“If you want to write, read,” says Gary Krebs, executive editor of Macmillan’s Alpha Books imprint. What does he mean? All serious students of writing must also be serious readers. You can’t expect to flourish in a field that you do not also enjoy and aren’t very familiar with. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read books, magazines, newspapers, and online articles. Study what other writers are doing. The hours you invest in reading will pay you back when you sit down to write.

– excerpt from THE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO GETTING PUBLISHED
by Sheree Bykofsky and Jennifer Basye Sander, p. 27