Need a doctor's note to justify your reading habit? Here you go!

A recent article in The Washington Post explores how reading fiction may benefit our brains, particularly our ability to understand and connect with other people.  

Studies have linked reading fiction with better social cognition, our ability to understand other people's thoughts and feelings, and a richer understanding of the world as a genuinely complex place.

Why fiction?

Because fiction makes us grapple with different perspectives. As psychologist Nick Buttrick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains, stories invite us to mentally inhabit points of view unlike our own.  

I've believed this about storytelling since I was a young child.

I remember reading Little House on the Prairie and picturing myself as a pioneer girl.

Funny enough, I'm now reading this year's sensation, Yesteryear, and experiencing that era in a whole new light. What a great book!

Stories are how we practice being human.

They allow us to sit inside a life we will never live and, hopefully, emerge with a little more compassion for the people around us.

So consider this your permission slip.

Reading a novel isn't procrastination. You're exploring different perspectives, expanding your world, and giving yourself more experiences to draw from as a writer.

The research is giving us more reasons to appreciate what storytellers have always known: stories can help us see beyond our own lives.

And if you're a writer, that's worth making time for.

Hit Reply and tell me: What novel is expanding your world right now?

I read every message that lands in this inbox, and I always write back.

Aloha, 

MeiMei

Tip of the Week: Read Like It's Your Job (Because It Is)

Pick up a novel this week, preferably one that reflects a life very different from your own.

Read for 15 minutes a day.

As you read, ask yourself:

• Do you feel yourself developing empathy for the characters?

• Are you inhabiting a new world?

• As a writer, what did the author do to pull you so fully into this world?

Pay attention to how the author makes you care about people you've never met and places you've never been.

That's part of your craft education, too.

Quote of the Week

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

— George R.R. Martin