Activity

Only practice can make you a better writer for sure. Definitely don’t take cuts out of your writing time for needless reading time.

However, I enjoy reading and it honestly inspires me. When I read a well-written book, it makes me want to write. Yeah, I’m an immature writer; maybe that inspiration ceases to affect you when you’re a pro. I don’t know.

Somedays I wish I didn’t know all the writing rules. I feel that I need to write my prose a certain way because this is how all those published authors do it even though I hate that style. But then again, I’ll find an author whose style I love and want to imitate.

Imitation is important. It’s how all the great authors learned their craft. Then they matured and wrote their own original material. So I guess your argument does have merit.

I don’t think anyone should feel bad though if they’re work is similar to someone else’s. There are no new ideas. Just make sure you’re not plagiarizing (and you can’t plagiarize ideas).

Don’t just stop reading because you don’t want it to ruin your writing. Reading has a lot of other benefits 😉

Idk if any of that made sense. My thoughts are always jumbled and rambly.

(I’m not here to argue either side.)