I am a writer. No, delete that. I am today’s writer. That means I am a writer who does not read. Do not get me wrong or misunderstand. I am literate. I read the heating instructions on frozen TV dinners. I read Sports Illustrated when I’m on the toilet. I read Maxim for the tips, toys and tits. I read political blogs on the internet. I read boxscores on ESPN.com. I read the business ticker on CNBC. I read the owner’s manual for my brand-new car. I read a page per day of Grammar For Dummies so I do not dangle participles. But I fail to read what I should, what a writer should, what a real writer should. I do not read the classics. I do not read Wolfe. I do not try Melville. I do not decipher Shakespeare. I do not navigate through Joyce. I used to leaf through Stephen King serials, but I never even lift the covers of his books anymore because I can just watch the adaptations on television a couple years down the pike. I am a writer who does not read, and sadly I am not alone.

Are there bartenders who do not drink? Are there athletes who never attend live sporting events? Are there stage actors who never buy Broadway tickets? Are there politicians who refuse to watch political debates? The questions sound inane. So why don’t writers read anymore? That question is not as easily answered. Like I stated, I am not an isolated case. This is a growing plague in the writing community, one akin to a potato famine, especially among authors born after 1970. Writers barely have time to write, let alone read. If writers could spend the allotted hours to sit down and thoroughly swallow a novel that was dense with metaphors, similes, imagery, scenery, vocabulary, dialogue, characterization, foreshadowing, conflict, pace, themes and symbols, who knows if they even would. There are other worldly distractions that borrow a writer’s attention these days.

You think you’re a writer? Answer these questions, Albom. If you had your choice, would you read a children’s story to your kids or sit them in front of the high-def flat screen to watch a purple dinosaur talk about his feelings? Do you jot down remembrances in a notebook or snap pictures with your digital camera when you are on a vacation? If you have a free half-hour to yourself and you are sitting alone at your computer, do you spend it writing a poetic stream of consciousness in Microsoft Word or babbling to an internet ally on the instant messenger?

I am today’s writer. I am a writer without any influences. I cannot recall a single book I read cover to cover in high school, college or lately. I can only remember bits and pieces of stories like a drunk whose memory has gray areas thanks to a lifetime of gin and tonics. I sometimes recollect more about the cliff notes than the novel itself. I look back now and con

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myself into believing that I didn’t read much in my formative years because I didn’t want to unconsciously plagiarize anybody when I wrote my own stories. The truth is I was just plain lazy. Still am. What’s the only thing more embarrassing than being a coach potato? Being a couch potato who doesn’t read.

I am today’s writer. I do not manufacture as much time to write as I should, and could. People who are not truly writers often complain they do not have the free moments required to write, that their hours are divided by work, family, friends, commitments, religion, reality shows, gossip, bake sales, sleep, golf, etc. But if you love to write, honestly lust for it, wouldn’t you create space for it in your overflowing schedule? We all make time for the things we need and/or want to do. No matter how busy we are we always find a way to fit in five minutes for sex, 10 minutes to talk about the sex, 15 minutes to download songs to our iPod, 20 minutes to walk the dog around the block, 25 minutes to make tacos, 30 minutes to watch a sitcom, 35 minutes to do laundry, 40 minutes to pay bills, 50 minutes to chat on the cell, an hour to sweat at the gym, two hours to go to the DMV, a day to tan at the beach, a week to take a cruise and a month to spend in rehab. We can’t find time to write? If we took the last hour of every evening, the 60-minute span right before bedtime, and spent it wisely on writing, our world would become such a more literary place. Instead we surf ‘nets, place bets and watch Letterman and Leno comedy sets.

I am today’s writer. I write a weekly column about fantasy football, basketball, hockey and baseball that can be read online. I dabble in poetry, drumming up a free verse here or a rhyming verse there around once a month when something in my world pisses me off. And I write fiction — novellas, short stories and flash fiction. I cannot write a novel because my MTV-attention span forbids it. I get bored halfway through the process because I already know what the ending is and don’t want to waste months getting to it. So I scrap lengthy projects or shorten them to sizes I can contend with. I have a way with word counts.

In other words, I’m really not contributing anything to society with my writing other than some tidbits interesting to sports geeks and people who cannot read for more than 15 minutes at a time. Sound like a writer to you? Maybe not in past yesteryears, but today it is as common as a pencil point breaking.

I am today’s writer. I am comfortable with any sect. I can converse with the jocks about clothes, music, beers and babes. I can fuel passionate discussions about global warming with the environmentalists by bringing up the freezing winter temperatures in Buffalo. I can talk hip-hop with the urban beatboxers, country-western with the hillbillies and rock and roll with the burnouts. I can comment on current events with the ladies, stocks and bonds with the men and fashion with the crossdressers. And my writing is exactly the same way. I am a worldly wordsmith. I can be literary or incendiary. I can be comedy, drama or comedy-drama. I can break your heart or bust your gut. I can hit 20-foot jumpers or drive the lane and dunk. And I can do it all but I never do because 90 times out of 100, I choose something else over doing something involving writing.

I am today’s writer. My vocabulary does not come from a well-trained, well-schooled mind, although I possess one. No, it comes from a thesaurus and a dictionary. Why learn words when you can just find them in a book? I am not even sure I can spell definition, antonym or synonym without the aid of a grammatical tool. Sometimes my verb tenses don’t match up.