Seven sensible steps to success as a writer...

Step 2. Read widely and learn from the wisdom of other writers...

It may be apocryphal, but I once heard of a celebrity who’s supposed to have said that she wouldn’t want to read a book she hadn’t written.

True or not, it says something about the vacuity at the heart of much popular culture.

It’s also self-evidently absurd.

Unless one had seen a book – and read that book – and understood something about the power of words to express ideas and story, and to move the emotions of the reader – you wouldn’t know what a book could do, let alone be able to write one.

The books of other writers, past and present, are the bedrock on which the work of every author rests.

Like music to a composer, or the body of world art to a painter, they are the foundation on which everything we do and say is built.

Only by reading widely and constantly do we absorb the wisdom of others … form our own opinions about the world and human nature … test ideas …

...and discover the infinite capacity and variety of language to express the most subtle and complex of thoughts.

Next: Giants of the past…