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One of the great things about the annual Hugo Awards is that many of the science fiction magazines place the nominated stories free on their websites. If you have a few spare moments, take a look at “Inside Job,” by Connie Wills, and “Down Memory Lane,” by Mike Resnick, both available on Asimov’s website. Even if you’re not a fan of science fiction, you’ll probably enjoy these stories. I read a lot of short fiction across all genres, and I find a lot I like, but it’s rare that I read one that not only blows me away but also makes me want to be a better writer. Both of these stories did that for me. Resnick always impresses me with his economy; he does so much with so few words. And when Willis is at the top of her form, she’s one of the best writers alive–science fiction or otherwise.I also recently read Eragon and Eldest by Christopher Paolini. The novels tell the story of a boy and his dragon, as well as the usual fantasy fare of good versus evil and all that jazz. Hard to believe he was still a teenager when the first book was published. Definitely worth reading. Given a choice between great writing and a great storytelling, I’ll take the great story every time. I think most readers agree. Of course, I’d like to have both, but it’s not the nice turn of phrase that sticks with me, it’s the story. Think about it. When you breathlessly tell your friends about some novel you just adored, what do they ask? Isn’t it, “What’s it about?” How many people ask about the writing? In fact, I’d go so far as to say that usually– not always, but usually– great writing and great storytelling go hand in hand. Great writing is usually invisible, because it’s completely subservient to the story. If you notice the writing, it’s almost always a bad thing–at least in modern fiction. (We’ll leave Shakespeare out of this.) Take the Willis story. I came away thinking it was brilliantly written, but if you take any page out of context, nothing remarkable really jumps out at you. But as a whole, every word choice she made, from the dialog to the setting, was spot on for the story she was telling.

And of course, great writing always seems as if it’s remarkably easy to do, though it seldom is.

I was having an online discussion with an aspiring fiction writer the other day that made me realize why writing has been a little harder for me lately. Quite simply, I’ve been running out of fuel.

Books, stories, poetry — the creative “fuel” for any writing can come from a number of different places, including experiences gained from our own lives. But a writer’s most consistent source of sustenance for his imagination has to be other writers. “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.” That’s what Stephen King, whom I believe to be the Charles Dickens of our time, wrote in his great book on writing, aptly named just that, On Writing. And nothing could be more true. If your own experiences are the spark, the flame, that gives your stories heart, then reading is the wood that feeds the flames.

In the course of this conversation with this aspiring writer, I asked him what kind of books he was reading. He sheepishly admitted that he didn’t have much time to read, so he didn’t do a whole lot of it. (He, of course, didn’t do much writing either, which frankly wasn’t a surprise, because most aspiring writers don’t — which is why they’re “aspiring.” When they start writing a lot, they cease to be aspiring writers in my mind and become up-and-coming writers.) But without reading, there’s no hope for any writer, because it’s by reading that he or she keeps the fires burning. All those words and ideas of other writers get ground up in the writer’s mind, becoming grist for the mill, or quite literally food for thought.

I’ve been having a hard time finding my groove with my writing lately, and I think my problem is the same as with this aspiring writer. Not enough reading. For a while, I wasn’t doing a whole lot of writing either (partly due to the birth of my son, and partly due to other matters), but now that I have been writing, it’s seemed a little . . . stale. Forced sometimes. I couldn’t put my finger on why until I realized that I hadn’t been feeding my imagination well enough.

As time became more scarce (and I thought I was busy with one child), I sometimes felt I had to choose between reading and writing, as if there wasn’t enough time to do both. It’s not like I stopped reading completely (I love it too much for that), but I haven’t been reading with the same quantity or diversity. That’s got to the change — both have to be made priorities. Because King’s right: if I don’t make the time to read, I won’t have what it takes to write. And if I don’t read widely and voraciously, I certainly can’t get better — because it’s by comparing myself to other writers that I push myself to get better as a writer myself.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s this book I’ve been meaning to read, and I better get to it.

The fact that I bought a motorcycle shortly before my son was born — having never ridden a motorcycle before in my life — prompted many people to wonder if I was having some sort of midlife crisis. Being only 32, I truly hope it’s not a “mid” life crisis, but I can’t say that I haven’t been doing a lot of soul-searching lately. Of course, those who know me well know that I’m almost always doing some soul-searching of one sort or another, so that isn’t really saying much. In any case, I thought it would be fun and relatively inexpensive (well, compared to, say, golf), and I bought a bike I could turn around and sell essentially for what I paid if it turned out riding a motorcycle wasn’t my cup of tea. I ended up with a 1999 Honda Nighthawk, which a lot of experts recommend as a good starter bike, and a good all around “standard” bike period. It had only 5000 miles on it and was in great shape.

