Do I Not Have the Tools to Write?

Allow me to let you in on a shameful secret: I really have a hard time reading.

I have mental illnesses (plural) one of which includes OCD. And one of the medications I take to control these obsessions and compulsions has a side effect: it makes it so I can't obsess about ANYTHING, meaning I can't keep my attention up for a long time in any real direction.

Note: this has nothing to do with ADHD, which I also have. No, this is something specifically meant to tamp down my ability to concentrate on a long-term project--like reading a book.

Because of this, I went a solid THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE without completing a novel (like reading, but also not writing). I couldn't even do audio books. Heck, I couldn't even do movies or stick with a TV series.

And I felt incredibly guilty because there's the famous quote from Stephen King, from On Writing (a book I absolutely love) which says "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write."

And I totally agree with that statement! If you don't read, you shouldn't be writing. I've been in the writing world long enough to have met several--too many--authors who say they just don't have time to read now that they're a writer, and I think "That's bananas! That's not how this is supposed to work!"

Thankfully, my meds have changed making it possible for me to read again, though I do feel like the 3+ years I was not reading AT ALL make me impossibly behind in both understanding my market and in understanding the cultural zeitgeist. Things have changed between 2019, when I was reading a book a week (usually through audiobooks consumed during my 2 hour commute each day), and 2023, when I finally got back into regular reading.

I noticed that my tastes changed a little during that time--in terms of what I enjoy reading. I kind of really love hard science fiction now, where I was much more of a soft sco-fi guy before. I am getting really into the details, loving the deep dives into minutiae.

I'm still writing my same old style, though, I hope, a little better. I don't know. I think that my tastes have changed for the better, and I think that has made me try harder to write a little better, but my books continue to be the same old Rob Wells stuff--just with more care taken.

All of this to say, I welcome reader recommendations, because I feel like I am very out of the loop, especially when it comes to my preferred genre: YA science fiction. To be fair, the genre is suffering a little bit at the moment. The current craze seems to be romantasy and MG fantasy, and the YA sci-fi market has never recovered from the post-dystopia nosedive. But I'm still here! And I'm going to keep writing!