Reading is not enough sometimes. Nor is reading in one’s genre a good standard rule to set either. No, I’ve found out in “the recent past” that if a person want to write, that person should still be familiar with the genre they wish to write, but even more important is to read books that give them, the reader satisfaction. I’ve realized this of late because I’m experiencing it.

For the last few weeks (maybe less, come to think of it) I’ve spent my little reading time finishing books that only somewhat hold appeal to me. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is great and all, but it’s all taken from The Little White Bird. The People of Sparks is interesting, but it’s not so fun (that’s just me whining, not a diss on the book). I do enjoy the feel of Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, but it’s just too slow and unreasonable to me (yes, I’m whining again at a perfectly great book). Crime and Punishment may change my way of thinking about justice when I’m forty percent in, but here at 36%, it’s still not caught my interest more than once per month.

And then there’s a whole slew of books I’ve thought about reading. For a short while, the Alice in Wonderland series seemed like a great set of works to read. I got to the viewing of the rabbit before stopping so as not to upset my low number of “currently reading” books. To be fair, that list of “currently reading” books is never so low and maybe shouldn’t be held so low.

But you know what? I’m craving some of that wild hilarity of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld when I began reading The Colour of Magic. I crave to read the new melding together of much of Terry Brooks’s writing worlds. I’d like to enjoy Harry Potter all over again without knowing every page before I turn to it. There are even one or two books that I’d like to see if I enjoy them. So what’s happened?

Well, I think I’ve begun seeing how…unprepared I am for my future and I’ve moved into rush mode to try and create some sort of writing career for myself. Of course I want to write for a living, and yes, I’d love to be published, and yes, I’m working on a series whose first book I want to complete by December of this year. But maybe I’m pushing myself just a little faster than I am used to. Not that I’m used to a speed slower than that, but rather that I’m trying to build a career of writing as an act of desperation to keep from needing to find “real employment” sometime in the next two years.

It’s kind of odd, actually. Over the last few years as the world economies have all faced near ruin, I have not worried because I have a well-paying job that I can keep until I graduate from college. This year I’ve finally begun deciding that I need to…take life a bit more…seriously? And the result is that I’m struggling to enjoy writing. For once in a LONG time, I’m craving to read a whole lot more than I crave to write. For a person who is passionate about his own writing, that’s really disturbing.

Even more disturbing, I believe is the cause of it all. I have no published works yet (well, except a couple of poems for school and such), no fans or followers, I don’t even have an entire book written (I thought I did before realizing that it’s just the first portion of a book). And yet I’m despairing and boring myself with the realization that I have nobody I truly see as a possible and reliable Alpha reader, no less multiple Alpha readers. I’m trying to reach out and make connections with other authors and publishers and editors and what happens? Nothing.

I’m not despairing or depressed. I’m just worried that one of my passions in life has taken such a turn towards…boring. Sure, that happens with all kinds of dreams for all kinds of people, but I thought a true passion could never suffer such brutal tests of endurance.

So what’s the “war plan” to defeat this Writer’s Block-like infestation? Well, to go and write some more. Happy Writing everyone!