[This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I will receive a small commission.]

When Roy Peter Clark writes something, I pay attention. Clark is a writing coach and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, and his advice on writing is poignant, clear, and helpful for anyone who has to sit down and bang out a message. I am still meandering through his latest book, The Art of X-Ray Reading, but I skipped to the back to get the 12 steps for being an X-ray reader.

“Why is reading important to a writer?” Many students and potential authors ask this question. “I just want to write.” You can’t just write. A writer has to be immersed in the genre he or she is writing. They have to know good prose, be able to identify what works and doesn’t work, and pinpoint the rhythms and voice needed for the particular piece. Writing just doesn’t happen. It takes practice, and part of the practice is writing. As a devotee of Stephen King’s On Writing, he makes it clear what the task of the writer is:

Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Reading should sharpen your mind per Ray Bradbury (via Brain Pickings):

In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world.

Melissa Donovan summed up the connection this way:

“To write well, there are only two things you absolutely must do: read and write. Everything else will flow from these two activities, which are essentially yin and yang. Without each other, reading and writing cannot exist. They rely on one another. They are two parts of a greater whole.”

“But how do I read?” The reading that is done as a panicked, rushing student isn’t the same reading that you have to do when you are reading as a writer. Writers must go deeper than the normal information scanning routines to look at the marrow and skeletal structures of the writing.

Clark gives some rules that any writer, nonfiction or fiction oriented, can use to strengthen their reading and eventually their writing:

• Read. Simple enough, right? To write well, one must be exposed to all types of writing. Dig into white papers, novels, comic books, microfiction, and long-form nonfiction.

• Look for passages that make you stop to appreciate them. For me, I appreciated the prose of this article from the Miami New Times about my favorite DJ/walking-and-talking inspirational poster, DJ Khaled.

It’s 1998, and Luther Campbell walks into a party on Key Biscayne. If this were a romantic comedy, now is when everything would switch to slow motion as a Lisa Loeb song fades in.
He notices Khaled almost immediately. Even at an industry party for radio professionals, which this is, Khaled stands out, Campbell remembers.
Keep imagining this in slow motion. It’s sexier that way.
Khaled is frantic, breaking into songs to scream at anyone who dares stand still. He bounces on the balls of his feet, shifting from left foot to right like a cocky fighter, mixing an odd cocktail of Jamaican dancehall and hip-hop as sweat beads on his forehead.
It is pure energy, almost at dangerous levels. Some doctors might have diagnosed it. Uncle Luke wants to bottle it. “He had a mouthpiece on him, man,” Campbell says. “So much energy.”
But let’s back up a bit. You can stop the whole slow-motion thing now.
Read these showstopper passages again. This time do it slowly.

• Identify the part of the passage that you like the best. In the above passage, I loved the mix of contradictory references (bespectacled Lisa Loeb paired with First Amendment defender/booty music pioneer Luther Campbell) and the vibrant metaphors. I have been to that type of party. I have seen people dance like that. I can also smell the Jamaican patties, rum punch, body oils, and cannabis all under the night stars. Yes, that imagery put me in the location.
• Read that section aloud.
• Circle the paragraph and make descriptive notes about why it interests you.
• Ask yourself, “How does the writer do this?” That’s a good question, and I looked through the article again. The writer’s tone and voice was set in paragraph one. It is clear he is a patient observer of things, places, and people. One has to be to make the connective tissues of this piece–the strong metaphors, the vivid imagery, the deep insight into the Miami music scene, and the sheer humor–work.
• Duplicate the passage and save it in a journal or file. (One of my graduate professors said that she copied by hand journal articles of her mentor so she could understand the structure, composition, and language of his writing and arguments. It worked. She writes flawlessly.)
• Don’t imitate the text. Let it be an indirect influence on your personal writing.