The Three Rs: Reading, (W)riting, and Reving your engines!

Or maybe just my engine.

I've been in a reading slump for the past week.  I want to get into White Teeth, which I am currently borrowing from a friend, but I can't seem to get myself to sit down for more than ten minutes at a time with book in hand.  Everytime I think to sit on the porch to read, I end up calling a friend, sister, mother and talking until some other social obligation pops up and I leave the house to go and play.  I like the playing, but I am reminded of the importance of making time for reading and writing by this article, shared by a lovely professor of mine.  After one reading, I knew I would want to come back to it later in the day to read it again in a less cursory rush as an early morning article wake up exercise at work.  It discusses why we need to read to be informed to write, be it a basic development of a well-rounded library of influences, or the need for specific writers to inform our own writing.  Without reading, how do we know what challenges authors have already tackled?  How can we know we are not perpetuating a cycle of the same tropes over and over and over and over? 

Thoughts for the day.  And a kick in the pants to start a project that's been knocking around in my head for a while.