Reading and Writing in Shifts

I almost titled this post, My TBR Pile is Out of Control, because, well, IT IS. When I'm writing a first draft, I don't read very much on the side. I know some writers who read every day, or every night before bed, but when I'm in the throes of a first draft, I have to keep my eyes on the prize so to speak. Other books can be a distraction.

My current May TBR pile (plus ebooks)

There are times, however, when I pause during drafting to read a book because I need an injection of voice--or a slap in the face, ie: look at how awesome this is and are your words even close to this good? Believe it or not, that kind of slap motivates me. It's really important to keep your goal in focus as you write--your goal being to produce something that's good enough to go on a shelf next to these other published books. Therefore, the published books MUST be faced, and wept over, and admired.

But other than those moments, I tend to hoard reading for when I'm not drafting. Generally, I read a ton of books while I journal a new idea. Each book does something in such a spectacularly awesome fashion that reading them while developing my own idea challenges me to address the awesome at a planning stage. Then I draft. When I'm done, I toss that puppy at my CPs from a moving vehicle and drive straight to the library/bookstore/home to read another avalanche of books.

This accomplishes two things: first, binge reading provides separation from the story I've been working on (distance that will make revision much easier); second, re-immersion into other people's craft highlights all of that awesome I'm trying to achieve yet again, so that when I DO begin my revisions, I'm ready to push myself even harder.

So that's why I end up reading and writing in shifts.

Do you do this, too? Or not? And if you have any awesome books to add to my May TBR pile, let me know!