No one takes reading seriously

Image by Alexandre Dulaunoy/flickr

This week I asked my boss if I could start working four days instead of five, to give me a day for writing, and he very kindly said yes. It seemed a sensible thing to do: I like writing, after all, and consider myself a writer. That’s worth taking a 20% cut to the family budget, right? I do think it is, but considering I never expect to actually make a career of or any money from writing novels, it is kind of a weird thing to do. How come it’s OK to take a day a week off to write, but so much less so to take a day a week off to read? I love reading. I’m heaps better at reading than I am at writing. I have about exactly as much chance of ever making money from it as I do from writing. But it would seem pretty outrageous��to tell my husband ‘hey I’ve cut back my work hours so I can spend a day a week re-reading Gilead and Perdido St Station and maybe a couple of those new novels everyone keeps talking about’. Tempting though. Maybe I’ll go down to three days a week…