Lilies

Last week, one of the Comments on the Friday Fragments mentioned that one of the drawbacks to re-reading is sometimes the reader catches errors—in his example, an injury that healed far too quickly—that the reader had missed the first time around.

Thinking about this made me realized that one reason I re-read is because in re-reading, I can think about the author’s craft, rather than just getting sucked in by the story.  Since I don’t re-read books I didn’t like the first time around—I mean, I’m no longer in grad school, finding James Joyce’s Ulyssess on the syllabus for the umpteenth time—I find myself studying the craft of writers whose work draws me in.

Sometimes I become aware of a technique I can use.  Other times, I just have the pleasure of being awed.  And, yes, sometimes I find something that bothers me—but even that is useful to me as a writer, because I resolve not to do that myself.

Whatever the case, re-reading makes me a better writer, as well as giving me the enjoyment of revisiting a place/setting/cast of characters that drew me in once, or twice, or even more!

And, update from last week…  We didn’t catch the cottontail.  After seeing it daily for weeks, it vanished about a week ago.  Our yard is fully fenced, and we didn’t find an exit.  We didn’t find a body either.  Possibly a hawk got it??  Or maybe it felt unwelcome and left and slammed the door after it. 

For now, we’re leaving our barrier fence up to protect the garden.  And we keep looking for it, just in case it’s found a new place to hide.