Here in Oregon you’re required to have a motorcycle endorsement on your license to drive legally, and you can get this by passing a knowledge and skill test. However, many people take the route I did, and take the Basic Riding Training course from Team Oregon. It was a 16 hour course, with about half spent in a classroom and the other half spent out on the “range,” which was just a cordoned off part of Chemeketa Community College’s parking lot. If you pass both the written and on-bike exam, then DMV waives your testing and gives you your endorsement. I took the course this weekend, taught by a very friendly and knowledgable retired motorcycle cop, and I’m happy to say that I passed. Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ll be jumping onto the freeway anytime soon. Just because I’m legal doesn’t mean I’m ready. I’ll be sticking to my neighorhood for just a while longer, with the idea that I’ll commute the back roads to work this summer.

I took the Nighthawk out for a spin this afternoon, and Heidi took a few shots. I also managed to scare her a bit when the bike lurched out of the driveway when I gave it a bit too much throttle — the problem of spending all weekend on a different bike and failing to remember that no two bikes, like no two cars, handle exactly the same . . .

Yesterday I made my second short story sale to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. The story, “The World in Primary Colors,” is a tale of psychological suspense with a whopper of an ending, and I’m really glad it found a home with what I’d consider the king of the pulps.

That made for a very good day. Of course, no matter how good the sale, it can never compare to every day living with my two and half year-old daughter, Katie. When I opened the letter, and saw the contract, I let out a little whoop. This prompted Katie to come running from her room.

“What you have, Daddy?” she asked. “What you have?”

“Oh,” I said, “I got a letter honey. It made me very happy.”

“A letter?”

“Yes. It’s a contract, really. It’s . . . well . . .”

Seeing the blank look on her face, I debated for a moment whether she was quite ready to understand what my writing was and what being an author was in general, then decided to take the plunge. I knelt down next to her. “See, Daddy’s a writer, honey,” I said. “He writes stories.”

“Stories?”

“Yes. And novels, too. Though none of those have sold yet . . . though that’s neither here nor there. I’ll sell those eventually. Just got to keep plugging away.” I see that I’m starting to lose her, so I press on quickly. “I send these stories out to, um, people, and sometimes, if they like them, they send me money, and then they make lots of copies so other people can read them.”

She stared at me blankly.

“You know all the books you have in your room?” I said. “Books like Curious George and Cat in the Hat? Yes, well, all those books had to be written by somebody. Every book — even the books on our shelf here in the living room — they were all written by somebody. They write them so that little girls like you can have them. But they’re the ones who wrote them. They’re their stories.”

She looked at me intently for a moment, and then her eyes got a little misty. “But I like my books, Daddy. I want them.”

I swallowed. “Yes. I know. No one’s going to take them. That’s not what I’m saying. Just — they’re written by somebody. Um . . . you know how you sometimes draw pictures for people and then you sign your name and give them away to people?”

She nodded. “I like drawing pictures.”

“Yes, I know you do,” I said. “My writing’s kind of like that. I write things, sign my name, and then give them to people. All of your books were written by somebody who, um, signed their name to them.”

“I need to go check,” she said, heading to her room.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

She returned a moment later with both The Cat and the Hat and Curious George.

“These are my books, Daddy,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, nodding, “yes, they are your books. But see the names here. See, this one was written by a guy named, um, Doctor Seuss. Well, that’s not his real name, but . . . Okay, and this one, this one was written by two people, a husband and a wife, named Margaret and . . . well, his initials are H.A. Not sure what his first name is. But it’s two people. Um . . .”

Katie now looked hopelessly lost, and looked down at her books as if I had somehow sullied them with my incomprehensible babbling.

“Hey,” I said cheerfully, “let’s go look at Daddy’s books . . . Well, most of them are magazines, but, well, they’re kind of like books. You want to look at them?”

“Yes!” she cried.

I picked her up and carried her to my office.

“See,” I said, “this book here, it has one of my stories in it. I wrote it. Not the whole book, but, um . . Well, there’s my name. Scott William Carter. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Katie Carter!” she cried.

“Yes, see, I have the same last name. Carter. That’s me.” I pointed to my byline, and waited, as if this was the definitive piece of evidence which would make the light bulb go off in her mind.

Alas, she stared at me blankly.

“See, all those magazines and books, those have Daddy’s stories in them. He wrote them . . . um . . . so that’s why I get letters in the mail sometimes. And money. People send me money for my stories.”

Katie pointed at the Russian doll I had sitting on the small bookshelf in the corner. “And toys! You have toys!”

I sighed. “Yes, I have toys. But the stories–”

“Toys I play with!”

“Yes, you play with them. But, you see, well . . . um . . . say, do you want some chips? I’m hungry. I need some chips.”

She clapped her hands together. “Yes! I like chips!”

So we went off together to have some chips, and I consoled myself with the fact that someday Katie would be old enough to read the story . . . and when she did, perhaps she’d be old enough to see that that one of the reasons I was so happy it sold was that at it’s heart, it’s a story about a father’s love for his daughter — or, rather, about this father’s love for this daughter . . .

Addendum: Obviously the conversation had more an effect on Katie than I originally thought. Heidi told me later that Katie came up to her with one of her drawings and said, “I put this in envelope and sell for money.”