Downside of Writing

   From the time I learned to read until my early sixties, I was a voracious reader. I read anything I could get my hands on. Every book in our little library at my elementary school had fueled my imagination by the time I graduated. In high school, I would sit in the back of the class, course book propped up on my desk with a paperback inside. I never went anywhere without a book.
   If I had money, bookstore here I come! If not, it was off to the library to come home with an armload of books. Sometimes, when I would run out of fantasy or sci/fi, I would grab some of my wife's westerns or romances. As long as they were well written, I enjoyed them all. When money got tight, I got picky and only bought books that were over five hundred pages so I could make them last a day or two. I didn't care what genre it was, it just had to be long. And don't even ask me how many times I picked up a new book with an awesome cover, intriguing blurb, get a couple chapters in and realize it's a re-release of a book I'd read years earlier. 
   Ironically, it was love of epic tales that drove me to start writing. Unwilling to shell out 7-8 dollars for a book I could devour in a couple hours, and unable to find new epic length books I hadn't already read, I got a wild hair up my butt and decided to write my own. Now it frustrates me to no end that in the four years I've been writing I've probably read less then ten books. And most of those were from writer friends I'd met online or agreed to beta read.
   I have an entire shelf full of books from my favorite authors I've bought over the last couple years that are still sitting there untouched. I can no longer read simply for the pure enjoyment of it. I'm always looking for plot arcs, where's the hook, or how is this character developing. Minor errors I would never have noticed before stand out like sore thumbs. And of course there is always this little voice in the back of my head asking: "Why are you reading? You should be writing!"
   I don't think I could ever stop being a writer now. It is what I am. However, there are times I wish I could turn back the clock, never pick up that pen or write that first short story, just continue my life being filled with the joy of reading.
   Thanks for listening.