HELPING BUILD A WRITER'S 2018 READING LIST

From an early age, writing has been a passion of mine. I have always loved putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may often be).

However, despite graduating fifteen years ago with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and spending almost half of my adult life working at newspapers, I have not spent nearly the time or effort honing the craft that I should have been.

Now, I could give a lot of reasons (ahem, excuses!) as to why this has been the case. The truth is, though, I have far too often allowed other pursuits to take priority, and allowed my pursuit of writing to stagnate.

Sadly, this goes against everything I have learned as a distance runner, and as a coach, about following a passion. Pursuing a passion takes a great deal of time, effort, and sacrifice, and I have not put enough of any of these into my craft as a writer during my adult life.

Jesus said, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." This is true with our passions and pursuits, as well. If a calling is important enough to us, we will put the necessary time and effort into being the best we can be at it.

Over the last seven years plus, I have poured much of that time and energy into being a distance runner. And while I love distance running and will continue to pursue it, I believe the time has come to transfer some of that time and energy back to nurturing the gift and stoking the fire for the written word that has burned in my heart since I was young.

With that said, one crucial component to becoming a better writer is becoming a better reader. After all, to become more successful at anything, you always have to be willing to learn from those who have succeeded at whatever it is you are looking to pursue.

Sadly, in that vein, I can count on one hand the number of books I have finished in the last year and a half, and probably have fingers left over. In fact, my two-year old daughter could probably count the number of books I have finished.

This unfortunate fact looks even worse when you consider the fact that my wife, a bookworm herself, works at the public library across the street from the newspaper where I am employed.

So, my aim, from now until the end of 2018, is to complete 15 to 20 books, and not just from one single genre, but from many genres, to both provide variety to my reading experience, and hopefully inject a little creative life into my work as a writer and blogger, as well.

And as readers, I am asking for your help and recommendations. If there is a book, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of genre, that has connected with you, please let me know about it. With a massive library of works out there, narrowing it down might be a good place to start.

And I hope you will join me on the journey, too. If there's a passion you've put on the back burner for whatever reason, turn on the stove and start it boiling inside you once again.

As I am now discovering, you will no doubt be glad you did.