Sunday, September 27th, 2026

# The old adage "to be a better writer, read" has never seemed more apparent to me. I used to read a lot when I was young — mainly science fiction and fantasy novels. As I grew older I pivoted to more highbrow fare. I suppose that I wanted to be seen as the intellectual type, reading particular books just so I could say I'd done so. There are some that I genuinely enjoyed and am glad to have read, there are others that were a grind that I remember absolutely nothing about, and then there are some I gave up on and actually resent starting in the first place. I'm not sure if I burned out or just put myself off reading by not enjoying it. I subscribe to far fewer feeds than I used to, and made changes to /reader such that unread items could quietly drop off without me feeling guilty about not reading them. No fanfare, no unread counts, no worries. With all of this, I've noticed that my blogging has become like a stream in a drought — a slow trickle at best. By not consuming words, I have…